Major Project and Graduate Show
For my last ever project I decided to branch out of my comfort zone and try something a lot more bright and minimal. I researched designers and brands such as Marimekko, Kauniste and Svenskt Tenn to get a feel for Scandinavian design, and also looked at Orla Kiely and Oliver Bonas to broaden my knowledge on simplistic yet effective design methods. Most of these designers use block shapes and limited colour palettes to create bold and exciting patterns for their products. I titled the project "Väri", which means "colour" in Finnish to ground the Scandinavian theme as I looked at so many Finnish and Swedish designers.
I took this Scandinavian design aesthetic and applied it to my first hand research which included photography from multiple museums including Cardiff's extensive entomology collection and many gardens within the National Trust scheme to allow myself to have a wealth of imagery to work from. I chose to research from these places because I wanted to use UK local flora and insects within my work to link it back loosely to the current pollinator crisis after being inspired by this topic at Kew Garden's exhibition "The Hive". The links to the National Trust in the background of my work are highly important to me because the preservation of UK nature sites is extremely important for the survival of bees and other pollinators.
The collection I decided to design was interior based, kitchenware specifically. I created digital wallpaper designs as the main showpieces, and added digital and screen printed tea towel designs alongside screen printed and laser cut and engraved coasters and place mats to show a cohesive collection. As well as this I created a lampshade from laser cut and painted wooden bees to bring the colour scheme together and to showcase the bees as the main inspiration for my work. Alongside these final pieces I will be showing a portfolio of other work, and a digital design folder showing multiple colourways of each of the main designs, along with designs that had been cut from the collection.
The Surface Pattern Design graduate show will be open to public view on the 16th May 2018, in the ALEX building on Alexandra Road, Swansea.
