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‘Fuff’ designs and sells great stuff online from a studio in a small estuary village. It also runs a successful graphic design partnership alongside which provides an illustrative outlet for that business. Both products and imagery have clean lines, confident design and great colour. Altogether ‘Fuff’ offers contemporary items, using inspiration from the designers’ local environment. Great website says it all. [Pictured are Fuff Stuff Tree, Owl and Stork] Web:
www.fuffstuff.co.uk
Kate
Knight Kate is now well established and popular due to her strong design work with vibrant composition and palette. Easily crossing over from market to market,
Kate has consistently proved a good selling designer for her clients. New projects include craft paper for Wild Rose Studio. In addition, she also returns to Collins Debden diaries for 2012 and is a regular at Origin Publishing for a variety of products. [Pictured are two delightful floral pieces] Web:
www.kateknight.co.uk
Kitty McCall
Catherine Nice, award winning textile designer has created a range of products with great colour and energy. Her love and use of a bold palette is accompanied by a precision and touch gained from working in the fashion industry. With inspiration drawn from her grandmother, coupled with her own talents as a printmaker, Catherine is now designing a range of ceramics with echoes of the South Seas. [Pictured are ‘London Words’ and ‘Birds of Paradise’] Web:
www.kittymccall.co.uk
20
www.greetingstoday.co.uk New
generations, retro and folklore
A Gill Davies Reflection
he continued shift in the trade and buying public from greeting cards towards gifts is not the end of the world. In fact, for many companies and designers it has meant a real boost in sales along with renewed satisfaction in their product lines. It’s an opportunity to run with a great design and possibly see an end to the tyranny of large numbers of good work discarded before hitting the shopper’s eye.
T
Retail has hit a period of change initiated by technology and intensified by the economic climate. The days of profligate choice in any one product seem to be numbered as the buying public are adjusting to budgeting and shopping around more than was necessary in previous years. We all hit the Internet to check out deals and that is how many of us prefer to shop for our favoured brands as well.
This has enabled a new generation of designer/ publisher/makers to become all things to their clients and pursue branding while selling product. There’s a lot of it about and it has hitched a ride on the buying public’s changing habits and readiness to accept individuals’ names in place of more anonymous company identities. It’s also allowed a portfolio career approach for designers and that is a lifesaver, income wise.
As for design style choice, we are really being spoilt at the moment with good well-wrought design available in spades. So, what if a lot of the imagery is retro or retro with a contemporary twist, it’s actually showing skill and talent with a basis of handmade originality. It looks good and is trustworthy. It’s sold well for decades, if not over a century, plus the buying public want to buy it again. Retro covers a big time scale now and from a narrow band of imagery has expanded to allow other styles to resurface. One that has been going in various forms forever is Folklore and it isn’t what
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