Tuesday 26 January 2016

Top Draw Olympia, London.

Hello. Welcome. Enjoy.

This show gave me an awesome new perspective into the industry of surface pattern design. 
 Having visited New Designers previously, the work here at Top Draw was different because the majority was digital print, or utilised CAD elements in part of the process. This was different to New designers where the digital work stands out as being in the minority.


Hannah Rampley was the exception to the digital rule at Top Draw with her beautiful drawings developing into bold opaque colours through silkscreen printing at her own studio! Lovely to meet you. sorry I didn't get a photo.


Ella Doran.




 Ella Doran, a surface pattern celebrity! Really lovely to meet after seeing her work in a book from the university library. Awesome use of photography manipulation into final designs. 




Keith Jones.








Thanks for the photos.



Sorry I took advantage of an empty stand.



Voyage's stand was packed full of all products possible with lovely designs and a tight set of colours which made the whole stand work as a collection.




Bookshelfspiration. Yep. Bookshelfspiration.


Men's Fashion Design, is set to skyrocket in the coming years.



Colouring book trend.




Oscar Francis has a fabrics January sale online, not for much longer.





"Take our photo"


"Wait what are you taking our photo for?!"

Ha ha, nice to meet you Victoria Eggs.





Lovely to meet the inspirational Heather Alstead. Great stand, and great work, thanks for the photos!








Had a great chat with Grace and Favour Home.


A great looking website too!



Really great looking stand and work here at Portico Designs.


Thanks for the photo.





Geometric roof to the Olympia building.



All rights to works are with the designers. 

Please contact me with any requests for photo removal.

440ccfreestyler@gmail.com

Thank you for visiting.

Oliver.

Saturday 19 December 2015

Anstey wallpaper Factory

Last week I had the absolute privilege to join Hannah Nunn and team on a colour day at Anstey Wallpaper factory, we would be sampling colours for her latest wallpaper design. Her design makes the most of the chosen technique of Gravure Printing which uses an etched copper plate roller to apply non toxic solvent based ink to the paper stock, which dries instantly on contact.

This process reminded me of a visit to Spode ceramics for the BCB where in the visitors centre there they have some original hand engraved copper plates for transfers to be baked onto the pottery. The etching process is now controlled by machines and many times more accurate.

The factory was an awesome place to visit, insanely professional and was brilliant to see the production of the designs I had seen earlier this year in the showrooms of Chelsea design centre.

More infomation on the machines and process can be found on the Anstey website; 



Hannah Nunn is rumored to be holding an open studio in the neer future with a chance to see our hard work on her new colours for her latest design so keep an eye on her facebook and website here;



Thanks to Hannah for the factory visit and studio placements and to everyone else for visiting my new blog, I hope you enjoy the photos.


Durable and the highest quality latex ink gets jetted and instantly baked onto the paper stock by these giant, brand new printers.


 Rotary screen printing.


Base colour going down ready for the designs to go on top.



First colour of the design.



Paper is highly tensioned and even a tiny tear can cause a tear out which means starting the set up again. From a 250 metre roll only 150 metres of finished product will be made due to the length of the machines and needing to thread the paper all the way through before starting up.



Quality control photographing each alignment and automatically adjusting different stages if needed.



Up to eight individual stages of application are baked dry in these ovens before the next stage.



Final trimmed paper gets rolled into individual 10 metre drops and shrink wrapped and boxed for delivery. 





High speed gravure machine.



Roller Storage.



Hannah Nunn's beautiful colours and latest wallpaper design!


Thanks for visiting. 

Oliver.