Christmas Card Brief

Most Successful Card
I had to create 8 Christmas card designs for my college brief and out of the 8 designs I think these 2 are the most successful. I've used the same geometric shape from the laser cutting sample (look at past blog), and I think they've worked well for this brief too. Just goes to show you can make anything out of a simple shape.

Redbean Designs

Another contemporary Christmas card design and they're eco-friendly because they're printed using environmentally friendly ink.

Xmas Card Brief

Jenny Arnott

This Christmas card has a textile edge to it, the body of the reindeer looks like it's made from fabric.
To see more of Jenny Arnott's work you can visit her website http://www.jennyarnott.co.uk

Christmas Card Brief

Popink Christmas designs


I think these designs are great because they're not your typical christmas designs. The colours and shapes are very contemporary which is inspiring because the palette we've been given for our brief are not the kind of colours you would automaticlly associate with Christmas.

Cherry Tenneson

Artist and sign maker, Cherry Tenneson was kind enough to come into college to give a lecture on her work. She's been a sign maker for 7 years and over the last 5 years has created traffic signs, health and safety signs (NHS), jobcentre Plus signs to name a few. She brought in some of her work to display how vinyl could be used on various materials such as foamex, aluminium, acrylic and PVC. Cherry later demonstrated how vinyl could be printed on by simply using tape to secure the vinyl and a squeegee to press the vinyl down in place. Vinyl can also be screen printed on and drawn/sketched on as long as an oil based medium is used.






Tenneson: Librarians of the House of Commons, 2006









Cherry collaborates with her fellow sign making artist friend Nicola Dale and they've looked at the following artists to inspire them; Piet Mondrian, Donald Judd, Frank Stella and Elsworth Kelly.

Other artists that use vinyl in their work are Julian Opie, Jim Lamby, Ian Monroe and Andrew Brasey.

To view some of Cherry's work you can log on to www.axisweb.org





Tenneson: Red Tape No.20

Fred Aldous, Manchester

Fred Aldous is a family run arts and crafts store in the heart of Manchester. I've been in the store many times and had no idea that they offered a laser cutting service in the basement. We were met by Paul Walker a family member of the Aldous store who gave us a demonstration on how the machine worked.

The machine works with designs created in Adobe Illustrator (version 8). The motifs work better if they have crisp clean lines and the strokes are set to 0.25. The laser cutter can't cut through metals, glass and anything containing chlorine such as PVC or vinyl. However, metals and glass can be scored (etched) into. Materials such as cardboard, plastic felt, foam are ideal and Paul showed us some samples of these. Setting up costs are £5 and and actual cutting costs are £1 a minute. So depending on the materials you choose it can be as cheap or expensive as you want. One thing to bear in mind is to make sure your design are to the laser cutters specification because if Fred Aldous staff have to make changes they can charge you anything upto £50.

The size of the laser bed is A1 so it will take anything upto that size and unlike a vinyl cutter it cuts top-down, so letters don't have to be reversed. The service is very effecient and the maximum waiting times to pick up your work is 2 days. It's a very convenient service for local designers and designs can be emailed too.

Out of the Ordinary Exhibition: Spectacular Craft, Sheffield Millennium Gallery

This exhibition featured the works of Olu Amoda, Catherine Bertola, Naomi Filmer, Susan Collis, Anne Wilson, Lu Shengzhong, Annie Cattrell, Yoshihiro Suda. All of these artists used traditional crafts and material to create unusual and extraordinary pieces and installations.

The large space and white walls added to the whole experience but I found the gallery badly lit. There was enough information on the artists and their work on leaflets for visitors to take away but sadly no images were included and photographs were not allowed.

I found Amoda's piece fascinating and how he used scrap pieces of metal to create 'Queen of the Night' (below). He's created antiquated but functional objects like gates using the same method. I would recommend a quick look at the book below to see more of his work.

Cattrell's work were blocks of glass with laser etched clouds inside them representing breath inside lungs. Shengzhong uses red paper to create large cascading installations and conjuring up Chinese folk art imagery. Bertola's work consisted of black ink drawings of stockings with floral design titles 'Bluestocking' (below). Each drawing has a female name attached to it representing members of the Bluestocking Society who fought for women's education in the 1750's.


I've come across a book on this exhibition since my visit and it provides more of an insight into how the work was produced. (Newell, Laurie B. Out of the Ordinary: Spectacular Craft (2008) London, V&A publications)

Bird in the Hand Exhibition, Sheffield Millennium Gallery

Timorous Beasties are currently holding their 'Bird in the Hand' exhibition in Sheffield. They've used John Ruskin's collection as inspiration which is also being shown in the adjacent gallery. I viewed Ruskins collection first which contained works by various artists. Most of the images were of nature, birds and insects and this is clearly filtered through Timorous Beasties work, bearing in mind that they researched the collection for almost 2 years.














Book: Insects of India
Edward Donovan
published by T. Bensley, 1800

Although it was clear Ruskins collection inspired this exhibition it was nonetheless distinct from it. The exhibition comprised of lampshades and Victorian chairs upholstered in fabric designed by the Scottish duo. The designs of insects dissected into individual parts of legs, feathers, eyes and bodies were complimented by the dark walls they were set against. Personally I'm not a big fan of bugs and insects but I can appreciate where Timorous Beasties are coming from.














Timorous Beasties
Photograph: self
Their pieces were trying to portray the beauty in things that are not generally classed as beautiful in society. I think Timorous Beasties want their observers to think for themselves than be dictated to by society. Why should someone else have to tell you what is beautiful? The exhibition is in line with their other works in that they're sprinkled with eclectism with a dash of parody.

Pisticule Design, inspired by French ornithologist Francois Le Vaillant's book Histoire Natureller des Oiseaux Paradis, des Rolliers, des Toucans, et des Barbus (1806)

Putting on the Glitz Exhibition, Whitworth Gallery

This exhibition has been running since November 2008 and is taken from the Whitworths own collection of wallcoverings. The exhibition looks at the glitzy metallic wall coverings used in the 18th and 19th Century right up to the present day. The use of gold and metals on wall coverings was a sign of wealth in the past but I think less is definetly more in some cases.



The Chase Japanese, 2008
Hand-embossed & decorated
Manufactured by Takashi Ueda





The Bedesley Frieze c.1920's
Hand printed from woodblock & stencilled
Designer unknown Manufactured by W. Shand Kydd



The Japanese wall papers had a touch of Europeanism and looked very oppulent.

The Manchester Indian Exhibition, Whitworth Gallery

This particular exhibitions marks the centenary of Thomas Wardles death. It explores Wardles fascination with Indian designs and style of printing and how it had an impact on the fabrics printed and dyed at his own company in Leek. Wardle is known for his collaboration with William Morris and I'm sure the two men influenced each other interchangeably.


The prints designed by Morris and manufactured by Wardle are very busy in a repeat pattern with very little background colour showing. If they had to be described in one word it would be traditional.


The emroidered fabric pieces that Wardle brought back from India are also in repeat. The patterns are not as busy in colour or style as the Morris prints. Each fabric piece uses a limited pallet or it would appear that way because the flowers are larger and less detailed. The stitching is also very simple and limited with shisha (mirror) work and a maltese cross stitch on one of the fabrics apparently used as a skirt (ghaghra) in India sometime in the 1800's.

Zara, Manchester

I was surprised to find that Zara's was a spanish retailer for some bizarre reason I always thought it was British. I've been past the store many times and read the bold capitals on the entrance but have to confess this was my first time inside the store. As far as stores go, it was similar to any other department store selling clothes. The store is on 3 levels, containing men's, women and children's clothing. The white walls were bare or maybe that's a marketing ploy not to distract you from the clothing.

The first thing I noticed as I walked in was that their clothing range was black, white and grey and some more black. I'm not saying there wasn't any colour but that these colours were predominant, and why not they're very safe colours. Let's face it black is never going to go out of fashion. There wasn't much pattern most of the clothes were made of block colours.


The clothes looked well cut and in vogue by that I mean a black shift dress or a pair of black tailored trousers are a staple to any women's wardrobe. I mainly looked at the women's clothing (I have no kids and I find nothing heterogeneous in mens clothing) and I would say that zara mainly appeals to women in their mid to late 20's and 30's.

Heal's Furniture Store, Manchester

Heal's originally began as a family business making beds in 1810 but moved on to making other bedroom furniture item's in the mid 1800's. That was then, now Heal's not only stocks bedroom furniture but dining/living room and office furniture, furnishings, electrical accessories etc. There are seven stores across the UK and the one based in Manchester is set over four floors. The store is situated in Manchester City Centre near Harvey Nichols.

It was my first visit to Heal's and my first reaction was that it appeared small but once inside the building was well lit, both artificially and naturally due to the large glass windows and doors at the front. The store was clean and the white wall and floors gave it a crisp feel to it. I wasn't hassled by the staff as I walked around and the store was quiet with only a handful of customers.

I was mainly drawn to the beautiful furniture, soft furnishing and bedding. Most of the designs were block prints but there was plenty of pattern and colour to be found. I noticed that there were Eastern style patterns and designs placed around the store. One of Heals staff members told us we could order wallpaper samples (I ordered 3) and she was also very informative with regards to finding stores that supplied similar type of stock to Heal's.

























Above: cushions with Eastern style cover
Below: the wallpaper samples I chose











Left: Illuminate wallpaper by Harlequin
Right: Maharani wallpaper by Osbourne & Little