linocutboy, material and throne together



The finished book




Nick's characters

I have been dying to write about this, and as the book came through at the weekend I now can. Last month I spent a very happy few hours at Material in Ludlow. It is a fantastic gallery and shop and a great resource for books, pressies and inspiration in general. Lucy who owns it is really lovely, and together with Nick Morely aka Linocutboy, hosted a fantastic royal wedding themed day. Nick had come up with a simple (but effective!) design for a Royal Wedding themed book (we got to choose the title!) which allows the reader to make some crazy couples by choosing different pages. Everyone there was asked to design either a Prince or Princess, the crazier the better,which we cut out of lino and printed.  The images on Nick's blog  make everything clear!

collections and things organised neatly

The collections above are from http://thingsorganizedneatly.tumblr.com/ There is some great inspiration for those of us trying to put together collections for tomorrow.

collections and metro quadro

Metroquadro by Paola Navone

I found this image in Elle Decoration, and loved the collection of colours and textues. I would be really happy if my collection was as visually stimulating!

Metroquadro by Paola Navone was this years winner of the Elle Decoration International Design Award (EDIDA). It described as "a collection of six dinner plates, bowls and dessert plates that are lavishly decorated on the outside".

I did a workshop with the ceramics technical demonstrator learning about how to make, and transfer images on to ceramics. Perhaps this could be a method of displaying the work I produced that will be inspired by my collection?

collections and l'atelier d'exercices

porte plume by l'atelier d'exercise

Look! Isn't this a great way of displaying your collection? Or is it cheating having the box ready made? Who cares! But go and check out the site, there are some really beautiful and thoughtfully designed objects by Sebastian Bergne.

collections and design sponge

i love these collections featured on design sponge

There was a great post on Design Sponge today about vintage flash cards and ways to display them. The article has some great ideas about creative ways to display your cards and Lauren Proux (who wrote the article) has included some great ideas and useful links.

collections and max suffield

Black Thorns by Max Suffield

A friend reminded my of the artist Max Suffield, a brilliant example of someone whose work and what they collect being inextricably linked.  When you see Max's work up close it consists of meticulously presented, methodically arranged natural and found objects such as thorns, seeds, flowers and shells. I admire his ability to present commonly occurring objects in a way that draws the viewer in and makes you want study them more.

collections and jennifer angus

Jennifer Angus, Grammar of Ornament, 2004 Installation, University of Wisconsin

Artists' collections and the way that they are displayed is something we have been talking about in college. I found this article today about Jennifer Angus in the winter 2009 edition of Surface Design. Jennifer Angus collects bugs, thousands and thousands of them and then she pins them to walls. The patterns she favours are regular, radial medallions and geometric repeats, which 19th century designers called, "conventionalisation." As the article explains the work developed as Angus, "became increasingly curious about the world of the collector and the historical concurrence of Victorian wallpaper patterns with a a passion for amateur natural history."
There are some amazing images for her work on the internet and her website. While we won't have time to build up such an extensive collection, perhaps there is something to take from Angus' work, for example the way in which she displays the insects.
What our displays say, will not only be about the individual items that make up the collection, but also the way in which the items are put together. Perhaps with a nod to Angus, they could inspire a wallpaper design?