industry

the colours of 2014

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Back in 2012 I started a colour project on Twitter, using Pantone references ( @pantone ) that represent particular colours of the season, place or activity of the day alongside photographs that I have taken. The words relate to the language of colour, seasons and the activities so often word-play is used, particularly in relation to Coated, Uncoated or Process, as used in the Pantone system of colour. Having kept this going for over two years I decided to look back to see the colour swatches of 2014, a record of colour of my year, having recorded pattern of 2014 in my previous post. In chronological order under the swatches are the Tweets to tell you about the images, they read from top L to R, along each row ending with the hyacinth, bottom R.

From this point on we can look forward to 2015…. Happy New Year…

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Kate Farley @katefarleyprint  ·  Jan 27

ORANGES! A new breakfast treat, from @pantone180 solid to process = marmalade

Kate Farley @katefarleyprint  ·  Feb 12

Brilliant @pantone Red DS 75-1Uncoated; a gig of captured whispers & exploding electric noise @annacalvi Outstanding!

Kate Farley @katefarleyprint  ·  Mar 2

Yesterday: @pantone DS 290-1 Coated, sights of fresh green but otherwise muddy underfoot – Spring has sprung

Kate Farley @katefarleyprint  ·  Mar 9

Crocus delights: @pantone process, heading home, 49-1Uncoated, Spring sun

Kate Farley @katefarleyprint  ·  Mar 15

Malvern moss green @pantone DS 312-1U = process walking & uncoated. A beautiful spring day #Herefordshire

Kate Farley @katefarleyprint  ·  Mar 29

Spring green @pantone 389 Uncoated, on the eve of BST. Euphorbia at its best!

Kate Farley @katefarleyprint  ·  Apr 11

Bored of blossom? Beautiful @pantone 684 PC – Solid optimism to Process – the Spring growing season.

Kate Farley @katefarleyprint  ·  May 21

Okay so it’s not #RHSChelsea but stunning @pantone 806 Solid pink Uncoated. Sadly rain due to spoil it tonight!

Kate Farley @katefarleyprint  ·  Jun 27

A lot of @pantone 207 PC with @tiborreich on behalf of @textilesBCU Every colour under the sun and rain. #textiles

Kate Farley @katefarleyprint  ·  Jul 10

Today = A sunny @pantone yellow 604 Uncoated and optimistic on all fronts! #colour

Kate Farley @katefarleyprint  ·  Jul 21

A stunning yellow @pantone 386 Uncoated, hot & with plants growing in the wrong place across the plot. #weeds

Kate Farley @katefarleyprint  ·  Jul 25

A stunning, loud and proud @pantone Red hot 032 Uncoated and attracting the insects today. #dahlia #colour

Kate Farley @katefarleyprint  ·  Aug 1

RED! Harvest time with these @pantone 200 Coated at the moment crab apples, soon to become jelly! #colour #harvest

Kate Farley @katefarleyprint  ·  Aug 11

Pink @pantone 679 Uncoated, wild and fresh from #Dartmoor #heather #colour

Kate Farley @katefarleyprint  ·  Sep 3

Blooming special rose @pantone 7417 Uncoated & without an umbrella – let’s hope for no rain! #colour #rose #weather

Kate Farley @katefarleyprint  ·  Sep 8

A stunning @pantone 611 Solid Process flower but I’m waiting for the squash! #colour #PlottoPlate #runningoutoftime

Kate Farley @katefarleyprint  ·  Oct 6

It was sunny yesterday, Uncoated with @pantone orange 021 nasturtiums. #colour #autumn #allotment

Kate Farley @katefarleyprint  ·  Oct 20

Happy to receive @pantone Coated 201 red windfall apples from the allotment at the weekend. #harvest #sharing

Kate Farley @katefarleyprint  ·  Dec 7

A stunning @pantone Solid 158 watching me dig at the plot today, Coated of course #colour #allotment #digging #robin

Kate Farley @katefarleyprint  ·  Dec 30

Blooming! We are enjoying the seasonal @pantone 226 Uncoated and indoors #hyacinth

A new design: working it all out

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I’ve created more designs than I can remember since I began ‘formal’ pattern making back in 1992. Some aren’t worth worrying about, some I’m still extremely proud of and some are still waiting for the right time to make their debut… (I can’t wait to show you some very special ones next year but I’m sworn to secrecy.)

Some designs work themselves out for themselves; I vividly remember shutting my eyes to get some sleep right in the middle of my final major project on my degree, when suddenly my mind spun in to action, and there in my mind was a design, colour separated and waiting to be drawn out for screen the very next day. Other designs I battle for days on, and eventually win through demonstrating more stubbornness than the design itself.  I don’t give up easily.

In all my designing, however hard or easy it was in the making, I aim for them to appear strikingly straightforward, as if they did just happen on their own. I was accused by a tutor for being lazy – he didn’t understand minimalism – when in actual fact, it’s far harder to let the negative space be as important as the motifs we can sometimes throw at a design like pennies to a pond. Space can be beautiful.

I’ve taken a slightly different direction to making the most recent patterns; some would argue they are more traditional, more formal, more fussy even. I’ve certainly battled with the minutiae. I thought it nice to share the journey a little, but do bear in mind, every dot, line AND space have been considered, reconfigured, tested, discussed and revised more times than I’m counting (and that’s before I even think about colour). I hope you like the results. The design will feature in my new work to launch at TentLondon in September, so watch this space.

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The image shows: initial sketch / proportions of the motif, repeat / rhythm testing of the drawing before the lino block is cut, the lino block being printed, and the final digital artwork. The inspiration is a mix of kitchen gardens and formal gardens of the National Trust.

 

Communicating Colour

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Evocative, technical, predictive, informative, for matching, mixing, ordering, cataloguing, of materials, surfaces, finishes, whims and traditions…

Working across the fields of surface design, textiles, public art and fine art I have come across many ways to represent colour in order to communicate qualities. Whether it be for perfecting a match for production, or generating an evocative palette for a client, each niche within the industry has its way of doing things. Black for the Northern Line, double yellow for no parking, gold for the winner, and red for wrong. From Global Color, to Farrow & Ball, Pantone to Berisfords the language of colour is key. Some give codes, other names, sometimes a swatch, others a smudge, universal, local, a science and an art!

Seductive, formal, in a book, or on a card, each help to create the colours in the world around us, and while the skills of the individuals choosing, producing and matching will no doubt be overlooked by most, may the colours continue to sing, calm, provoke and much more.

I’ve brought some of the various forms of colour I work with together to brighten up this grey, wet Monday in February.

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‘Chelsea’ drawings to design for David Mellor Design

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Many months ago I had the go-ahead from Corin Mellor to design a bespoke pattern to celebrate the fabulous ‘Chelsea’ salad servers that he designed for David Mellor Design. When I first saw the cutlery I immediately really liked the look of them and when I received the servers they were amazing to hold – they still are. Impressive in weight and size, the shape is simple yet stunning, and they inspired me to set about drawing. With a number of design options I provided Corin Mellor, Creative Director and his retail team, they discussed and advised, and before long we agreed on this design that is now printed on to linen union tea towels and sold on my website, David Mellor shops in Hathersage and London as well as Museums Sheffield.

With the tea towel now listed in the ‘Special Products’ section of the David Mellor catalogue I thought it time to show some of the images I have of the process. I took inspiration from my visit to the factory in Hathersage where they make and display the cutlery production process as well as the objects themselves.

I’ve had great feedback and sales, we are having another print-run and they’ve received press in the form of Elle Decoration!

Thanks also to Patternbooth and Design Hunter:

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Hanbury Hall delights

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My creative practice has been inspired by National Trust gardens for the last few years and as a result I’ve had a number of people suggest I visit Hanbury Hall – finally I got round to it at the weekend. Despite the poor weather it was a delight to discover all the pockets of gardens, each carefully considered, and demonstrating the wide variety of formal and informal planting the National Trust excels at.

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Armed with my sketchbook and camera I gathered plenty of inspiration for new prints and will definitely be back later in the season.

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Its also a fantastic building inside and out. I dashed around the inside and a particular wallpaper caught my attention.

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All in all, I left feeling excited about making new work again having spent so long preparing for my solo show at Tinsmiths, opening later this month… now where did I put that lino?

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Art for all – good design for all

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My design ethos is one of quality and appropriateness for the place. Good design should be all around us, big and small, the dot on the i, the cushion on the sofa, the roof on the building – no excuses. Why settle for second best, why copy others if you can be original? It is so sad to read of big companies risking reputations, not buying the best but producing poor quality copies – stealing designs. My students tolerate my monologues on the subject!

This blog entry celebrates some examples of quality design – because that’s what we should all aim for when making but also when buying. I have come across a great book called ‘Art for All’, telling the story of London Transport Posters. The book has black and white reproductions as well as colour, but the real charm is in the illustrations from original engravings of birds by Clare Leighton, printed in a salmon pink, as well as illustrations by Eric Ravilious (see below).

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(Art for All – London Transport Posters 1908 – 1949, Art and Technics Ltd. London, 1949)

The quality of design in these images is inspiring, with a great sense of detail without being fussy, and such skill in creating these images in only one colour while containing so much information of texture and pattern. I admire these artists but also the people who commissioned the pieces and enabled these images to be ‘Art for All’. As an aside, Both Leighton and Ravilious produced stunning designs for Wedgwood too.

It makes me think of my own practice and how I generate imagery using drawing and printmaking to create the visual language. Yes, the computer plays a large part in ‘tweaking’ for final output / reproduction these days but it’s the marks and textures, the print quality, a smudge of graphite, that cannot be created by computer. It might be quicker creating the whole image on the computer but it wont be as good as I want it to be. Having said that, it is also the creative process of working out, testing and feeling the work resolve on paper that I most enjoy. Was the design process meant to be easy? Its the struggle and questioning that keeps me doing what I do – I’m enjoying the journey. When so much time as part of having a design practice can be spent on the computer it is important to remember to turn it off and walk away to DO the creative things…and to get better at it…

Having fun with colour

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I thought I ought to explain the project…

On Twitter I am exploring my interaction with colour in my everyday life using the Pantone references of colour – the coated and uncoated has become the play on words. Here’s the first few to give you an idea of how things may be going.

the next colour is @pantone 2985 U – of course uncoated, while we waited for @therealjohncale @hmvinstitute last night. pic.twitter.com/g097anMj

I was uncoated and really should have been wearing the apron! @pantone 200 U – coping with excess raspberry harvest pic.twitter.com/84rE5rSX

Wet! @pantone 427U certainly coated AND with waterproof trousers on. pic.twitter.com/9Rl0ABUj

What a Brum blue sky day to be in the office! @pantone 284U – definitely uncoated, and sandals! Hooray for the weekend. pic.twitter.com/HiHUzTQV

sharing the design process of Plot to Plate

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Given that I am about to take my Plot to Plate collection of designs to Top Drawer this weekend I thought people might be interested in the design journey of ideas that result in such a collection of pattern.

My ideas tend to belong as series of thoughts that I explore in a number of drawings over months, and sometimes years. I challenge myself to explore many ways to represent the same things, often resulting in simplified motifs, some would say scribbles. Drawings are often in rather utilitarian handmade sketchbooks that are not precious so there is no fear of the white blank page before I start. Sometime, in fact quite often, I draw while walking, and trying not to look conspicuous or weird as I track my way round a National Trust kitchen garden, almost creating a diagram, literally a planting plan as I go. Sometimes I make notes in my drawings, of colours, names of plants from the labels in the ground, or note references to research at a later date.

The titles of some of my designs are: xvo, xo, xxvv and these come from the shorthand I created in order to document gardens and allotments as I paced.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the studio, and for sometime after I dwell, I study, I revisit the motifs, rhythms and compositions I gathered, I redraw, formalise and create new pieces, as one-off drawings in series to exhibit and sell. Some compositions lend themselves to self-contained lino prints or screenprints and so I spend time developing the designs, cutting the plates, and enjoying the process of editioning. I could never imagine getting bored (my edition sizes are small!) of lifting the paper from an inked block, each time to discover the image. So low-tech, yet engaging.

At this point I notice elements that can be scanned in and reworked in Photoshop or Illustrator software to create repeat designs and colourways for further potential – and this is how I created the design collection of ‘Plot to Plate’.

The Plot to Plate signature design of garden, kitchen and dining tools also came from my playing with the dog-tooth check as a classic rhythm, and my keen interest in telling a story as a visual narrative. Pattern can of course be pretty, but I enjoy the challenge of asking it to communicate something beyond itself. In this instance my drawings were made directly for this purpose and I translated them for screen.

I hope the images explain the fun I have had, and the pride that I feel in this collection.

 

More examples of prints and drawings can be found on my website gallery pages

www.katefarley.co.uk

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spreading the word…

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The last month has been a good one in terms of getting some exposure for the Plot to Plate range and in particular the notebooks. As previously mentioned Elle Deco have included the books in their shopping pages, and WGSN Homebuildlife.com included them on their blog. Having had them also included on the beautiful Design Hunter blog(http://www.designhunter.co.uk) now I can add to that list Global Colour’s Mix magazine including the notebooks in their Micro Trends spread – thanks to all!