west elm

I've discovered lots of fantastic places whilst here in NYC, one place I'd always heard people talk about but never visited was west elm. If you've never heard of it before west elm is a contemporary furniture and homewares retailer. They sell gorgeous furniture and accessories, I spent ages in the shop taking in all the different textures, patterns and prints!

Below are some pictures of a few things I picked up, some cute little candles, an owl candle and a decoupage glass tray. Everything is so well designed and there are so many wonderful colours and patterns!

I fell in love with these bright hand painted style patterns and was so pleased when I picked up the free paper in store to find a section all about the designer, Sarah Campbell.

Even their free newspaper is just beautiful! I would just love to work for west elm, creating patterns or working on graphic design, everything is just so gorgeous and wonderfully produced!

Do check out their website westelm.com, and for more you can follow @westelm on twitter, like west elm on facebook or for even more, and overwhelming amounts of gorgeous inspiration you can follow west elm on pinterest! Or better still visit one of their stores!

Images copyright Rosie Simons 2012 - Content copyright west elm

Falling leaves

One of my favourite things when working on new designs that pop into my head is playing around with different colour palettes. I really enjoy working with colour, and as much as I love setting a colour palette and making it work across different designs, there's something beautifully organic about having a design idea pop into your head, making it but then feeling free to play around with different colour combinations to see what works best.

I have been working on this new design, inspired by falling leaves. It was lovely to play around with different colour combos, some of which I am sharing today! I love how a simple can design can have such a different feel using different colours, more energetic or relaxed, and more traditional or contemporary.

 Images copyright Rosie Simons 2012

Feature Friday - Mel Smith Designs

Today I am introducing a new feature.. Feature Friday.

I thought it would be really nice to dedicate a day on the blog to featuring designers I know and/or whose work I admire! I mean who doesn't love some gorgeous work on a Friday?

Today our *first* featured designer is..

Mel Smith Designs

I first came across Mel's work on Society6 where the design below from her 'bold & beautiful' collection caught my eye. Mel like me is a massive fan of colour and I love her use of it. This pattern really does make my heart sing!

Mel describes her style and process of working..

"My work is quite graphic but I like to keep a hand drawn feel to it all. Everything starts as quick doodles, later tidied up with neater sketches and then finally scanned into Photoshop for recolouring and creating my patterns. I could change the colour of some of my designs all day - I think colour grabs my attention first when I'm looking around shops - and think this aspect of the design is just as important as the pattern itself, if not more sometimes."

"I love retro graphics and mid-century design, as well as the whole Scandinavian look, so I think all of these styles are incorporated into my work in one way or another."

 Mel sells handmade greetings cards, magnets, buttons, earrings, rings, notebooks and more in her Etsy store

"My Bold &  beautiful and Black Border ranges have been received well in recent months and I have a variety of handmade products available in these designs. I also have wallpapers, iPhone cases, canvases, and laptop skins available from online shops Wallpapered.com and Society6" (links below)

Mel is currently open to/looking for commissioned work, so please contact her via her website.

Hope everyone enjoyed the first feature friday! Thanks Mel for sharing your work with us! If anyone is interested in having their work featured in the coming weeks please contact me on twitter (@rosie_simons)

All images copyright Mel Smith Designs

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

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

Developing my doodles

I was so pleased with how my doodles turned out I decided to try and replicate the look on the computer. I know this is very backwards but as I explained yesterday the doodles came from a new design I was working on.. so without further ado.. here are my digitally created doodles!

I loved how the doodles looked on brown paper so I mocked up the pattern on a sheet of brown paper. I would LOVE to see this printed as wrapping paper! I just love the texture of brown paper.

I got carried away playing around with different colour ways (as usual) and love the simplicity of the colour on white with the textured lines. Will reveal the whole collection this design is from very soon!

All images copyright Rosie Simons 2012

New designs

Today I am sharing with you some new designs I have been working on. There's lots of new patterns on the go here right now and I am LOVING it!

I am starting to feel that my patterns really have a signature style and show my personality well.

You may recognise the grey design below, the designs were created as part of my 'dreams' collection. You can see the existing designs printed as fabrics here and as a sneak peek here. You can also buy the existing designs as fabrics from Spoonflower here.

The new designs use the same colours and motifs as the existing designs, but have more organic layouts and mixes of motifs from different patterns. I love how all the patterns look together!

I also had very exciting news yesterday, someone purchased some of my Dreamcatcher fabric on Spoonflower! It's so exciting to know that someone likes my design enough to buy yards of it!

Lots of exciting new designs and news coming soon so be sure to check back soon! Just to tease you here is a sneak peek of a new design I am currently working on as part of a new collection I will share soon!

Images copyright Rosie Simons 2012

Featured on K A T E L Y N C H

On Friday I was featured on Kate Lynch's blog as part of her wonderful feature "Floral Friday'

Kate shared a selection of my floral designs, you can check out the post here!

Sneak peek - New card designs

Today I am introducing you to a greetings card range which I am just in the process of sending to print.

I have always wanted to create greetings cards, I think they're lovely objects to have and to hold so went about creating some of my own!

There are 4 Christmas cards, 2 different designs each in 2 different colour ways. These will be available to purchase in dual design packs; Purple and Blue Merry Christmas and Red and Green Happy Christmas or each design as a single card. I will be opening a new Etsy shop to sell the cards (and lots of exciting other stuff!) next week, so keep your eyes peeled!

I have also produced some every day greetings cards, in my 'Inky Floral' design (seen here) which will also be available to buy SOON! Don't forget to follow or check back next week for news on where to buy the cards! To keep up to date you can also follow me on Twitter or 'like' Rosie Simons Graphic and Surface Design on Facebook.

All images copyright Rosie Simons 2012

Ikat Inspiration

Ikat designs have been around for a while now and although they have been on my radar and I have been aware that they are there I haven't been particularly drawn to them.. until now.

I was browsing American Eagle and discovered some incredible Ikat denim shorts.. then some pretty ikat dresses and finally some gorgeous ikat scarves..

I love the shapes and the textures used in ikat prints, there's something very modern about them but they still have a natural feel.

I've shared some of the lovely examples I found below, enjoy!

Above: AE ikat frayed denim shortie

Above: Aerie Ikat tube dress (available in pink - top & blue hill - bottom)

Above: AEO Ikat loop scarf in Navy

Absolutely adore the colour palette and patterns on this scarf, might have to get myself one! Don't be surprised if a colour inspiration post featuring this scarf crops up soon! I could do a post alone of the gorgeous American Eagle scarves! So many loves patterns and colours! Pretty scarves are making me excited for autumn!

Above: AEO Ikat scarf

All images copyright American Eagle