Spoonflower Matisse/Nasher

This weeks Spoonflower contest was run in conjunction with The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University and the brief was to create a design that would look at home in a Matisse painting. The colour palette was specified, with some really lovely colours so I couldn't help but take part!

Below is my entry, you can vote on the Spoonflower website here!

Images copyright Rosie Simons 2012

New Boys Designs

I recently worked on a brief to design for boys. This is not something I normally work on and when I started the brief I thought I would really struggle. However once I had decided on a theme and a colour palette the design started to flow and I am SO pleased with how it turned out!

I am going to develop the collection further adding new placement and repeat prints using the same motifs and colour palette. Who knows where Tom will go next!

Images copyright Rosie Simons 2012

Spoonflower Arrows contest

This weeks Spoonflower contest was Arrows, and for the first time ever I entered a design!

It's so exciting seeing it up there on the site with lots of other lovely designs and knowing lots of people out there will see it when placing their all important votes!

The only restriction of the contest (other than sticking to the theme of arrows) was to make a seamless repeat pattern, so I set about interweaving arrows to make an interesting repeat.

Below is my entry, once I had decided on the layout I played around with different colour ways for the design, but then had so many I couldn't decide which one I liked best. I chose this one as it is the most 'me' but will share some of the other colour ways soon! You can vote here!

There are lots of fantastic designs in this weeks contest, below are the designs I voted for..

1. love_arrows by jlwillustration 2. Aztec Arrows by demigoutte 3. woodland_weathervanes by gillianchamberlin 4. Tribal Arrows (Navy Mix) by pennycandy 5. Shot through the Heart by kfay 6. Fabric_-_Arrows_v1 by orsocrafty 7. Chevron, Arrow, Pointer by ebygomm 8. tammie-bennett-arrows-01 by tammiebennett 9. Patterned Arrowhead Chevron by chunkydesign 10. Arrows - Scattered on Navy by papersparrow

Creative Fluidity

Yesterday I was struggling with creative block working on a current brief. I decided to have a rest from the project and doodle a with my Wacom tablet.

I found it very relaxing to draw fluidly and within an hour produced a motif, repeat tile and mocked up the design as wallpaper. It felt great to achieve something in such a short time and it is a really adaptable pattern so can be used at different scales and in different colours for different products.

It also helped me to get back into my creative flow and go back to the project I was struggling with with more ideas and flow.

Below is a little sneak peek of the design, more to come soon!

Images copyright Rosie Simons 2012

100th blog post!

This post is my 100th blog post, so lets make it a good one eh?

Here's a new design I've been working on.. you can see it in my Spoonflower shop here!

Image copyright Rosie Simons 2012

Mint obsession

I have a mint obsession and it's really starting to show!

I bought some mint jeans at the weekend and I cannot wait to wear them! Here is an image of a similar pair (don't worry this isn't me!)

Mint seems to be everywhere this season and there are some lovely mint colour palettes doing the rounds on Pinterest..

Today I have been working on an abstract repeat pattern created with shapes and colours found within imagery of 'industry in New York City' and found this also becoming mint based! So here is a little sneak peek of the work in progress project..

More coming soon!

My spoonflower fabric came!

Today is a very very exciting day! My spoonflower fabric I posted about last week arrived, and it is such an exciting experience to see your own design printed so professionally on fabric!

So here are a few photos, I chose colours which are very hard to photograph it seems!

Really happy with how it's come out! The colour, as expected, is slightly different to how it looked on screen and how I had imagined but it works well! The fabric is now available to purchase from my spoonflower shop here!

Update of the full project coming soon when I have made things with the fabric. Planning to make bunting, bags and possibly cushion covers too!

Custom printed fabrics

I posted a while ago about how Spoonflower was an amazing service and how I wanted to get some of my own designs printed on fabric, but I never had the time or opportunity to do it, until now!

I've been working on the YCN Marks & Spencers Picnic Project, and decided to tackle it by designing a pattern and identity for the entire range. I wanted to do a fun family picnic with a healthy theme, to promote healthy eating. I will post about the entire project later when everything is finished but for now just wanted to share the designs I have just sent off to get printed on fabric!

I designed an apple pattern, with bright summery colours, fun patterns and textures and a healthy fruit theme, shown below is the tile and repeat.

I also designed a textured stripe pattern using the same colours to compliment the apple print, shown below is the tile and repeat.

I just love the feeling of summer and happiness these designs bring to me! It's been fantastic working on them and I can't wait to receive the printed fabric, and make something with it, which I will of course share!

You can view my fabrics on Spoonflower here, they are not yet for sale but hopefully once I've received mine and am happy with it, it will be available for anyone to buy.. how exciting!

Fabric Designs

I've been working on some fabric designs, I want to get a collection, or maybe even two, printed using Spoonflower.

I sent off for my free fabric samples from Spoonflower, so hopefully by the time I have finished designing my fabric repeats the samples will have come so I can choose the best fabric for the collection.

These are just a few of the first designs I've been experimenting with for the collection, still all work in progress, but all using the same shapes in different colours and repeat patterns.










Will post more later as they come!

Just found..

This.

I designed this motif a couple of months ago but forgot to ever post it.

It was just when I was thinking about good designs for screenprinting that I remembered this so decided to dig it out and post it! I'm going to try and screenprint it soon as I think it would work really well..

Below is the motif I created..



I then realised the motif would work well in reverse colour..



And also in a 9x9 repeat, I used 9 different colours..



9 pink hearts..



9 turquoise hearts..



And finally the 9x9 repeat in reverse purple colour way..



Going to put this on my USB so I'm ready to print it when given time!

Wallpaper

This might look rather simple but this was my first attempt at making a pattern that repeats for wallpaper.. So i was quite impressed when it actually worked and fitted back together! Now to develop it..