Stencilling

So here I am again with another quick catch up of progress. I went in to Uni yesterday for a meeting about the AD11 exhibition… of the 23 people taking part only 5 turned up! The lack of participants made it a short but sweet meeting where we decided that we need Mike Brown to finish the logo, so that we can have printed materials made up, and also so it can be passed on to Neti Shev, so that Neti, in turn, can put this onto the exhibition website. In the meantime we need Neti to name and shame anybody that hasn’t yet given him their info for uploading on to the website. We could not make any further decisions without everybody else (or at least a wider representation of the group) taking part.

This short meeting was almost a waste of my valuable time, and would have been if it hadn’t been for the fact that I also picked up my digitally printed ‘wallpapers’ and also gave Julian, in the workshop, the mylar that I have recently bought along with pdf versions of my stencils. Both of these jobs were becoming pressing and I am relieved that they have now been done.

Whilst I was in Middlesbrough Julian managed to laser cut the 2 layers of my Clematis stencil and this afternoon I have started stencilling a corner of my bedroom! It will be both useful and extremely satisfying to see my design on a wall and I am looking forward to getting it finished but – I’m not sure how my husband will feel about the bedroom when he gets back from his business trip to Hong Kong!!!

I have done two panels of the first layer so far and have had two issues… a) some of the paint hasn’t stayed within the shape because I had too much paint on the brush and b) I should have used spray mount instead of masking tape to fasten the stencil to the wall. Obviously that needs to be repositionable spray mount! This will make moving the stencil and getting a smooth join against the wall far easier – I have now found a can of spray mount and will go and continue painting shortly.

Business cards

An update to my business cards seemed fairly important too. I have redesigned them with the logo on the patterned side of the card which has allowed me to increase the size of the text on the reverse side and they should be delivered on Monday.

As an addition to the cards I also ordered some little postage stamp sized stickers that I can apply to my products and I am considering either printing myself, or having printed, some Whimsy & Quirk t-shirts!

Right I’m off to do some more stencilling, bye :D

ps need more followers!

Arrival of the business cards

Well, Moo.com are a very efficient organisation, and a real pleasure to deal with. My business cards and postcards arrived today. They are beautiful. Lovely printing job, quality card, fantastic POS/marketing materials enclosed – I am very impressed.

There is just one large fly in my ointment! – the text that I wrote for the back of my cards is too small – obviously working in pixels infringes on my perception of size – all my own fault. So I will have to amend this and get some more cards printed. It would appear that life isn’t always a bowl of cherries L but I’m very glad I discovered this problem now rather than a week before the exhibition…

The postcards are perfect because it only needs very small text on them.

So, that update came a lot sooner that the last one, didn't it!?

Even more massive update!!

So, where on earth did the last 2 months disappear to? I have lots to tell you about but the difficulty is putting it all into some sort of order… I seem to be busily chasing my tail in circles whilst putting out various fires (please forgive my mix of metaphors). An example of what I mean is… on Sunday 17th I planned to spend the afternoon stencilling patterns onto the sweeties for my ‘Sweetie’ lamp. These are the small but time consuming jobs that I never seem to have the time to get on with. Before I started painting I checked on line, to see if there were any emails or messages, and noticed that Moo.com (the company I planned to use for printing my business cards and postcards) were offering a 30% discount on printing until Wednesday – and that is why I spent the afternoon designing and ordering my business cards and postcards instead of stencilling! Another fire put out, because I did need to get on with ordering the business cards, but I still haven’t started the other job.

My Wallpaper* magazine arrived on Friday 15^th. It is the handmade issue which has my cover design on the front. I am so proud of it, and it looks so good, that I haven’t removed the plastic wrapper. It may get spoilt if I do! Since I worked on that design they have offered the opportunity to do something similar. This time it is their 15^th anniversary which coincides with the 150^th issue. The design options were to select any of the 150 past front covers for your copy of the September 2011 issue or a front cover cut up into sections and each section can then be filled with the same section from any of the 150 covers. I chose the second option and am now eagerly anticipating my next magazine cover arriving soon.

And now for updates on where I am with all my projects…

The Chair

The chair has now been painted. This has taken longer than anticipated which is due to two different reasons 1) I ran out of paint and then had to wait for some more to come into stock 2) Because I was using spray paint I preferred to paint outside and, the good old British summer being what it is, I had to wait for a dry day with little wind… this was quite a long wait. I now really need to get into the print workshop and print my fabric.

Sweetie Lamp

The size of the sweeties I receive is limited by what is available at the time of collection – a down side to collecting waste materials from manufacturers is the dependency upon their work schedules and therefore availability or non-availability of materials required. I would like to obtain mainly the smaller sized sweeties but they seem to be the size that is least often made.

For this reason I have been looking at other ways in which I could lay out the sweeties to make a lamp…

I am planning to start with a table lamp rather than a standard lamp. And have been painting the sweeties. I am using a combination of Farrow & Ball paints, half used tins of paint and discontinued lines of paint that would otherwise be skipped.

I have decided upon this layout for the first lamp – it is quite a traditional shape for a lamp base but I think that it will be a quirky and interesting lamp once I have finished. After I have completed this module I will develop this range and add other pieces of furniture to it. I will also look at the possibilities of incorporating my acoustics research into this project and making the sweeties more of a feature with a hidden purpose!

I do plan to make an occasional table to sit the lamp on – this will added to the combined look at the design exhibition AD11 in September.

Whimsy & Quirk’s Website

The website is still under construction, but is up and running, do have a look and tell me what you think. The address is still www.whimsyandquirk.co.uk and my email address is nicky@whimsyandquirk.co.uk.

Having used a package website I had thought that the uploading of images would be simple and had planned to include some animation on the website. But I could not get my images to behave as I had wanted and they kept moving over the page, so for the time being I have opted for a more simple approach. This will, in turn, allow me the time to develop additional pages on the website rather than focusing on one page. At this time there are 4 pages – home, gallery, blog and contact. I plan to add this update to the new blog on my website.

Graphics Tablet

The theory behind this as a good one but, in practice, wasn’t great. It will take time to develop the co-ordination between hand and screen, time that isn’t currently available – so my new toy will have to wait until I have finished university and therefore have fewer pressing deadlines.

The Design Show

We have started having meetings about the show. It is a group consisting of Fine Artists, Digital Art and Designers and Future Designers. The meetings are not comfortable and I wish that I didn’t need to attend – I hate confrontation. I do understand that everybody else has worked equally hard and want to show their work in the best possible way – but not everybody seems to appreciate this.

As things stand at the moment 2 Fine Artists will have a floor of the building each, 7 Digital Art and Designers will have a large room between them and the 13 Future Designers will have a landing and a smaller room between them! So much for my planning how I wanted to lay my work out for the show. Ah well, c’est la vie! Hopefully we will find a way of juggling the space so everybody gets the space they want or need.

Business Cards

As I mentioned earlier I have now ordered my business cards and postcards, I didn’t place a large order but I wanted to have a few handy and ready for the exhibition. I have ordered 100 cards with 10 designs, so I will have 10 of each design. I have only ordered 20 postcards and in the end only managed 9 designs, so there will be an odd number of 2 of the designs! I am looking forward to seeing them in real life.

Wallpapers

In an effort to complete as much work as possible, before I get to the point of panicking, I have completed 3 designs that I will have printed on the large format printer at uni, they will each be printed in a 4 metre run to show how my wallpapers would look when digitally printed. I am really looking forward to seeing them all at the Show. Interestingly, I went in to uni on Monday 18th to do an update to my interim presentation, the thinking behind this was to show the other Future Designers what I am doing and also permit me to see what they are doing. Not many people turned up because the uni email system was off at the weekend! Whilst there Michael mentioned the possibility of encrypting my images and selling the password, so that anybody, anywhere in the world, could buy my wallpaper designs and get them printed locally. This would save incurring prohibitive delivery charges. I think that this is a brilliant concept and I will research this, and the need for a ‘Users Licence Agreement’ – this would need to be a legally binding document so there may be a lot of expense involved, but it would only need to be written once. This is very definitely serious food for thought.

Stencils

I am still working on converting my designs into stencils. 2 of the designs are complete and ready to take to the workshop to be cut out by the laser. The third design has a lot of small detail and may not be finished in time for the show in September. Obviously once it has been drawn it can be cut out as many times as is required.

My thinking is that stencils, though initially seeming expensive, are generally cheaper than 2-3 rolls of wallpaper, they can be painted in colours of the customer’s choice rather than mine, they can be re-used in another room or colour and they also offer a creative person an opportunity to individualise the design to suit themselves.

I think that that is enough catching up for today and I will definitely make the effort to write again, and sooner! Although in reality submission is on 14^th September which is only 8 weeks away, so I shan’t make any promises. ;)

Talk to you soon.

Massive update

…and the world didn’t end yesterday as some people were predicting – I’m quite relieved! But, I cannot believe that it is over a month since I wrote anything here – time for some serious catching up!

Yesterday I did something different and fun, I designed my own cover for the August edition of Wallpaper* magazine. There is a limited palette of shapes/photos/patterns/text that you put together, in layers, to create your own personalized cover and then in August you receive your copy of Wallpaper* with your own front cover and slightly personalized back cover too. I had hoped to have the option of uploading one of my own designs which would have been really exciting, but that wasn’t possible, so this is what I came up with…

…can’t wait for it to pop through the letter box!

Anyway, since the last time I wrote anything here I have been busy thinking about the chair and what exactly I plan to do with it, I have been doing some screen printing in the Print Workshop at uni, I have been thinking about reviving and improving a project that I worked on as an undergraduate, contemplating the development of Whimsy & Quirk’s website, I have bought a graphics tablet and have generally been planning how and what I want to show at the end of year Design Show.

The Chair

I am definitely planning to hand print some fabric for the seat cushion, so I now know that I need to redraw my circles pattern so that it can be cut into a stencil (I want to convert it into stencils anyway because part of my business plan is to design and sell stencils). But before I do any of that I need to decide upon a definitive colour scheme so that I can create a whole range of items with a cohesive colour theme.

I started by drawing the chair and then colouring the image using, as inspiration, the Trend Bible colour predictions, and then trying to ‘match’ those colours to the range of spray paints Painter’s Touch by Rust-Oleum (www.imaginespraycreate.com).  I plan to use spray paint in the hope that it won’t clog up the weave of the chair.

My main issue with all this is that I’m still not happy about any of the predicted trends, so it then became necessary to think about my own trend, not a prediction but my range of spring/summer 2012 colours, these are colours that I am happy with, they work well together and will also work happily with a range of products. These colours are chosen as my spring/summer 2012 colour palette because the colours are based upon a Mediterranean summer, redolent of the scent of lavender and filled with the buzzing of bees…

The sources of the images are -

1. http://images.mooseyscountrygarden.com/moosey-garden-forums/l/lavender_bumblebee2_164.jpg

2. http://www.johnnyjet.com/image/PicForNewsletterClubMedOpioJune2007LavenderPostcard.JPG

3. http://www.discoverlavender.com/Lavender-Farm-5.jpg

4. http://www.wayfaring.info/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/provence-countryside-lavender.jpg

5. and 6. My own photos

7. http://www.smppa.org.uk/Natural_History/Birds/Images/Large/kingfisher-a-07.10.04_bf.jpg

8. http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/07/01/article-0-01CE754100000578-956_468x628.jpg

9. http://www.francemonthly.com/n/0902/images/olive-tree.jpg

10. http://www.chiropractic-help.com/images/olive_tree.jpg

These websites were consulted on 9/5/11

Based upon the colours that I have selected (above) from my ‘Mood Board’ I have put together this little image to show how the colours will work together throughout the rest of this module.

So, at this point I have decided that I will spray paint the body of the chair in almond, which will work well with my colour palette…

…which now means that I need to get on and paint the chair. But there are plenty of other jobs that I need to get on with too.

Print Workshop

I had a great afternoon in the Print Workshop, I took along two differently scaled versions of the circle pattern to print, but I didn’t get to print both – I started with the larger scaled image and found that some of the circles with the lighter weighted lines weren’t printing properly, so obviously the smaller scaled image would have been even less likely to print as desired. So, next time I go in I will have the images drawn in heavier lines.

Sweetie Lamp

This is a module that I worked on during my first year as an undergraduate. The module was about re-using and recycling instead of throwing away, so we had to make something using recycled materials or rubbish.

My lamp was made of mdf circles which my husband collected as waste from his place of work and were painted using left over household emulsion, an old lampshade (the frame of which was expanded in the university workshop), old string and buttons, a damaged roll of greaseproof paper, Quality Street wrappers. I named it the Sweetie Lamp because the base reminded me of sweetie necklaces that I had as a child, probably due to the colours.

In theory the base can be created in the same way as last time, but using my current colours. But, this time I will use a real lampshade frame and cover it in fabric, hand-printed with the circle pattern.

I feel that the revamped Sweetie Lamp will look fantastic at the show, where it will be sat with the chair and wallpapers all working together with their colour theme – I’m really looking forward to seeing it.

Whimsy & Quirk’s website

I have already started on the website, but I am looking at/researching each stage as I go along. I have bought my website from Mr Site (http://www.mrsite.co.uk), I am using the Takeaway edition which has e-commerce facilities, and have already set up the basics. The website address is www.whimsyandquirk.co.uk and my email address is nicky@whimsyandquirk.co.uk, although the website is currently under construction.

Obviously there are some basic design decisions to be made right from the start, so I have been looking at other websites and have come to the conclusion that design websites seem to appear at their best with a white background and simple black or grey text – I think that this is because it allows the imagery to work for itself rather than competing with a busy or colourful background or even a flowing or over decorative font.

This is as far as I have got with the website, it will take some time because I have no previous experience of setting up a website and it is all a massive learning curve. My next decisions will be how many pages the website should have and do I need any widgets!?

Graphics Tablet

I need to re-draw my circle pattern so that it can be cut into stencils, so I thought that a Graphics Tablet may speed the re-drawing up by making it more straightforward – it must be easier to draw with a pen than a mouse – the graphics tablet plugs into a USB socket in the pc and works as an input device, but you use a special pen and draw onto the tablet… simple! I will have to be trying this out during the next week.

The Design Show

For the design show I am picturing (in my mind’s eye at the moment) two upright panels, possible 2.5 metres high, stood at a right angle and joined at the angle, with wallpapers coming over the top of the panels and pooling into rolls on the floor. There will be both hand-printed and digitally printed wallpapers, in the clematis and circles design, all using the same colour palette but with variations. The sweetie lamp will be in the corner where the two panels meet and the chair will be stood next to the lamp. I am hoping to find another chair so I can have one seat cushion with the circles pattern and one with the clematis pattern, but I am having difficulty getting one at the moment. I will try to find the time to draw this during the week, because we will soon come to the point where Michael will be trying to work out how much space everybody will need for the show.

This means that there is lots of work for me to be getting on with, and really I didn’t have any spare time for designing my front cover for Wallpaper* magazine, but I did enjoy it!

Whimsy & Quirk's new logo

Well it’s definitely a long time since I last wrote anything here… but here I am again. I am now fully recovered and have gone back to work; yesterday I went back in to Uni for the first time, since my operation, for a tutorial with Michael.

We are now nearly half way through the Realisation module, which is rather alarming, and will soon need to be putting together an interim presentation of what I have covered and achieved so far, so this seems to be an ideal point at which to sort my thoughts out and organise everything.

I have continued working with the circles, but at the same time I have been working on my company logo. There is a requirement for me to have a portfolio before the end of this module and ideally all the images in my portfolio should have the Whimsy & Quirk logo in a corner. This being the case, perhaps I should start by telling you about my logo design.

Originally I had been thinking of designing circles as part of the logo design but they developed into something bigger, but the designs filling the circles would work just as well filling a letter as a circle, so that was my starting point. I wanted to use text the represented the two individual words ‘Whimsy’ and ‘Quirk’ and originally I planned to use writing samples of two good friends – I felt that it would add to the quirkiness if it almost looked hand written – so I asked my friend Nina to write ‘Whimsy’ because her writing has a very pleasant dreamy and whimsical quality to it…

Tim wrote ‘Quirky’ because I feel that his writing is a quirky mix of Arty, curly and also strong and confident…

I thought that these very different writing styles would represent Whimsy & Quirk perfectly. I scanned the words into my laptop and opened them in Illustrator and then drew around them, but when it came to form a ‘clipping mask’ which should cut the shape out of a pattern it would not work. I spent 4 days trying to make it work, getting more and more frustrated on each day until… I gave up! My next best option was to download suitable fonts, to which end I went on http://www.ultimatefontdownload.com (consulted on 26/3/11), paid $19.99, which was approximately £13 and downloaded 10,000 that are licensed for commercial use – perfect. The combination of letters, that I chose to form the logo, look like this…

 Whimsy & Quirk

Whimsy is made up of W in Delta Hey Max Nine font, HM and Y are written in Penshurst font - bold, I used the Casua font and S has been written in Birmingham font.

Quirk has been created by using the Q of Quigley Wiggly font, because it reminds me of Tim’s Q, the U and R are made up of You are what you eat font and the I and K have been written in Cream and sugar font.

After having decided upon how the logo should be written I then had to decide upon the pattern designs that would be behind the letters. I managed to incorporate an ‘Op Art’ design, my clematis design from the Experimentation and Feasibility module, some cherry blossom that I took at photo of, a touch of Art Deco inspiration and also some traditional basket weave – the final result looks like this…

I am pleased with my final logo design. It has gone through several stages, including one that had very wild colours and may have alienated half my potential clients before they had looked at my work!

Whilst I sort out my mind and what I need to do and in what order I am also preparing to go on a print workshop, so I need to work out a design that can translate into a screen print to be printed onto fabric – potentially for the Lloyd Loom seat cover – so I need to do some serious thinking about what I wish to achieve. This is my most urgent job on the ‘to do’ list. So I will get on with that and then tell you some more of my plans. In the meantime I would be interested to hear any comments you have to make about my new logo design.

What's new with Circles!

I’m feeling much than the last time I wrote! Although I’m still not permitted to lift or stretch, or drive, and I’m still off work.

I have been busily working on my circles, converting some of them into Illustrator images, testing how they would look in wallpaper designs, exploring scale and colour. I am not totally happy with the colourways that I have tried so far, but I will keep working with that issue. The colourways that I have been using up until now were all obtained from Trend Bible (http://www.trendbible.co.uk/blog/home-trends/home-trends-autumnwinter-201112-preview consulted 6/3/11). I have been working with their colour predictions for Autumn/Winter 2011-12. Trend Bible are an extremely clever company who attend trade shows etc and then put together trend predictions for their customers and the most amazing bi-annual trend books which are aesthetically inspired and inspirational. The University has some of these trend books in the library, but they do not have the most recent editions, which is very disappointing.

This is just one of the trend predictions from Trend Bible. It is beautifully put together and the imagery is imaginative and inspires me to create.

Anyway, here is a small selection of the work that I have achieved recently…

The single repeat is in the ‘Alpine Shelter’ colours from Trend Bible and the colours used in the room above are from their ‘Geographique’ trend. The ‘Geographique’ colours are possibly the best colours, from my perspective, because they are warm, vibrant and feel alive – so I need to try amending the way I have put them together. I am very pleased with the slightly oriental look that my pattern has though, this is mainly due to the 'Spirograph' style flowers which look similar to Japanese chrysanthemums.

I will continue designing circles, but within theme ranges, converting them into Illustrator images, exploring different ways of laying them out into patterns… and also how to convert them into stencils, because that is a direction that Whimsy & Quirk may potentially move toward.