Pinspiration - Merry with a hint of bright

I'm currently loving black and white, with a hint of bright colour..

1. Merry and Bright Wreath Card // 2. Knitted Hat // 3. Papercut Mitten Decorations
4. Orange and ginger biscuit stars // 5. Christmas design by Ottomanbrim // 6. Wool Wrapped Baubles

See all my boards on Pinterest HERE!

Black & White Pattern Collection

I recently worked on some Black & White Pattern designs for the latest Tigerprint contest. The brief asked you to create a black and white collection of surface pattern, using only black and white, no grey!

Below are the 5 designs I entered into the competition, I'm really big on colour and don't often work in just black and white so it was a good challenge and I'm so pleased with how they turned out! All the designs are made from my original drawings of flowers, leaves and other shapes, the texture of the line really shines in black and white!

Images copyright Rosie Simons 2013

Paperchase inspiration

Paperchase are not only a dream client but also a great inspiration to me as a designer. They always have great designs and patterns on their products and I can spend forever (and way too much money) in their stores browsing lovely patterned products.

I recently visited Paperchase and thought I would share some of my favourites from their current collections.

First up is a design that really caught my eye, mono floral uses lines to create different shades in different areas. The texture of this piece of wonderful, and looks fantastic printed on uncoated paper giftwrap as well as on ceramics and other surfaces.

Next up is linear floral. Unfortunately these products seem to be hard to find on the website, but this pattern is over many different surfaces throughout the store. You can see a recent post from Print & Pattern to see some more photos. (Apologies for the dingy photos these are just photos I have taken with my phone of the products I have!)

And last but not least, the Hinterland collection. A lovely A/W pattern with birds and trees.

There are even more wonderful products online or pop into your local Paperchase store!

All images copyright Paperchase

Black & White Floral

Today I am sharing with you a design I did a few weeks back for the Tigerprint Black & White print competition.

Image copyright Rosie Simons 2012

Surface Design snapshots

There are some really wonderful surface design pieces out in the market right now, from homeware to clothing I thought I'd share some of my favourite pieces I have seen recently.. I love looking out for great design as inspiration!

Below: Bird Silhouette mug from Sainsburys, available in duck egg or pink. I love the simple 1 colour design with a combination of solid shapes and line details and sweet motifs

Below: Fluro Print Vest from New Look, I just adore the bright colours and geometric pattern

Below: Pop Art Purple Floral Crop Top from New Look, this piece has a lovely colour palette and a great mix of textured colours and black lines

Below: Some photos I took of a window display I saw in St Ives, Cornwall whilst on holiday, it was such a nice arrangement of beautiful surface design pieces, unfortunately it was just a little gift shop and when I went inside none of the products had any branding or labelling on so I don't actually know who made them! I loved all the different florals, polka dots and laser cut tree with flowers and birds!

Below: Hummingbird Asymmetric Vest from BHS, this may be for kids but I love this simple elegant white bird print on my favourite colour - TURQUOISE!

Below: Items in the apple pattern from Paperchase, tea towel and diary. I love the printed texture to the organic shapes and the way they are layered, so fresh and fun!

Finally, I've signed up to take part in this year's Tigerprint Gifted? A design a day competition, you can read the press release here. Between 27th June and 31st July you will get sent a different theme everyday where you create something, you can sketch, doodle, stitch, collage, paint, photograph, embroider, type, render, scult.. anything goes. The only confinement is that you can only use black and white, so I've been looking out for interesting black and white designs, like this black and white floral shift dress from M&S below, to inspire me for the beginning of this great project! 

I've been working on some new surface designs and been given LOTS of amazing vintage fabrics, so many exciting blog posts to come in the next few days!