Ginger Squiggles Crafts

As part of my work this year I have developed my own bespoke craft business called Ginger Squiggles Crafts, as an opportunity to sell products which I have made and designed. I have learnt a lot about the business world, and how to sell and promote my products, which will be useful if I want to sell designs, or surface pattern products when I graduate. (www.facebook.com/gingersquigglescrafts)

I design all of my bespoke cards which has allowed me to work closely to customer briefs and consider commercial aspects such as pricing and time scales, which are crucial when designing in the real world. I have also had to consider my online presence, on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, as this is how all of my customers find me. This involves taking good photographs, as my customers don't see the product in person when purchasing, and updating these sites regularly. I also need to make it easy for customers to see the service that I offer, as well as the pricing of the products. I feel that this is working well as I already have almost 2,500 likes on Facebook and am making a good profit after being set up for over 6 months.

Another part of this business involves working towards trends and future events. I therefore work months in advance to design christmas cards, and valentines day cards, to meet customers needs. This has also taught me a lot about customers, as when designing cards, I am designing for two customers: the person buying the card, and the person receiving the card.

I am hoping that this experience will help me to sell my own textiles and surface pattern products when I graduate, as I am considering stocking my products in shops and markets, as well as on other online platforms as well.

Practising repeat in Illustrator

My main aim this week was to create a selection of wallpaper repeats based on the drawings I completed last week. After having a workshop based on repeat in Illustrator I also wanted to get to grips with how this works, as its a large part of my learning agreement, and I believe it is a very important skill to learn. 

To make it easier when learning more about the technique, I looked at a design I created a few weeks ago, and tried to replicate this in repeat. I encountered many problems, such as file sizes being too large, and the normal hiccups when using Illustrator when you're not used to it, such as how different the interface is from Photoshop, and rasterising and tracing images. However I feel that the design below is starting to look like a successful repeat.

After getting to grips with the process I felt confident in trying to create new patterns using the elements I created last week. As mentioned in the last post I wanted to create designs that resembled the botanical nature of my research, and I feel the print below achieves this due to the writing and layout of the flowers. I chose to use writing that wasn't actually a word so that it didn't detract or distract from the design itself and I feel this is working well.

I also changed the backgrounds to involve patterns such as the example below. I really like how this example turned out as I feel the colour is working well, as well as the scale (taking the time to make a visualisation helped me with this). I am concerned that the colours aren't looking like the palette I created for the collection, but as I like the designs I will see how the rest of them develop and consider whether to change my palette at a later date.

Now that we have finished for christmas, I will probably work on some surface pattern ideas and designs over the break to bring back in January.

Botanical wallpaper drawings

After last weeks tutorial I realised that it's okay to commit time to completing complex large scale drawings. After developing my mood boards last week, I wanted to spend this week developing some drawings for my wallpaper collection.

I drew 4 flowers on A2 sheets of paper using methods I used when researching botanical drawings (pencil and watercolour). The type of flowers that I drew also linked back to the science part of my brief as each flower had medicinal benefits, such as the echinacea treating cold and flu. I drew them with the intension of putting them together into one arrangement, however in the future I might consider drawing leaves, flowers and stems separately to assemble on the computer to allow my drawings to be even more flexible.

The drawings took up most of my time this week, however I did have time to arrange them into a half drop repeat shown below. I think that the colour is working well, and I am also pleased that I managed to create a good repeat.

Although I like the result, and I could see it working well as a wallpaper, I feel that playing with different backgrounds could add another element to it. I also want to try arranging the elements in a more botanical way, possibly incorporating writing like traditional botanical drawings.

To help with designing my wallpapers I also created a few boards of wallpaper research and contextual research (one is shown below). These have allowed me to focus my attention on specifically who I am designing for, and I feel the next stage of designing and drawing will be even more focused.

Pin up: Dividing work into two collections

This week I had a pin up of all my work to divide it into two collections. I found this hard, as my work could be divided in so many ways, for example visually or conceptually. I decided that the best way to do this would be to select around 6 pieces of work that would be the starting point for each collection. I then created inspirational boards based on this selection.

Above is the inspiration board for my surface pattern collection, consisting of current work. I picked the work based on the quality of drawing (small scale, linear and painterly) and the concept behind the work. All of the work above is based on data collection so I will use this and the work I have done so far to drive my designs. However, after doing work based on data such as pie charts, I know that I do not want my work to look like mathematic data because it will not suit my market. I will therefore be inspired by collecting my own material and making prints that represent a moment in time. Therefore the print will be my way of representing data.

I also created a board of surface pattern designs that inspire me. I wanted to look at how different artists and designers assemble their designs, including all over prints, motif based prints, and single or multi directional prints.

This is my concept board for my wallpaper collection, where I chose work based on botanical drawings. The concept for this collection will be based on anatomy and botany, which are two aspects of my research that I really enjoyed working with.

I also conducted some market research and created an inspiration board for the wallpaper collection, looking at how designers assemble repeats, and how they use all over pattern structures, as well as motifs, in their designing process.

I am really pleased with the starting points for each collection. I feel that I now can develop my work in a more refined way, using the best parts of my research to inspire my collections. I have also tried to incorporate as much of my initial research as I can, whilst being selective about which bits would work best. At the moment I am unsure about the name of each collection, and the colour palette that I will end up working with, but I am allowing for the fact that this will develop with the project.

Engaging with the wider design world.

When graduating University I want to make sure I am in the best position possible to gain a job in my desired field of work. At the moment I would like to be a surface pattern designer, and I am also looking at Graduate schemes.

A lot of Graduate schemes are receiving applications now, so this week I have concentrated on updating my CV with my work experience from over summer, and finding schemes to apply for. I have also taken careful consideration when answering online application questions.

As well as directly applying for jobs, I am engaging with the design industry by actively taking part in competitions and putting my work out there. I took part in the Ohh Deer Pillow fight, by submitting four of my most recent designs. They were uploaded onto the site, and sold for a short period of time! They can be found at http://ohhdeer.com/competition#compartist=766 and below is a screen shot of the cushions I uploaded.

Screen shot of my designs on the Ohh Deer website

I have frequently taken part in Tigerprint competitions too, and I uploaded some designs onto the Christmas Wrap Brief. I felt that these designs took a modern approach to christmas and the winter season, however they weren't specifically designed for the brief.

I would love to take part in more Tigerprint competitions, and when the next brief is released, I will consider making a few designs specifically for entry to the competition, aside from the rest of my work.