Silken favours...

I'm in love with the unique branding by "silken favours". They are a Scarf brand that use illustrations on gorgeous silk to create the most beautiful designs. Print designer Victoria Murdoch takes her inspiration from the natural world, sung pen and ink techniques. Her work is described as "otherworldly yet reassuringly familiar", yet its the branding on the website that I really like. It's clever, quirky and fun- definitely draws you to the product in a non-direct kind of way...

http://silkenfavours.com/about/

The Cutlery Commission...

The Cutlery Commission are a brand that make and sell hand stamped cutlery pieces. They are based in The Cotswolds and they hand stamp personalised messages/ text into silver plated hand made cutlery Being had stamped the cutlery has a lovely quirky finish- what a gorgeous gift idea! I love the fact that all they do is by hand and meaningful yet totally commercial at the same time. Read their story and check out their products ...http://thecutlerycommission.com/about/

Taking a TIME OUT...

So the past few days (or maybe weeks!) iv been trying to get as much done as possible, cramming in the ideas and hours to make up for cutting my current deadline short- we're going on holiday at the end of term so I'm consciously trying to stay ahead! This morning I feel like it's finally catching up with me, especially after a very inspiring hen weekend in Liverpool! So today I plan on staying in uni until late, and I'm forcing myself to work a little slower, think a little slower and hopefully feel invigorated by the end of it! 

I'm starting nice and early, coffee in hand, browsing journals and mags for high end inspiration. This element of design development is massively important yet it's so easy to let it slip and get caught up in a world of your own. I'm giving myself a slap on the wrist (aided by the mention from my peers to calm the heck down yesterday), twking a deep breath out and indulging in some scrummy research :)

Here's a few pics iv found already....

All images from my magazine issues 34 and 35.

Print rooming...

After spending all afternoon in the print room, I'm pretty pleased with my samples. I wanted to do some basic ones to make sure my screens were okay before I start experimenting more. I struggled with the size of the screen with it only being be second shot at screen printing, but I'm excited to get creative now...

Before layering the next part of my design I used string to help me line it up. Below is a sample I tried using two colors of pigment on the screen pulled through at the same time, not sure it works but it definitely gies more texture than one colour alone.

Producing kodatraces...

Heres a few process photos from last week. They are two of my load traces for my screens that I will print my cushions with-once iv done some sampling of course :) ...

Back to the drawing board...

Here's my latest 3d drawings. Taking inspiration from vintage monopoly pieces I found in spitalfields market, I recreated them in paper. The hat is a little 'crinklier' than I'd have liked, I'm really pleased with my ship though. These drawings will now inspire my current module which is two cushions...

Shop report research

So this week I spent a day in York visiting the Imaginarium to complete research for my shop report. It was nice to visit at a quiet time, I went Tuesday morning, which meant I could have a really good look and soak up as much info as possible. It was fairly hard work trying to be discreet about it as they have a no pictures policy so I was trying to remember as much info in my head as possible. Looking forward to putting the report together now...

Here's a few pics from outside, (mums clearly enjoying herself.)...