Final design - Chipped

I could not resist using "Chip It" with my final design and it's interesting to see a respite blue in there not sure where that came from!

Final fabric design for upholstery

Here's my final fabric design slightly familiar but complete with little cameras in it. The colour palette has taken some work with these motifs and I eventually used more faded colours than I had previously used with a background cream inspired by old aged book pages.

Here is the design mocked up onto a stool (not the stool I will be using) just to give an idea of what it might look like ultimately. I have recently learnt to use the lasso tool properly in Photoshop and used it to create this image. This image is definitely one of the more successful ones for my Moodboard.

I would aspire to produce fabric that is good enough and sits well with Ercol's range of furniture. I like the idea of translating a series of prints into upholstery designs for furniture ranges. 

Final designs for wallpaper

This design was creating using my new fish scale motif and repeat filling the design in Photoshop I added colourways and also paint bucketted in my ladybird stack motif with the new faded colours and tidily cutout design.

The 1970s fish scale pattern is brought up to date by using a more contemporary colour palette but still has a retro feel to it.

I think this design is successful and when it was printed on wallpaper it too on a certain faded quality which is great as long as the orange does not turn into peach. For some reason I have an aversion to peach!

Target market wise I would not consider this for John Lewis as it is not mainstream enough and perhaps even a bit too bold and quirky for their market. I would like to think that a high end homeware retailer such as Habitat would consider this print. Even independent home decor retailers might consider this if their product ranges were fairly quirky.

This is the same design only without the ladybird background dropped in. Again, the colours are much more subtle in the printed wallpaper.

I scaled the design smaller for this wallpaper and created a layered imagery using my photo of my Brownie camera. 

The Brownie image was my own photo with a pencil filter added in Photoshop I then added a little bit of acid green to the image before repeating it into the design. 

Although the Brownie camera is not from the 1970s its still vintage and works well my obsession relating to the rounded rectangle shape. I like the way that although the whole camera can not be seen it still is a familar shape and really a rather cute image (well to me anyway).

If I could develop the above designs it would be to add in tonal gradients or stripes in tones of orange to the fish scale motif and then repeat. I would be interested to see how this would change the design.

Final shape for Wallpaper design

Who would have thought it could take so long to design this shape in Photoshop..

I knew that I wanted to use this shape within my patterns the moment I saw it in my photocopies of a Habitat catalogue from 1971. I discovered loads of backdated, vintage copies of Habitat and Clothkits catalogues from the 70s at the Research library within the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. I had originally gone to take some photos of 70s memorabilia but ended up with lots of photocopies from this library. Here's the link and details of a fantastic library ..  National Museum of Scotland Research Library

It has not been easy creating this shape and I eventually discovered how to make it by playing with the shape tool options within Photoshop. It is basically 3 circle shapes in Photoshop but overlapped with a cutout on either side of the main circle. Looking good I think!

It is a great shape and so versatile, so I will be experimenting over the next few days to see what I can create with it. Really excited about the possibilities.

Orange is the colour of...

Penguin paperbacks

Sagemcom cordless phone - John Lewis



• A little toy beach buggy with flower motif I used to own
• Our rusty but faithful old camper van from childhood days
• warmth 
• happiness

It's not all about the colour Orange though.. or is it?

Final (well nearly but not quite) designs

Pencil filter in Photoshop using Brownie
 camera photo in repeat

I like this Browniefest due to its simplicity. I could use a number of colourways with this imagery and I think this design lends itself well to stationery as it's quite a small print.

Pencil filter using ladybird stack

There is something so nice about a black and white image. I enjoyed creating this image and can not believe it was derived using just one easy filter. This design would look really good with lasercut incorporated into the text of the design. I have started to think about lasercutting text on a larger scale than this and I could perhaps use some of the text from within the ladybird books. I envisage using tracing paper lasercut so one of my geometric designs will stand behind the text.

partially coloured ladybird book
stacks with a plain background

I think I might prefer the back and white ladybird books with a geometric background but I am not sure.. I will see what some of my peers think about the variation in designs.

Paper Collage experiment

Part of my original brief was to do paper collage for my final outcome using some of my geometric designs.

So I have set about to create a contemporary paper collage design using my own designs. The result is below.

I think that although some of the individual pieces of this design look nice, frustratingly it is not great for two reasons:-

1. Too many rounded rectangles
2. The spray mount shows through the tracing paper

The next time I do paper collage I will use double sided tape and PVA glue not spray mount. 

This little glimpse into paper collage has made me think that perhaps my designs are not too suited to collage and I will be exploring more photography mixed in with my geometric designs for a more successful outcome - I hope.

Draft designs for Final Major so far....

I have been experimenting via Photoshop with various designs for my final and here are a few for you to critique, if you feel inclined.

My inspiration for all of these has been 1970s colour palettes, Scandinavian designs and  my camera obsession.

 The imagery behind of the camera repeats can not really be seen above and this design was the least popular in my crit, so I will not be taking this forward.

This is a very simple Scandi style print although it is perhaps too bright for a living room wall in its current form. I need to look into a more muted orange for this design and perhaps a different background shade.

Inspired by abstract illustrative art from the 1970s I feel this is successful in drawing the eye in different ways. It took a long time to create in Photoshop but I got there in the end. Again, the brightest orange needs muting in my opinion.

NY Subway - Colour love

NY Subway, a photo by chippyjackson on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
Whilst travelling on the line towards Staten Island Ferry, I noticed this very retro colour palette of tangerine oranges and beige. It's perfect for my colour palette and so I took a speedy snap as people left the train. The colours evoke memories for me, our camper van from childhood was painted tangerine and cream ( to cover the rust and wire holding it together!) and at one stage in the 70s we even had an orange front door. I can't decide if that made us a fashion forward family or ... not.