Category Archives: J’adore

05/04/2012 · 6:53 pm

J’adore… Nikki Farquharson

It’s been a while since my last J’adore post, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been inspired! I have been posting about my adventures at University more recently but going to try and get back into J’adore.

Nikki Farquharson is a graphic designer-turned-illustrator who has a passion for shapes, patterns and colour (which I love too – check out my Pinterest board)! I first became aware of her work when a new nightclub opened in Lincoln and I was given a striking leaflet which I actually have on my wall…

(I started making a collage on my wall in August but haven’t got around to finishing it yet…)

…and the rest of her work is just as amazing:

I just can’t get enough of all the line variations, mix of shapes and clashing colours.

Another thing I love about Nikki’s work is her mixed media approach. I think the use of photography with hand drawn illustration makes it really eye catching and can’t believe that they are hand rendered.

It’s no surprise that Nikki has been commissioned by many magazines and brands to create fresh and quirky visuals:

Fashion spread in Missbehave Magazine

Make Up packaging for Benefit Cosmetics

and this AMAZING bottle design for Malibu – good enough to eat!

And Nikki’s talents aren’t limited to creating just pretty patterns:

… she does type too! To see what this spells, check out her shop where you can purchase a screen printed version.

Nikki has also produced Random Got Beautiful, which she describes as: ‘An ongoing photographic project which is open to public participation. Its concept is to take images containing dominant colours out of their original context and place them together to create a new one.’

I love this – such a great, interesting idea! Submit your own photos.. I am going to have a flick through my albums and see if I can donate anything.

So definitely visit Nikki’s website because she’s got a lot of interesting collaborations happening – I can’t wait to see what she does next.

1 Comment

Filed under Fashion, Graphic Design, Illustration, J'adore, Typography

Tagged as , , , , ,

14/10/2011 · 10:26 am

J’adore… Paperchase Grid Look

Back home the nearest Paperchase is a 40min trip to Peterborough, so moving to the city (aww I’m such a country girl) and having one in Lincoln centre is a treat for me (but not so much for my purse!).

I love popping in there to look at the cards, sketchbooks and all the lovely patterns on the wrapping paper. They do a lot of grid-ish and triangular patterns which you might have picked up that I’m a big fan of and the one that they use as their main website and shop theme is no exception:

This season they have the ‘Grid Look’ collection which is right up my street:

Geometric shapes, patterns and brown paper = lovely!

Also a fan of the greyscale triangle version pattern with hints of fluoro orange (and they do green instore too)…

Might have to treat myself to the brown paper sketchbook, but I’m still having that problem with wanting sketchbooks to look perfect so I wouldn’t want to go wrong in it/ruin it! :(

If you like this collection from Paperchase, you’ll probably like some of the patterns on my Pinterest so check it out!

Paperchase are currently doing a demonstration week at their Flagship store in Tottenham Court Road, London and I’m quite gutted that I can’t go!

They are offering:
Permaset Screen Printing Demonstration
Uni Mit Posca Pen Demonstration
Staedtler Fimo Demonstration
Daler Rowney Paint Demonstration
Caran d’ache Drawing Demonstration

Sounds pretty cool to me… why is London so far away? :( But on the plus, I have my printmaking induction at Uni on Tuesday coming up so I will then be able to go and do some  fun bits and bobs which I’ve really missed doing since college!

1 Comment

Filed under Graphic Design, J'adore

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

15/09/2011 · 7:44 pm

J’adore… Olly Moss

Olly Moss is a young British creative who generated a lot of attention back in May with his first solo exhibition, Paper Cuts, at Gallery 1988 in Los Angeles.

I first came across Olly’s work on T-shirt website, Threadless, with his humorous twist on the popular British design classic ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’

He has had many t-shirt designs printed, but I think Olly’s real talent is for poster design. In 2010 he designed Star Wars Triology posters for art house Mondo. They were available from Mondo’s website but they, of course, have sold out and Olly doesn’t plan on doing a second edition, as he says here on his blog. We might not be able to get our hands on one, but luckily for us we can view them via the internet!

What a great set of posters! Even if you’re not a Star Wars fan, there’s no denying that Olly’s simple silhouette vector style is striking and has a strong impact. This can also be said for other posters by Olly…

All of these posters are so simple and iconic of the film being portrayed.

  

I love the textures used to take these designs away from being flat blocks of colour!

Olly uses really powerful colours with his silhouette style to create iconic imagery. It’s a bit like Saul Bass reincarnated? Haha

He is really good at seeing shapes, demonstrated in his development process for his Dirty Harry poster and also with his on going project Alphabattles…

  

… spot the letters? :) Another example of his cleverness is this:

Great work from Olly and I’m sure there is plenty more to come!

Leave a Comment

Filed under Graphic Design, Illustration, J'adore

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

14/08/2011 · 6:34 pm

J’adore… Luke Elliott

What can you make with a cupboard that you found in a skip…?

With some creative flair and elbow grease, you can produce something beautiful like this:

Such precision! Lino is hard enough to work with so I am actually just amazed at how Luke managed to get his edges so sharp. It must have taken his forever and/or is truly skilled!

And it’s even more beautiful printed:

I love Luke’s choice of two-tone colours for the ink

I first saw Luke’s work on the Computer Arts Gallery here, where he explains a bit more about the project:

“The aim of this project was to use a found object and to make something beautiful out of someone else’s waste. I found an old cupboard in a skip and created a hand-carved woodblock poster. It was printed in two-tone colour on Daler Rowney 160gsm paper and given away as self-promotion at my degree show.”

I am a really big fan of using items for other purposes so this project gets a gold star from me :)

I love ‘The Design Bakery’ Identity – so cute…

…I can just smell the fresh bread – yum!

And also the Nottingham Trent Degree Show 2010 Identity, both collaborations of Luke Elliot,  Toby Edwards and Joe Stephenson.

Joe describes the vision: ‘Made from 111 dots, the logo represents the 111 ‘bright new talents’ graduating in the summer. The idea offers a brand to unify the breadth of work from 111 different students, and the simplicity has allowed it to transend a variety of different media.’

I realise I’m a year late, but I think it’s still great :) I shouldn’t really be promoting Nottingham Trent with Lincoln being a rival and all, but you can’t deny good design. Simple but effective – always a good combo!

4 Comments

Filed under Graphic Design, J'adore, Printmaking, Typography

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , ,

07/08/2011 · 10:35 am

J’adore… Zim & Zou

I’m a bit obsessed with paper craft atm sorry but honestly, J’adore couldn’t be more appropriate for this post about French graphic designers Zim & Zou! Now prepare yourself for a colourful trip Back to Basics, 80′s style… in paper:

The amount of detail on this camera is just AMAZING! I know I’m a loser but it makes me really excited! If I owned one of these I would look at it in awe everyday…

Zim & Zou are also known as Lucie Thomas and Thibault Zimmermann and they have a graphic design studio based in Nancy, France. (Random fact: I went on holiday to Nancy once when I was a little’un.) ‘The studio proposes a contemporary approach of design thanks to a mix of different fields such as paper sculpture, installation, graphic design, illustration…’ A great mix if you ask me!

Ohhhh look and there’s even tape in the middle of the cassette! Wondering how they make these amazing replicas?

From this… to this…

I just love this project! All of the bright coloured paper reminds me of some experimentation I did for a Uni project in first year, Sonic Soundscapes. I wasn’t proud of my final outcome so I never blogged about it in the end but maybe I will blog the experimentation. Experimentation is something I usually struggle with in terms of using different media(I tend to go digital quite early on) so I really pushed myself and it turned out some quite cool effects in the end (if I do say so myself). I’ve got loads of bright coloured paper for writing notes on but I like to cut shapes out of them sometimes to make patterns and stuff… haha

To see more paper technology check out the project, on Behance for a floppy disk, the first mobile phone and a walkman!

I’ve been following Zim & Zou on Behance for ages now (for like 2 years so this J’adore post is REALLY overdue) and they are just such masters at paper craft projects:

Yummy! I have a bit of a thing for brown parcel paper (I think it works nicely with the mint green for my personal branding?)!

Loooove the origami penguins, but most of all the spirograph snowflakes. Takes me back – I remember having a set of the spirograph stencils when I was younger.

I love when artists show a bit of behind the scenes action… I like to see all the different stages of a piece because I like to see how things are made and it makes me feel like im exclusive/ there in person… haha

Zim & Zou are amazingly talented paper crafters and I always get really excited when they post new projects. I can’t wait for the next update from them… if you’re the same then fill your time by checking out all of their beautiful projects at their website!

2 Comments

Filed under Craft, Graphic Design, J'adore, Paper Craft

Tagged as , , , , , , ,