Chalky Downs

During that time in between Christmas and New Year (as it is now), I get a craving to get out of the house, see a big sky and inhale fresh air. It is a reaction to being indoors, over indulging in good food and drinking plenty of red wine. One of the places I love to go is up on the South Downs. The sky gets bigger as you climb and the view further. The day before yesterday I set off with my husband our two boys and two dogs from the base of the 'northern face'. Due to illness and cold, however, our ascent was cut short but today, I set off again in -1˚C of frost and a keen northerly wind. Just me and the dogs aiming for the sun at the top. Whenever I walk the Downs, I always notice tiny animal paths worn on the grass, sheep trails, mountain bike tyre tracks and, on this path, the way that the chalk is worn away by heavy rainstorms leaving gulleys in the chalky, soft path. I wish I had had a pen and paper or a good camera with me. This picture is a sketch of how I saw the path quickly jotted down in Illustrator. Not right but a good reminder of my frosty, chalky walk. I would like to do some more 'sketches'. Ideally even a painting or two adding some better observed details.

Christmas 08

There was something not quite cute enough about the previous bird illustration, so I have adapted it. Now, I just need to sort out how to make it into an e-card....

New paisley pattern

Just doodling...

Christmas is coming...

Here's the first of a few bird ideas that I am working on at the moment.

MADE 08

Today I went to the Made 08 craft fair in Brighton. Lots of beautiful handmade stuff to see and be inspired by.

There were some cute creatures from Abigail Brown (above). Sweet, hand stitched, fabric sculptures of birds and fabric animal characters.



































































I was transported back to the 70's looking at the Clothkits stand. Charming prints and great colours. I was inspired by their 'sew it yourself' message so on the way back I popped into a fabric shop in the North Laines to buy a skirt pattern. I have now got a great excuse to go on a fabric hunt...

Some items really stood out in a designery kind of way. The table below was one, designed by Alison Milner and topped with bespoke Formica was one of a few that she was showing along with some beautiful graphic ceramics combing simple photography and transfers.














Finally, Selvedge magazine (The fabric of your life: textiles in fashion, fine art, interiors, travel and shopping) had a stand and it reminded me what a great magazine it is. The design, photography, Art Direction and print quality are fab. The subject matter is ALWAYS fascinating and beautifully represented. The editorial is knowledgeable and extremely diverse covering all aspects of textile art, printing and manufacture.

Lego

I have a love hate relationship with Lego.
Every day I clear it up. Every day my husband clears it up. We find it on the floor, the window sills, in trouser pockets, boxes, cupboards and beds, on the table and next to the toaster in our house. I love Lego for its mathematical perfection and its precision engineering. I love it because you can make anything with Lego because as you fiddle with the pieces that somehow are perfectly sized for small hands, your imagination takes over and convinces you that small straight edged blocks in a limited colour palette can be transformed into a house, a Star Wars ship, a robot, a jungle scene, a dog… anything.
I hate Lego because it annoys the washing machine and does not come in Pantone colours. I hate it because it is impossible to file (do you do it by colour, shape, size, per kit??). I hate it because it is more interesting than homework, bathtime or going to school. I hate it because it hurts your feet.

I found this image on the wonderful blog Uppercase Journal http://uppercase.squarespace.com/ that records all sorts of things associated with type and typographic art.

Disney Illustrator Mary Blair

I remember when i was a child having a big fat Disney story book. I used to love copying the illustrations over and over again. Mary Blair was an illustrator who worked for Disney in the 50's (more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Blair) and was responsible for many of the illustrations in the Disney portfolio. I love her stylised illustrations. They are colourful and vibrant and beautifully composed. Every character is delightful. You can see more of her work at http://www.animationarchive.org/2006/01/media-mary-blairs-little-verses-part.html

Honesty pattern

Here is another pattern based on the beautiful seeds of the 'Honesty' plant.

Graphic Pattern

I am always drawn to 50's style graphic prints and textiles and recently have been creating some of my own. Here is the latest. I can image it printed onto a linen fabric and used on a cushion or a summer skirt....

Save the Children

A friend sent this observation to me…
Is it
a) merely a typographic oversight?
b) a subtle way for victims of child labour to voice their plight to the world?
c) a designer who got off to a bad start that morning with their kids?
d) a reflection of the bad grammer taught in schools today?

Books that Fly Conference

Last week I attended a Conference held at the University of Brighton called 'Books that Fly'. The day was organised as a series of six speakers, each of whom demonstrate their art/skills and writing via the medium of handmade, or 'artists' books. Each speaker was there to spread the word about the medium to a broad audience and to encourage awareness and development of it. Question and answer sessions encouraged the sharing of ideas between the speakers and the delegates.

All of the speakers were passionate about, and dedicated to, their work. The speaker whose work I found the most intriguing was Sam Winston. Find out more at his website here: (http://www.samwinston.com/).

He spoke incredibly eloquently about his projects describing how he examines the connections between language, vocabulary, print, type, image, emotion and punctuation. He writes stories and analyses classic text, deconstructs it (semantically and by chopping it up!), categorizes it, reassembles it and produces beautiful images and sculptural forms which is exhibited in galleries all over the world.

In the context of graphic design, his work crosses over and challenges the understanding that we have about words, image, comprehension and format. Listening to him explain his work was fascinating and reminded me of how graphic design is often about understanding the rules of typography, layout, sequence, perception, observation and proportion and then distorting or breaking those rules. Clarity, logic and simplicity in design are nearly always the result of good observation, careful analysis, clear comprehension of the brief and the application of rules to provide structure. Breaking these rules, to me, is styling. Designers use styling effectively once all rules have been established. Styling design personalises graphics, either as the designer's work or to fit the 'personality' of a brand.

Animal character illustrations available online

Following on from the Artist's Open Houses Exhibition in Brighton, an online fine art retailer has selected my illustrations to buy as Limited Edition Giclée Prints. Have a look at the gallery of my animal character illustrations here:
http://www.fineartcompany.co.uk/SearchPrints.aspx~k~suzie+Johanson

New illustration

Since drawing the animal series of illustrations I have been keen to make some simple illustrations inspired by plant forms. At this time of year with so much energy, colour and new growth in nature and a huge variety of plant forms and colour on show, it is hard to find a starting point. Here are the first couple of drawings inspired by pure white blossom on the apple tree in our garden. It is looking stunning at the moment, standing out against other limey green spring foliage and an oddly grey blue sky the other day.

Hanna Werning

I have posted this link to the site of Hanna Werning as I keep coming across references to her amazing work. It is inspiring to see a designer working across so many design disciplines. Enjoy...

http://www.byhanna.com/

Artists Open House

Hurrah! At last I have finished drawing the series of animal character illustrations that I started when my children wanted me to draw them something (see earlier posts). I enjoyed doing these so much I am showing them as part of the Brighton Artists Open House exhibitions, http://www.aoh.org.uk/2008/ which have now opened all over Brighton. There are hundreds of artists displaying a massive variety of work throughout May alongside the Brighton Festival. Artists open their houses as galleries with work for sale. It is a great way to showcase work to a broad audience and attracts a large following.

This year, I am exhibiting signed, limited edition giclée prints of some cute animal characters. They are available professionally framed in a contemporary limed wood frame with a circular mount or unframed. As well as the framed prints, I have had some button badges made by a great little company who delivered a fantastic service and product and were lovely people to work with. Find them at http://www.makeabadge.co.uk/ The badges are really sweet and would be a cute little gift for a child. The final illustrations are all above but if you are in the Brighton area why not pop in to check out the whole show? Map available here. I am very pleased to have made some sales already so come before it is too late!

Alongside the prints, I have been working on some decorative textile pieces with a theme of fabric as paper. This is work in progress so have just a few pieces on show. I aim to post these on this blog throught the next few months.

The house belongs to an old friend, Julia Trigg. Her beautiful and intriguing digital collages use type and printed ephemera. They are proving to be very popular already. Have a look at her site http://www.juliatrigg.co.uk/ where you can see some samples of her work and the other artists on show.

Monkey character illustration

Having looked back at the little monkey post a while ago, I decided to redraw the monkey and try a stronger colourway.

Leopard character illustration

My eldest son loves big cats so this new illustration is one for him.

Artist Daniel Eatock

A friend recommended that I have a look at the work of artist Daniel Eatock. His website demonstrates a large amount of work. I chuckled at the photographic project here, the graph paper project appeals to my graphic designer side. Have a look at the project 122333444455555 if you like sequences and patterns in numbers. More number patterns here. Actually there is so much on his site that is intriguing, I must stop now and go back for more...

Lion illustration

I am currently creating a series of illustrated characters. Here is the latest.

Little Monkey

After drawing the owls yesterday, my little boy asked for a baby monkey picture. Here it is!

Night Night

I drew this family of owls today while working on a logo design. Hexagon shapes for the logo were sitting together on the page but all I could see was owls! It must be time to sleep. The logo ideas can continue tomorrow with fresh eyes. It would make a nice motif for children's pyjamas or bedlinen range. Night night!

Gut Buster

In the last few weeks I have been researching the work of contemporary textile artists and designers. This crocheted 'Gut Buster' breakfast made me laugh out loud. It was designed and made by Kate Jenkins, an established textile designer based in Brighton. For more amusing work and some strong graphic patterns have a peek at http://www.cardigan.ltd.uk

Universal Patterns

Today is Leap Year's Day, a once-every-four-year event and all to do with the rotation of the earth, the Gregorian calendar and all stuff planetary, so here follows a brief scientific description as to why it happens:

The rotation of the earth actually lasts about 365.2422 days (called a 'Solar Year' or a 'Tropical Year') so leap years are needed to keep our calendar in alignment with the earth's revolutions around the sun. After 100 years, a 365 days a year calendar would be more than 24 days ahead of the season. The extra day comes (nearly) every four years on February 29th and is added to correct the actual number of days in a year. This year it falls on a Friday, an occurrence that happens once every 28 years (it last happened in 1980) and will occur again in 2036.

In the Gregorian calendar, our calendar, the following three criteria determine which years will be leap years:

1. Every year that is divisible by four is a leap year;
2. of those years, if it can be divided by 100, it is NOT a leap year, unless
3. the year is divisible by 400. Then it is a leap year.

According to the above criteria, that means that years 1800, 1900, 2100, 2200, 2300 and 2500 are NOT leap years, while year 2000 and 2400 are leap years.

Not being a scientist or a mathematician, I am merely intrigued by the patterns. Pondering planets, moons, stars, the sun, patterns and outerspace reminded me of crop circles. These perfectly formed, mathematically rational patterns are, without doubt, beautiful. Their beauty entirely due to the perfection of the maths and the perfection of the execution. The idea that they are created by teams of humans, rather than alien spaceships overnight, is, of course, entirely feasible and fully justified by maths and logic.

Then again, perhaps they are some kind of once-in-an-astronomical-universal-cycle kind of phenomenom!

Artist/Typographer Tauba Auerbach

This is the work of Tauba Auerbach from San Francisco. Have a look at
http://www.taubaauerbach.com/toc.html
for more beautiful and intriguing art with letters.
I particularly like this as it reminds me of the way a conversation can go with my children - especially when they were toddlers.

What a difference a dot makes

Designing corporate identities is one of my favourite jobs as a designer. The smallest difference in detail can change the way an identity is perceived. The same effect is true in the design of pictograms and signage. This week, dots have been on my mind as they often appear as a graphic element and as a pattern. (More on this in later posts). I was pondering dots on a train journey yesterday, when my eye fell on this sign. If a dot were added to this sign (demonstrated here via Photoshop) the sign could mean something entirely different....!

Valentines Day

As today is Valentines Day, I have been playing with a card design using question marks as a heart.

Faces in Places

Have a look and a laugh at the link below. Do we subconsciously design faces into our world?

http://facesinplaces.blogspot.com

Invitation

Just dreaming...

Woodland Typography

Today there are letters everywhere!

Pancake day illustration

Today I am celebrating Pancake Day with an illustration of a lemon!

Auction finds

The auction is always a great place to see some classic graphics.

I was immediately drawn to this piece of Bristol Pottery covered in farming images and a ribbon motif with the words 'God Speed the Plough'.

Also a series of original Chatto and Windus book jackets, a pile of spotter cards from old cigarette packets and some classic Susie Cooper illustration.

Chichester Station

I found myself at Chichester station today where I spotted these original styling details dating from 1961 when the station was rebuilt. Shame about the addition of the CCTV camera.

Still Life 'Oop North'

Every now and then we travel to our cottage 'Oop North' in the North Yorkshire Dales. It is a 'still life' there. A quiet village, huge skies and a wonderful cool light for photography (okay, cold light). The artichokes in the garden had just gone over for Autumn and the heads looked stunning. The window sill on the cottage stairs worked as a light box, perfect for a photo using diffused daylight - even only with my 2 megapixels mobile phone camera.

http://www.acottageinyorkshire.co.uk/