A selection of my favorite designs by London-based freelance illustrator and printmaker Nadia Taylor. She has many more designs to see on her website and blog, and she has a few limited edition prints and cards in her shop too. So pretty, don’t you agree?
All images: Nadia Taylor
via Print & Pattern
Gorgeous designs by London-based freelance pattern designer Rachel Cave. Found her work via the Print & Pattern blog, which never fails to make me happy.
See Rachel’s website and blog for more.
All images by Rachel Cave
Eva Joly, a graduate of the Glasgow School of Art, was featured on Print and Pattern last week, and I was charmed by her visualizations in which she uses miniatures to feature her “everyday clutter” designs. (Note the tea towel hanging from the oven, the wallpaper behind the tv and the fabric being ironed.)
Aren’t these fun?
Examples of her printed designs:
See also her gorgeous illustrations:
Such a treat to peruse her website/portfolio.
All images: Eva Joly.
Sweet greeting card designs by Lov Li Design, based in Birmingham, UK.
Spotted via the Print & Pattern book. All images by Lov Li Design.
Last week, Print and Pattern featured French artist Fifi Mandirac, and I fell head over heels in love with her sweet, colorful, cheerful designs.
(I need these labels!)
Absolutely madly in love.
Fifi Mandirac’s website
Her blog in English (it’s fabulous, and she offers free downloads of her patterns occasionally)
And Fifi on Flickr
All images Fifi Mandirac
p.s. I got my copy of the Print and Pattern book (sold through Amazon in the US) in the mail yesterday. It’s fantastic. If you like Print and Pattern and surface pattern design, you will love this book.
I have Sweden on the brain. Earlier this week, I met a wonderful Swedish couple who were the host family many years ago to a co-worker of mine. And then on Tuesday, Print & Pattern featured Lotta Kühlhorn a Swedish graphic designer who has relaunched her website, Koloni Stockholm. I don’t know if we’ll be able to buy directly from the site (there are no prices). I hope so, because I dithered too long when the (fabulous) from Sthlm website featured her, and then sold out of her items. (From Sthlm features a new Swedish designer at the beginning of each month, offering a handful of items for sale. I always really look forward to their monthly emails and their blog).
I love Lotta Kühlhorn’s bright, bold, colorful graphics. Take a look for yourself:
Shelf edging?! (photo on left) I didn’t know such a thing existed, but imagine how cheerful that would be on open shelves in your kitchen or kids’ rooms. Love the colorful shelf paper too (she has several styles to choose from).
“Las Vegas” coasters and a really neat black apple cutting board.
Gorgeous trays and tea towels.
Mugs in two sizes, apples in several colors. My favorite is the yellow.
A “hot plate” (trivet)
How about this great stool?
Take a look around the rest of the website. Much more to see.
Here’s a story you’ll barely believe: Three years ago, we took the girls to Sweden for 5 or 6 days. We went because flights from Newark to Stockholm were (are you ready for this?) $350 round trip. Nonstop. It was too good to pass up, so we didn’t. And we had a great time.
Can you imagine getting that kind of fare ever again? Me neither.
All images courtesy Koloni Stockholm.
Last week I came across Make & Meaning: Creative Community in Conversation – boy, what a breath of fresh air! It’s a blog that discusses all aspects of creating in a really substantial, thoughtful way. I read “What if we paid each other” and was hooked. I read a few other articles and look forward to reading more. I highly recommend you take a look.
One of the contributors to Make & Meaning (and author of “What if we paid each other”) is Diane Gilleland, also known as Sister Diane and producer of CraftyPod. Are you already familiar with it? I’m just sorry it’s taken me so long to discover it.
CraftyPod is a blog chock full of videos and tutorials, as well as podcast featuring interesting interviews with crafty people and different ideas, tips and discussion about crafting and your craft business. I really enjoyed her podcast with Rachel Klein of One Pretty Thing (which is a site I really love) and was stunned to learn that Rachel has 4,000 blogs that she regularly reads. 4,000! I consider myself an organized person, but I don’t think I could read 4,000 blogs, produce all those craft round-ups, and still have time to devote to family and home, and yet she does.
I certainly wouldn’t call myself a crafter, but I am fascinated by the creative process, so I’m very happy to have come across both Make & Meaning and CraftyPod and the substantive conversations they both offer.
If you are a serious crafter, and perhaps have your own Etsy shop or online shop, Sister Diane also publishes ebooks and has a number of interesting titles on the CraftyPod site. She’s also on Twitter @SisterDiane.
One more recommendation for today’s post: Marie Perkins of Print & Pattern was featured in an article in yesterday’s edition of the Independent coinciding with the publication of her book, which I can’t wait to buy. I love Print & Pattern. You may (or may not!) remember that when Target rolled out its Orla Kiely line last spring, I featured a few items on Charlotte’s Fancy and also offered to send some of the items to Marie (who is a big fan of Orla). In the package I sent to her, I also included favorites from my stationery stash. She very sweetly wrote about all of it here.
Happy reading and Happy Monday!
I spotted New Zealand artist Ellen Giggenbach on Print & Pattern recently.
I absolutely adore this “Lovely Lady” print.
“Bavaria”
“Godess”
“Cloudless Holiday”
You can read an interview with Ellen on the Boxbird website.
Speaking of Print & Pattern, my Twitter feed exploded yesterday when the TimesOnline published “50 of the World’s Best Design Blogs.” There are a lot of blogs on this list I read (and apparently so do many of the people I follow on Twitter!), but I want to say in particular that Print & Pattern (#15 on the list) is really where my heart is – I just love surface pattern. My other favorites are Oh So Beautiful Paper (#36), Creature Comforts (#9), which definitely deserves its spot in the top ten, and Bloesem (#13), which features one gorgeous thing after the next.
Three blogs that I think should’ve made the list are Twig & Thistle, Seesaw Designs and Share Some Candy.
Do you have a favorite design blog that didn’t make the list?
Tomorrow, I am going to share some inspirations for Rosa’s 6th birthday party (which is happening on Saturday). Stay tuned!
