Monday 30 January 2012

Oh Fashion.........

Yep peeps it's time for more F.A.S.H.I.O.N ! Milan fashion week showed off the latest Fall 2012 collections for Menswear with Burberry as always catching my eye. So I decided to create a few moodboards to show you my favourites! Love, Love , Love !


The colour mixes are just divine ! So rich with warmth ! yummy !



These colours work so well together & I would actually buy this little bag number myself ! Well ok dream of buying it, not quite in my price bracket but hey ho I am sure some of the high street stores will have their own interpretations on these out in the Fall !! Interesting !


Patterns are key here ! Polka dots for Men ? In small quantities I think it works ! More likely to see my ickle Spencer wearing them instead of Hubby ! 



All images taken from www.style.com & then collated by moi !

Gutted, it appears that it is the return of the flat cap !! My hubby loves his (me, not so much ) so once he know's Burberry are all over it there will be no stopping him ! Oh great !

 Now this is where it gets confusing ! I am now currently designing for Spring / Summer 2013, being inspired by the catwalks from September 2011 , however the catwalks are about again & currently showing for Autumn/ Winter 2012 ! You still with me ? Yep I know, it gets a little bit puzzling ! Think I will go into more detail on that one another time ! x


Nice ickle mention..........

Morning folks ! Hope no-one has the Monday blues on this chilly day ! I am actually quite chirpy considering & was also excited to see a piece of my work on Rachael Taylors blog on Friday. Or was it thursday? Can't quite remember as the days kinda blend into one at the moment !

Anyway here is the piece that was showcased a long with other work from some very talented peeps ! Why tanking you Rach !



 Also see below the alternative colourway I did ! I think the colours are a little more vibrant on this option but can't decide which I prefer more ! What are your thoughts ?


Oh & here is a close up of my little quirky number at the bottom left ! Random but made me giggle !



Enjoy your day peeps !

Oh & did I say that it is the start of Module 2 today of the Surface Pattern E-course ! So off I trot to get inspired ! x



Wednesday 25 January 2012

Weconnectfashion.......

Any of you on twitter ? In my eyes Twitter is a must !
What I love about twitter is the fact you are constantly updated from all the leading trend companies, designers, stores etc etc.... about fashion news & articles that might appeal. It is also a great tool to get job alerts & other exciting opportunities. As I was doing my morning round of 'tweet watching' yesterday I came across a tweet from mpdclick about one of  their current SS13 kidswear trends being available to view at WeConnectFashion. Now I have never come across this website before & I love my trends so this was a real treat for me ! One to add to the favourites people.x
So this is some of what they posted yesterday!  






Hope you enjoy the little treat & DO make sure you head over to WeConnectFashion as there are plenty more trend reports to get giddy about from some of the leading trend companies!







I love getting little insights on what the up & coming trends are. It's always good to have that little bit of re-assurance that you are on the right lines with your trend boards & garment collection ! yey x

Enjoy your day people ! x





Tuesday 24 January 2012

Anyone noticed anything different ?

 Just an ickle post for today ! Anyone notice my new additions to the blog over the weekend ? Check out my twitter & linkedin logo to the right of the screen. It now means you can click on image & follow me on twitter or check out my linkedin profile in more detail !

They actually need a little bit of tweeking as I am not a 100% happy with the colour usage ! I am a prefectionist don't you know ! It will do for now !
See you all soon x

Monday 23 January 2012

More tea Vicar.......

Morning all, it's Monday morning & time for a cuppa & a biscuit ! I adore tea, it is sad to say but I would pick a cuppa over an alcoholic beverage any day ! Yes I am now 30 but behaving like a 50 year old & still looking like a teenager ! Odd combination !

Anyway a few weeks ago now there was a chance to put work forward for Mary Portas store in House of Fraser & I has a few ideas I wanted to put forward ! But silly me didn't read the brief correctly & what I thought said deadline for 'emailing' it was in fact sending which meant I didn't even get chance to register ! Silly old me ! What have I learnt from this ,Don't leave deadlines till the last minute & also make sure you fully read the small print instead of just skimming over it last minute !
So I thought why the hell not add my design options onto here , might as well only going to be hidden in the computer otherwise !
 So here we go my little tea cup & saucer ideas ! 


This above option is my favourite of the two !

Friday 20 January 2012

It's Friday people and as 5pm approaches it means the weekend is nearly here! Yippee. What a full packed week for me & my family ! The most important thing I need to mention is the safe arrival of our beautiful teeny tiny nephew : Isaac Michael. Mummy did amazingly & we are all so proud of her. Just be glad when she's out of hospital & back home with daddy. Fingers crossed for tomorrow. Seeing ickle Isaac gets me thinking about our Spencer Riley  who is soon to hit 9months! Eeeekkk, where did that time go hey! He's our world, wanna see a little pic ?


This picture above is of my hubby & ickle boy on the choo choo train on our way to the Santa's grotto before Christmas.

This choo choo train has been my inspiration for collection of prints I have been working on & plan to show you one day soon but for today I leave you with just a snippet of what's to come. 


Choo Choo train Larger Scale.
Please remember these are all copyright to Diane Davies & are my own original designs.

I have taken inspiration from the button features on the Choo Choo trains for this above option I have been working on !

& last but not least Choo Choo train ickle scale !
Which is your favourite then ? he he

So on with the week's events. We had a meeting with our solicitors with ref to our house move on Tuesday! All very exciting yet busy times ahead ! We are hoping to move in the next two weeks which will mean a little break from the blog while I transfer all my junk from House A to house B ! Ha but at last I will have a bigger creative place to work from as well as more room for Spencer to crawl around ! We have kinda out-grown this one a tad & it's now time to begin our family adventures somewhere else ! Fingers crossed for us peeps x  


Work is progressing nicely at the minute & I have a few ideas that I can't wait to share on here but I think this will have to wait until the house move is completed otherwise these additional extras to my never ending list are going to make me go cuckoo !
 Enjoy your weekend peeps x

Blog mention while I remember.........

Noticed a few of my designs posted on Rachael Taylor's blog yesterday as well as other fab prints from classmates on the Surface pattern design e-course ! It was actually featured on Tuesday but with lots going on I kinda missed that one ! Yippee



Make sure you go check it out

Why Tanking you Rachael ! As some of you know I am currently doing the Surface pattern e-couse & can wait for Module 2 to kick start at the end of the Month !

This is just a little mention this morning so I have an additional post pencilled in for later this afternoon ! Just a round up of my week really but got a few cutsy pics of Spencer to show you guys !


Thursday 19 January 2012

As promised .........

So to follow on from yesterday's post please see a small selection of my outerwear designs that have now made it to store !  Even though I did design the jackets for these particular options below, it's all about team work ! It's isn't as straight forward as designing something & then da da, six months later it's found it's way in toa London shop!
Oh no, a lot of hard work goes into getting a garment into store including negotiating with prices / making samples  / fitting the garments ( several times may  I add )& press etc.... The list goes on & it involves a lot of other departments within the company , the merchandises , buying team , production team, warehouse team ! Yep, it's all about team effort !


Look what I just found !


Oh & here's one at the lovely ASOS ! yey x


Wednesday 18 January 2012

A snippet into my design world........

Well I thought it was about time I showed you a little bit more garment design work instead of overloading you with print creations ! Now my main area of expertise is in fact trend forecast & garment design. I have over 6 years experience working with a large selection of retail high street stores & key Uk brands. This work below was sketched for AW11- So would have gone into store last September onwards depending on what delivery hits they did ! I can't be giving all our  design secrets away though, so I have just photocopied a few key CAD sheets for you to view. Let's say a behind the scenes view of it all !  Enjoy x



These have been designed in-house. This particular brief was designed for the well-known internet website ASOS. We looked at key trends & shapes at designer level as well as what was already on the high street from other key trend stores ( ie : topshop / River Island ) & then developed a collection of Outerwear options for them to select from !


Other details that need to be finalised when designing garments are the fabrics & trims used for a product as well as the measurements of the jacket. We normally collate what 'we in the industry' call a size spec !
When sampling most companies sample in a Medium for Menswear & either a Size 10 or 12 for Ladieswear depending on the company. From personal experience stores like Marks and Spencers will always sample in size 12 , where as the likes of ASOS & Topshop which is a younnger target customer will sample in Size 10.

These boards are created on Illustrator & once a CAD is selected with the buyers we tend to proceed with sampling the garment. Sampling involves sending these CADS ( Computer aided designs ) over to our over-seas factories for them to make a mock-up of the jacket for the buyer to decide whether they will buy the garment for production.



It is always important when producing design packs that you include as much information about the design as possible.

 

There we go, a little insight into my design world when I worked in-house as a freelance designer at an Outerwear company ! Only a snippet of what I do mind & I hope I have explained myself properly with it all !! Head back tomorrow as I plan to show you a design board of a few jackets I created that made it to store this AW !! 

Oh & did I tell you that 'Caggie' from 'Made in  Chelsea' was seen wearing one of my designs created for Barneys only a few months ago ? Well that is a whole other blog post that I hope to share with you when possible ! So stay tuned x




Monday 16 January 2012

It's Monday & what a little treat I have for you today ! Let me introduce you to some of the many scrumptious illustrations from the 'Gorjuss' collection. I adore them, infact I have a little obsession & have quite an assortment cluttering my bedroom including notebooks / china mugs,( these are in the kitchen obviously ) diaires ( Yes plural ) & a calendar .... the list goes on ! So here is a little snippet of some of my favourites by the wonderful Suzanne Woolcott.

This is one from my card collections !

Then from my notebook collections !How old am I again ? Oh yes, 30 not 13 but still love them ! he he

Then we have my little sticky notes !

I have to be honest I don't use them as they are too pretty to waste !

Oh & one more !

So I leave you today with a little bit of Info on the lovely work by Suzanne which you can buy from here. I actually got a few more treats for Christmas off  hubby which he actually brought from Boots ( only seem to do them at xmas though ! Silly really ) including my very cute teapot ! I will try and get a few more pictures on here over the next few weeks if your interested !


Enjoy your day peeps x

Thursday 12 January 2012

Another Tigerprint Comp..........

Afternoon peeps,

So I got the chance to enter this month's 'What is Love?' competition with Tigerprint & emailed my entries over earlier today. I have to say I was really pleased with them until they went online & I saw them sat with all the other entries. They kinda looked a bit bland next to the other entries! There are some really lovely submissions and mine didn't seem to stand out at all.I think while my colour palette looked pretty vibrant on screen, I need to work more on grabbing your attention & really focusing more on the colours I use ! Something to work on for next month's competition x he he ! Always striving to do better ! Designers fault is being too critical !


I could see this colourful card design working best on textured card. The inside would be left blank, making this suitable for a number of occasions : i.e. weddings, just to say, birthday, valentines day etc...... I have also tried to target both males & females for this card , using a funky colour palette & I think it translates well across both genders.


Now these little designs below are a tad different to a lot of the other Tigerpprint submissions so hopefully will catch the judges eye ! I decided to add my pattern design onto the product type I felt it best worked on ! So this is what I came up with x


 Taking inspiration from the vibrant bright’s that shaped the SS12 catwalks & will run through to SS13, I have designed a quirky collection of stationary options. My perception of love was getting married to my hubby, & so for every soon to be Bride, a jotter was a must to write down all the wedding plans for the perfect day with him !
 

Following on from the above option with the stationary jotter design, I could imagine a whole collection of vibrant note books which could be aimed a such a wide market audience ! This could also translate well across gifting product/ wrap or bags ! I am now the big 30, but still very young at heart & adore this option ! Surely this is injecting a lot of fun & love into your existing ranges ?
 
It’s always important to let your loved ones know you care ! I love the idea that these ickle sticky notes could be left around the house for my hubby to find with little meaningful phrases on them! ‘Get tidying this house Mr' ! he he
  

This last design is a quirky card design & again I feel it would work best printed onto textured card . The inside would be left blank, making this suitable for a number of occasions: i.e. weddings, just to say, birthday, valentine’s day etc...... like the first option !
Do you like them ? Any feedback would be much appreciated!

Enjoy your weekend peeps , I won't be posting on here till Monday now ! But of course that means 'Illustrations Overload ' ! Woheee x






Tuesday 10 January 2012

Look what I found........

Many moons ago when I just finished my degree back in 2005, I worked as a graphics design assistant for a character license suppliers near Manchester.


See the two graphics at the top right ? Well these where taken from the Bubblegum character books we used to be supplied with each season & then we had to find ways of using these graphics on nightwear garment designs !
So I thought I would just show you snippets of the work I used to produce while I was there ! While I tend to work on very detailed design packs in my current freelance role, at this particular company it was to be kept very clean with the graphics being the main focus.


As mentioned these are from several years ago so my design style has moved on from then but it is always good to get a little bit more insight in to my style of working !
Enjoy your day peeps !


Monday 9 January 2012

Beauty in Bloom......

Yep, you guessed it, it's Marvellous Monday, which means Illustrations overload ! Today I thought I would share with you a little book of inspiration. I hope you like !

I love illustrations, fashion illustrations of any type & I have a large collection of design books , with tons of different styles that I adore. The first of many that I plan to share with you is this delicate & romantic number :


 Beauty in Bloom by Natalie Bloom is available at amazon at a bargain price. 


What I love about these is the use of watercolour with the black outline figures. It really catches your attention . 


& last but not least & just had to had this little tea number ! As many of you are aware, I am a tea addict, & love my cups & saucers so this design really makes me smile !


The illustrations are created by the very talented Rebecca Wetzler & when I had a look on the internet for other designs, look at the treats I came across !



Stunning ! x

Sunday 8 January 2012

Sunday, day of rest ? Nah........

Evening peeps, Busy day planned in the office tomorrow but of course I won't be missing out on my Illustrations post as promised so stay tuned for that!

I wanted to just let you know of my excitement for the next installment of the Surface pattern design ecourse I am currently registered for by the wonderful Racheal Taylor & Beth Nicholls.
After recently completing Module 1 , I can't wait to start Module 2 at the end of January & see what delights are in store for us all !
Rachael's design's are so vibrant & very unique , with her own individual style. Check out some of the recent products she has been working  on !


Oh la la ! Think my favourite has to be this bottom one ! All very colourful , thumb up from moi ! he he x

So if you are intrigued to find out more about The Art & Business
of Surface pattern design featuring Rachael Taylor then
 click here .


Ok, its time to head off. We are having tea at the mother-in-laws & then it's a chilled night in before my manic day in the office tomorrow ! Looking forward to it though ! Got a few design briefs to get my teeth into & hopefully enter another competition if  I get chance !
Right , where did I put that to-do-list ?