Hello Hanna

Hello Hanna is  a company designing unique products, mainly for children but for adults alike. The products look fantastic out of the pack but the company allows you to add to the creations in you own way, making them unique. Providing books and placements they also have some intriguing trinkets.

I really like the way the products are interactive, and are teaching children as well as being really interesting and modern. 

Liverpool Design Show.

Last year in our first semester we were given the opportunity to display our work at the Liverpool Design Show at St. Georges Hall. With over 50 stands and 100 designers the show was a fantastic opportunity. 

"We built on our inaugural event and doubled the number of exhibitors on show. We offered a unique opportunity to meet designers, to learn how things are made and to buy exclusive creations. We also doubled our visitor numbers with nearly 3000 people joining us, to take part in workshops, talks, networking and shopping. I believe we really boosted the local design economy and have put people in touch with each other that will go on to create new products and new businesses."

(Badami, Director of design initiative)

We began our semester by selecting our own theme, I chose children's interiors and have mentioned this in a previous post. 

My four final wallpapers were these:

For more information on next years show, exhibitors and how to exhibit yourself see this website.

Fred The Dog

Fred the Dog is a French children's home wares website that I came across through the Print Pattern Blog spot. Their website sells children's bedding and cushions, they all have very simple yet modern prints on them. I really like the colour ways as well, there very on trend, they have recently displayed at the Maison&objet trade show in Paris.

Although the designs are very simple I really like them and relate to work very well.

The company also supply Children's printed T-shirts which is something I feel I could also make to accompany my final show.

They would be simple to make, using plain coloured t-shirts and screen printing or heat transfers. 

Inspiration

As my final project is based on children's interiors, I have been looking at children's illustrators. One of my favourite websites for inspiration is Illustrator Web.

Some of the illustrators inspiring me at the moment are :

Alyana Cazalet

Alyana is a freelance illustrator and artist, working in London. Her work s created using ink, felt tip pens and brushes and sticks. I love the scratchy style in which she draws, the black and white thickness of lines. This style is very similar to how I enjoy drawing. 

Kavel Rafferty

Kavel is an english commercial artist who works in Barcelona, combining found imagery, paint and print she creates the wonderful pieces of work. Very inspiring, I really like the combination of mediums, and again the messy, scratchy drawing/print style. 

"Her inspirations and interests – like rare old soul 45s, flea markets and vintage shop signs and type – help inform her distinctively bittersweet, elegantly nostalgic style."

(Illustration web)

Her clients include Selfridges, Topshop, The Times and Penguin Books. 

Mark Oliver  

Mark is a children's book illustrator and just one of the artists I came across that has drawn robots, the theme I am using in my own work at the minute. The detail put into the drawings is brilliant and I like the way the robots are doing real life actions. 

Tim Bradford

Tim Bradford is a freelance illustrator and animator. His work is mostly done on Illustrator and photoshop and used for print and web design. The colour palette is what really stood out for me, I really like the mixture of colours, very modern and attracting to children. The simple drawing style is very refreshing and inspiring. 

Illustration Web is a fantastic website for all artists to use as inspiration, these are just a few of illustrators that stood out to me, but there are hundreds more on the site ranging from cartoons, collage, fashion and retro art work. 

Road Trip

I began my final semester one, looking at maps. All different kinds of maps from road maps to tube maps. I started by drawing the maps in different colour ways, looking at the patterns the lines make and how I could interpret them.

My own image

This was one page I did in my sketchbook looking at the different thickness's and types of lines and found within a road map. I liked the blocks of colour representing the forests/parks/green land I changed the colour to a more modern palette and created a completely new look. 

This was another page in my sketchbook where I used a road map from A-Z Maps, and collaged it, cutting out the shapes in between the roads, rivers and railways. Underneith I drew my own lines to create some different layers. 

These were just some starting points for my childrens interior project.  

Spring Trade Fair 2011

On the 9th of February me and Sammy Kenny visited Birmingham for a trip to the International Spring Trade Fair. 

The visit was so inspirational I think we both came away brewing with idea's and thoughts of how to embark on our final major project. 

I really enjoyed seeing how the trends i'd seen predicted on the WGSN website were being shown throughout the store. The fair was HUUGE and i think physically impossible to look around in one day. But from it, I defiantly took away product ideas and ideas of how to display my work at the degree show in June. 

My pass into the fair :)

I have decided to base my project on children's interiors to carry on my theme from last semester ( work to follow in next posts), looking around all the stands was sometimes overwhelming but defiantly inspirational. 

BabyFace was one company that stood out to me, specialising in luxury quilted children's home wares, bedding and soft furnishings. 

Source

They had beautiful pieces that closely linked to my theme and gave me some great idea's. 

There was plenty more:

• Powell-craft LTD
• Mustard
• Fifty-one PerCent

All in all a fantastic day, and came away feeling really excited.