Thursday, June 27, 2013

Beauty Breakdown: Hand in Hand

Good morning creative people!

Welcome to a Beauty morning with me, MaJo :) Every Thursday I'll delight you with gorgeously packed beauty products (and every now and then, I'll even throw you a beauty secret).

I was looking for calligraphic fonts the other day and found by chance some amazing packaging and I couldn't just not share it with you all. Hand in Hand is an American hand bar soap business 'based on sustainable giving': for every bar that's sold, Hand in Hand donates a bar to save a life. They decided on the product and business model after finding out that a single soap bar could prevent deaths caused by poor water quality and lack of proper hygiene. They not only have saving lives as their primary mission, but believe also in respecting the environmental impact that comes when producing and selling soap. To ensure this, the work with sustainable and harvested ethically resources. To top it all, they complete their socio/eco-conscious goal with the use of eco-friendly packaging: each sold bar 'comes with a free carbon offset, and a portion of all proceeds is used to save 50 square feet of rainforest.' What an amazing brand is it? I was first attracted to their packaging, but once I read a bit about them I fell in love with the entire brand and their spirit!

Now, let's focus on the gorgeous packaging. It was art directed by graphic designer (and writer of the fab oh Joy! blog) Joy Deangdeelert Cho in collaboration with the amazing British illustrator Emma Block. The products come in 3 different fragrances (lavender, orange blossom and white tea) and the illustrations seem to evoke a magic and world for each of them. Just take a look :)

how adorable is the logo? I just love those hearts included in the font!

courtesy of oh Joy!

courtesy of oh Joy!

courtesy of Hand in Hand

courtesy of oh Joy!

courtesy of Hand in Hand

courtesy of oh Joy!

courtesy of Hand in Hand

Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to read. See you next week with more inspiring designs. Have a great day, MaJo.

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Rachael Taylor

Recently Rachael announced that she is now a proud member of the Lilla Rogers Studio. For the next few months we have decided to feature a regular weekly showcase from Lilla's esteemed group of designers & Illustrators. Today we bring you the lovely Rachael Taylor herself.

Rachael Taylor is an enthusiastic surface pattern designer, textile artist & illustrator. Not forgetting that she is also a design consultant, writer & teacher. Rachael's design work is quirky, illustrative and experimental. Rachael uses a variety of radiant colours withing her work as well as artistic textures & layering. Rachael tends to create hand-drawn imagery using a variety of mediums, which are then manipulated digitally.

Rachael has an impressive client list including American Greetings, Graham & Brown, Tigerprint & many more. Rachael has her designs on a variety of products through licensing with companies including Deny Designs, Seascape Lamps, TeNeues, Wallpapered, Wallpaper Republic & many more. You can purchase many of Rachael's products from her online shop. You can find Rachael on Facebook and follow her on twitter @rachael_taylor_ You can also follow her online shop @RTShopOfficial Enjoy, Hannah.












Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Artist Review: Justine Aldersey-Williams

As you know, I've been writing the 'Art and Creative Review' every Tuesday for the last few months and Rachael has very kindly invited me to share some of my naturally dyed surface patterns with you this week.

As you're reading, I'm actually at the New Designers graduate show in London, setting up my area of the Glyndwr University stand. With any luck my displays have made it in one piece! More about that later.

I've been studying a part-time MA in Design Practice since October 2011. Around the same time, I was one of the first to start Rachael's Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design e-course.

As a textiles graduate of the pre-digital era, I spent the first year of my MA updating my skills in surface pattern design (thanks to 3 modules of ABSPD!) creating drawn, painted and cutwork motifs which I manipulated in Photoshop and Illustrator for various commercial markets. I began freelancing and developed my own collection, which I now sell online.

Eco-friendly printed products from my 'Folk Flora' collection, available to buy from Folksy



For my final MA project however, I chose to rediscover hand made surface pattern design as a balance for my computer based work. I believe passionately in natural materials and enjoy working in relationship with thread, cloth and dye using unpredictable, ancient and sustainable techniques, which demand I relinquish control.

Shibori resist silk dyed in wild camomile flowers, madder root and rhubarb then modified with solutions of rust - hence my lovely fingernails!

I shifted my focus from the requirements of designing for a client and product, to creating purely for the pleasure of the process, without design, taking inspiration from the materials themselves. The MA gave me the luxury to delve deep into my own creative process, to find what it is I really love to do, so I decided to take the opportunity while I had it!

I got into quite a bit of trouble for using all my beloved's large pans and even dyed my linen shirt in our copper kettle!

I had great fun exploring wild flower, root and bark fabric dyes, Japanese Shibori resist techniques and narrative hand embroidery. Each unique result inspired my hand sewn embellishments, from a simple running stitch around complex patterns to more intricate philosophical graffiti that I embroidered into pictures and text.

Pages from my sketchbook where I've worked into the dyed patterns with embroidery, recalling my early childhood memories in St. Ives, Cornwall.


Timeless Travellers Silk Scarf - featuring this embroidered extract from my longer poem, 'I love people who see the wrapping paper for what it is, who find beauty in flaws and grace in imperfection. I love people who have the faith to wait, the confidence to persist and the wisdom to slow down. The timeless travellers who've seen it all and are still full of wonder.'

I thought I loved colour before beginning this process but I realised I had probably never seen natural colour, only its flat, more perfect, chemical equivalent.  Botanical dyes offer a beautiful complexity, especially in daylight, that is impossible to reproduce synthetically. There is a wise, sustainable provenance to the cloth, which honours the slow pleasure of making and infuses the garment with a subtle, natural aroma. 

Sacred Mundane Silk Scarf - featuring my philosophical ramble, discharge printed on top of the tie-dye pattern and then embellished with hand embroidery. 'I thought I had to know but now I find gateways within not knowing' - much of the writing on my work sums up my outlook on life!

Cloudgazer Treehugger Silk Scarf - appliquéd silk letters embroidered on to scarf dyed in madder root and modified with ammonia

I'm not puritanical about natural materials though, I love a mix of new technology when it's balanced with some sensible wisdom from the generations before us. I express this in my blend of natural dyes with rebellious pops of neon thread. I absolutely love digital design too, I'm just really interested in the old ways - the wisdom of production methods almost forgotten in societies quest to make everything faster and easier and the healthy satisfaction that comes from making something yourself. In an era when mass produced textiles form 30% of landfill, I feel it's time for individuals to rediscover ethical manufacturing both for its slow, heirloom quality and to remedy the environmental impact.

If you're in London this week from 26th - 29th June, you can come and visit my exhibition at the New Designers graduate show. It's at the Business Design Centre, Islington. I'm the maverick textile designer in amongst the ceramics, glass and jewellery in the Contemporary and Applied Arts section (long story!) up on the right hand side gallery on stand CAA20 (Glyndwr University). I'm a little worried that all you SPD and textile enthusiasts won't venture upstairs, so hopefully this will convince you to come and say hello! If you are coming, you can get a discounted ticket with the code: NDEXHIBITOR1

In the meantime, you can check out my artsthread portfolio, visit my blog, where I'll be posting in more depth about the techniques, thrills and spills I've been having or pop along to my website. I'll be running eco-textile and yoga retreats soon and if you like my new 'Lose Yourself Retreats' facebook page, you'll have the chance of winning a free place. Have a great week! Justine x

Monday, June 24, 2013

PLAY - University of Leeds Design Show 2013

We recently visited the University of Leeds Design Graduate Degree Show, entitled 'PLAY' & the amount of talent within the BA(Hons) Textile Design & BA (Hons) Graphic & Communication Design groups was so impressive! It was a wonderful show, showcasing the up & coming talent of the design industry & as Rachael & myself are former students it was great to have a catch up!
It was great to see the amount of strong pattern work coming through which is especially relevant to our e-course we are currently running, so much unique & commercial potential!
Below are a selection of images from the show and I hope you enjoy them as much as we did! 

Kelly :)


Laura Jeffreys


Catherine McCole


Chloe Kerr


Paisley Lewis


Sophia Precious


Natasha Brown


Rebecca Clapham


Sasha Plummer


Jessica Googe


Natasha Purnell


Alice France


Charlotte Langstroth


Amy Nicholls


Jessica Kennedy


Bobbi-Rae Gastall


Abigail Sims


Nathalie Ward


Marie Stenton


Bianca Sinclair


Geneva Stanton


Verity Wheatley


Michael Greenhalgh


Adam Knights


Victoria White

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