Sunday 23 October 2011

Positive Phrase for the day.......

I thought I would send a little positive message to you all on this lovely Sunday.!! Yikes, the weeks are going too quickly, Christmas will soon be here ! I can't wait for my first Christmas with Spencer. He will be nearly 8months old so will be a happy chappy with all the colours & treats that we give him x I also can't wait to buy an extra stocking for our living room to go next to mummys & daddy's. Exciting times........



The wording above is anonymous, but the design & font has been created by moi x

Enjoy the rest of your weekend peeps.ickle di x

Thursday 20 October 2011

Creative juices are flowing.....

I came across the below blog a few days ago after checking out the winner of the monthly competition on tigerprint.

 Monda-loves.................is a gorgeous website / blog showcasing all her design work & creations for others to see. This site really inspired me. In some of Vanessa's earlier blog posts she shows an image she has collected & the colour palette she then works from for her design work.

Back at university this is the way we worked & I loved it but working within the industry time isn't always on your side when it comes to getting ranges developed & so the research element is normally cut a little short. So going forward I need to make sure I start at the beginning. I want to create individual & unique work which has my personal stamp to it & so to do that I  first need to start with a theme / a colour palette before researching further & letting my imagination run away with me in creating a collection true to moi.

With this in mind I am starting from the beginning :
Theme :Say-No-to-Flowers !
Ok, before I show my initial ideas surrounding this image & colour palette I need to explain the title !
I love flowers ( can't look after them mind, always forget to water them ) Anyway......yes I love flowers & see a lot of design work based around flowers. Gorgeous , gorgeous ideas but while I am inspired by this image, this print story isn't going down that road! I took this photo quite a few years ago now when I went travelling around italy & I love the mix in colours. I hope you like & keep a look out for my design board over the weekend which will hopefully give you a little more insight into the way I work.

Enjoy your day peeps. x
ickle di



Wednesday 19 October 2011

An ickle bit about me .............


Hello, I wanted to just let you know a little bit about me that  I must share !
I am a bad speller ! On a positive I am very creative with lots of design ideas bursting to be set free ! So as some of you will have already noticed my posts do at times have spelling errors that really shouldn't be happening with spell check around the corner but I hope you will forgive me on this & I will still be loved !

 There I said it & I feel so much better for letting you all know.

Enjoy your day, more design treats to follow later in the week.

Ta Ta for now
ickle di

Good Morning all........well I had a busy night ! I was too excited developing my portfolio of designs further & I have got up today with the same pro-action joy ! Always a good sign ! Even better, my hubby is off so baby duty is taken care off so I can just spend a few more hours developing my ideas.

I wanted to show you guys what design boards I have been working on for Menswear though, so here goes...............

The problem with me at the moment is I have too many design thoughts going on in my ickle brain & don't know what to concentrate on first. This isn't a good thing for me as it means I am trying to do 5 things at once so that I can get these thoughts onto paper ( or my computer for that matter, he he ) before I forgot ! Baby brain really does take over!

Anyway enough babble, & hope you like my details board I developed as well.
 
These boards have been inspired by my AW12/13 trend books but of course with an individual ickle di take on them ! hope you like ?! x

Ta Ta for now
ickle di x

Tuesday 18 October 2011

Not a winner today, but hey ho ........

Well good morning all. Just a brief update today with some other scrumptious posts planned for later in the week.

It was judging day today at tigerprint for one of the many competitions they do on their site. It looks like I wasn't a winner but I am hardly suprised with the large amount of entries & wonderful designs submitted. They have just added an update on to their blog & it made me smile to see my design up there on the wall. As I start to get back into the design world it is important for me to get creative in everyway possible & I really enjoy spending a bit of time entering these competitions.


Look what pictures I came across on the tigerprint website ! There's a few showing my designs too :) x


Can you see my designs ? Second row up from the bottom ! I went for simple options for this brief as for me the wording used was the most important & I wanted the design used to compliment it but be secondary to the text!  


There are some very colourful & detailed options above & a lot of talented peeps!

Friday 14 October 2011

Do we like ?

Morning all,

It's friday yet again & I am not quite sure where the weeks are going ! It will soon be Christmas, gulp. Anyroad...... I thought I would share with you today a few competitions designs I submitted for Tigerprint. See below my thoughts on how they would be produced for store :

Option 1

I think this design would work beautifully with raised felt lettering & wet look effect on all the star outlines. This is an ickle bit of Fun with a quirky touch that also has a very special meaning to the words used!!
 

Option 2.

I love the idea that this option would be on glossy pastel card with slightly debossed lettering in a bold shiney orange colour option, with matt finish star outlines. The caption is short but sweet & significant . x


Do you like ?

Wednesday 12 October 2011

Check em out ...........

Hiya all, now as I have pointed out previously this blog is slowly going through a bit of a re-vamp so do keep heading back over the next few weeks for further improvements but in the meantime I give you a little bit of fun with graphics.

I have endless amounts of inspirational imagery that help me in designing across multi-products & currently I am working on a fun array of prints that could work over a number of design options. So before I show you some of these creations I thought it might be interesting to feature some interesting styles that came across when doing one of my many shop reports. Now these images are from quite a while ago but I still find them very quirky and current so wanted you all to see. x
 This one is defo my favourite , I love the subtle but effective highlight colour used on this gorgeous design !


What's interesting with the below option is the fun way of using colour but keeping the text plain in a faded out black  !



 I love the repeat prints on the clouds on this design. & of course you can never go wrong with a polka dot print





This bird repeat is very on trend still & I like the simplicity of the colour palette used.


Again the colours of this option are so refreshing & I really like the softness of the design !


Do you like ? Stay tuned as I plan to add more blog posts on here over the next few weeks ! yey x

Monday 10 October 2011

AW12 /13 Trend books.........

Right peeps, I am very excited to show you snippets of my very inspirational AW12/13 trends books that I purchased for both menswear & ladieswear. Here goes :





The Illustrations used are so strong & I love the colours showing through for this season.
The books are really inspiring & show the main themes for the season as well as colour  boards, key catwalk influences & then key shapes. If you want more information on the books email me & I will pass the name of the books & the all inportant prices for you to look into further : ms.diane@hotmail.co.uk


One of the Menswear themes is 'WHARF . Taken from the book it states : ' authenic styles are heading in a cooler, more industrial direction' Looks are based on nautical uniforms & authentic workwear x interesting !

& these below images are taken from another theme which I can't really give away at this stage but head back in a few weeks for my takes on them with some funky & detailed design boards x





Hope you liked ?!

My Resources..........

As I continue my design developments in the studio I thought it would be a good idea to show you snippets of some of my trend books I own that help me along the way.
On a recent trip to Milan I purchased a selection of key magazines across Menswear / Ladieswear & Childrenswear with one of my favourites being : Collezioni pret a porter that highlights the key designer catwalk collections from earlier this year.



Vogue bambini is also a favourite of mine as it has such adorable childrenswear features & I really do get a lot of inspiration from these magazines.


Later today I plan to do a brief feature of two design trend books I recently got from Mode Information for AW12 /13 ! I was extremely excited to receive these in the post & will share with you a tiny bit of what is included in the books ! These books are just amazing for freelance designers , & a great source of inspiration for us to work from and develop further to create our own boards & CADS for clients to select from.

Stay Tuned x

Friday 7 October 2011

Time for Change ........

Morning guys,

Ok, I have been thinking a lot lately at how I can put all my ideas & experience to good use & really showcase my work in a positive light & receive the best outcome ! My focus for the next year is to get more freelance work & praise from others that they like the work they see !

Now as I have mentioned briefly in the past , I am currently on maternity leave with our beautiful addition to the family : Spencer Riley who is coming up to 5 & 1/2 months old ( yikes where does the time go )Anyway I am surrounded by design ideas in my Studio & get slightly frustrated with myself that I am not using my ablilities in the best way.


So going forward I am hoping to share with  you on here my work in progress as well as any design research I collate. Now as friends & family know I am a bit of a horder & over my many years in the industry, I have collated files & files of strong imagery & books , inspirational finds that I am sure others would like to see. I also do a lot of research on the internet , looking at prints, interesting designs etc.... so hope to show this on here so you can see my design style further.



This of course will take a little bit of time & patience so please do keep heading back to see what scrumptious ideas I have for you all x x
So I am back, ready to follow my dreams of balancing family life with working in a creative way & hopefully beginning back in the world of freelance v soon........ Watch this Space. x   

Thursday 6 October 2011

Work in progress............

I am currently working on the site, to make it a little more appealing to you all to view & hopefully you will like what you see. In the meantime see below a few buisness card ideas I am working on ! Long way to go with my designs but give it time & I will be back on track x

Do you like ?