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