Check us out on the London Design Festival Blog . . . http://londondesignfestival.tumblr.com/post/31788106469/camac-design

Helping Students into industry - CAMAC Design announce Winners of the 4th Annual Student Wallpaper Design Competition

Today is your last chance to see the show at the Imago!

The Exhibition includes 28 selected Student entries from a total of over 80 submissions. Their brief was to take inspiration from great British Architect Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin in the year marking the bicentenary of his birth.

The Prizes . . . .
Prizes were awarded at the Imago Gallery, Mayfair, on the opening nights of the Competition Exhibition last week. See the work of the Winners of the 2012 Annual Student Wallpaper Design Competition as well as all the finalists * work by guest artists and designers.


The Zoffany work placement was awarded by Peter Gomez to Rachel Parker from Norwich for her work which they said showed . . .
“A colourful exploration of the relationship between pattern and space…”

Rachel Parker with her wallpaper (Photo Ben Taylor)


Michelle Ledward, Head of R&D & Nina Tayor Design Director at Graham & Brown awarded a work placement to  to Natasha Markham from Leeds for her work
“…marking Gothic design at St John the evangelist Catholic Church, Oxford…’

Michelle & Nina from Graham & Brown with prize winner Natasha Markham from Leeds (photo Ben Taylor)


Anstey Wallpapers gave a work placement, awarded by Clare Howlett, Design Studio Manager to Joel Wilson from Leeds  “A Futuristic archegram…”


The Timorous Beasties work placement was awarded to Emma Jane Sowerby from Leeds
“A botanical tribute inspired by Pugin’s furniture at Lotherton Hall, Leeds…”

Emma Jane Sowerby with her wallpaper (Photo Ben Taylor)


The Pugin Society Award was presented by Ralph Bowmaker and Judith Al-Saffar to Stephanie Rostron from Leeds
“… inspired by Pugin’s eagle lectern at St Giles Catholic Church, Cheadle…”
2nd Place went to – Li Shan Chong from LCC & 3rd Place to Fergus Dowling from Leeds with a Special Mention for Emma Michelle Williams from LCC, & her amazing sketchbooks

Stephanie Rostron with her award winning piece (photo Ben Taylor)


The Winner of the Wallpaper History Society Award was Rosie Stride from Leeds, presented by Matthew Meadows and Robert Weston
“… a Gothic ‘indulgence’ paying homage to artist Bridget Riley and weaver Alastair Morton – ideal for architectural open-plan spaces…”
2nd Place – Eppie Greenhalgh – LCC
3rd Place – Elizabeth Smith – Leeds
Well done everyone!!!!

The show at the Imago is on the WGSN Blog

The WGSN blog featuring Mark Amura's block printed wallpaper.

The show at the Imago is on the WGSN Blog . . . Follow this link.

http://wgsn-hbl.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/student-wallpaper-design-competion-2012.html

Corpus Cutis at the Imago

Corpus Cutis (Artists / Designers Esther Smith & Sue Westergaard) are showing two pieces with us at the Imago Gallery, Clifford Steet, Mayfair. 

As  this years competition was based on Pugin,

 it being his bicentenary, they decided to create pieces that built on their artistic concerns, but bring in pertinent aspects of Pugins philosophy & design ideas; things like the structure of the patterns they have created for these 'garments' are reminiscent of his, but they also thought about the society that he lived in & his belief that peoples lives could be improved by good design, by having 'beauty' in their lives. 

Corpus Cutis say 'We know that the average life expectancy in the mid to late victorian era was around 40 (Pugin himself died around that age), & that huge rafts of people had only the clothes they stood up in & worked incredibly long hours in terrible conditions. That's the sort of thing that was in the backs of our minds when we were making this work'.

The garments they have created aren't made to wear. They fit into a space between Fine Art & design. The fabrics are covered in pattern based on Pugin, but created from images of skin, blemishes & disease. They have an ethereal beauty but are also slightly stomach churning. 

See them at the Imago until the 20th September

Photos by Sue Westergaard

Block printed wallpapers - Duncan Harrison, Matthew Meadows, Mark Amura & Pugin!

Designer Duncan Harrison, who also lectures at Leeds College of Art, created these pieces using the very traditional process of making wallpapers - block printing. He had 3 huge wooden blocks made, the full width of the Wallpaper & printed them in the traditional way. 
These images hardly do them justice - the pieces in the flesh are so rich in texture & colour - a wonderful quality & sort of glow that you cannot get any other way than by using those materials & that process. 

They are in the same room as the original Pugin Block, & Pugins historic wallpapers printed from it. It is incredible to see them - the colour is so intense, so contemporary. 

In the same space at the Imago is Matthew Meadows vibrant red & green hand printed wallpaper. He too is a block printer & his piece has such an intensity of colour because of the medium, & his complete skill in using it. 
Mark Amura printed his metallic gold & red wallpaper using polystyrene blocks - a beautiful piece made using such an innovative process with everyday materials. 

Images of the other pieces to follow - but for the time being here is a taster of Duncan Harrison's work. Do come and see it in real life. The show is on at the Imago Gallery until September 20th as part of the London Design Festival

The Imago Gallery - Les Bicknell's windows

Les Bicknell has created site specific pieces for the windows of our Imago Gallery show.
Les says about the work . . .

'Whilst researching Pugin in the V&A’s study rooms a catalogue of designs for furniture and fittings in the gothic revival style became a starting point for an exploration of the repeat within Pugin’s work and the creation of excessive digital book objects.

The sculptural forms are derived from examining the book form. The work explores the idea of form as a content and manipulation as the narrative. The bookworks are positioned conceptually and physically between and within the idea of both sculpture and book. The hybrid nature of the pieces finds its roots in both forms – exploring and challenging both genres.'

Les Bicknell is an artist & also lectures at Norwich University College of the Arts. 

Setting up the Exhibition at the Imago Gallery in Mayfair

Today the Exhibition starts to go up . . . Exciting . . . !!!

Mark Amura & Emily Charman (both previous finalists in the competition which was run for the Wallpaper History Society, & is the pre-cursor of the Camac Competition) are there as we blog, working hard for Camac to make the exhibition perfect.
It's so important to make the most of the work by both  students & all the invited artists . . . to show it to it's full potential.

Both Emily & Mark will be showing their work with us at the Imago this year.

Emily is now at the Royal College of Art. She is showing the work she has made one year on from being a finalist in the WHS competition, last summer.
Here she is with textile pieces that co-ordinated with her prize winning work. Can't wait to see what she will be showing one year on.

Mark has gone on to work on the Foundation Course at Morley College, as well as freelancing as a designer. He is curating this years Camac exhibition.
After winning the Wallpaper History Society competition with his designs on the theme of 'Baroque with a Twist' he went on to do an internship including working at Anstey, discovering how luxury wall coverings are printed, & really used that experience to inform his own work.  Below is his one of his designs from his 2011 Pearly Kings & Queens collection.

Both of them created several entries for the Virtual Wallpaper Challenge  . . . take a look at their work, & the other entries on . . .
http://camacdesign.com/wallpapers/galleriffic-2.0/gallery.html#15

STUDY DAYS AT THE IMAGO

We are holding some exciting Study Days at the Imago on the 14th & 15th September with professional designers talking about their work & careers - - 

The prices are £25 per half day session, or £40 for a full day

For details please follow this link . . .

http://camacdesign.com/competitions07.html

Louise Tiler showing with us at the Imago Gallery

Louise Tiler was one of last years finalists. She will be showing with us at the Imago Gallery 'one year on' & doing a talk about her first year out on one of our student study days (more info to follow)

Check out her beautiful work on her website . . .http://www.louisetiler.com/

Introducing artists that will be showing at the Imago Gallery as part of the Exhibition - Matthew Meadows

Introducing artists that will be showing at the Imago Gallery as part of the Exhibition 

Have a look at the work of Matthew Meadows . . . 

Here's a link to his website . . .

http://www.matthewmeadows.net/#

Guidelines & Inspiration for the Wallpaper Challenge - direct link

For Guidelines & inspiration for the Challenge go to . . .
http://camacdesign.com/files/Camac%20Wallpaper%20Challenge%202012.pdf

More Turnarounds arriving by the day

More Turnaround designs have arrived - have a look on the Camac website . . .
http://camacdesign.com/wallpapers/galleriffic-2.0/gallery.html#2

& we've posted a few on Facebook. http://www.facebook.com/camacdesign

Join the challenge . . .
Do your own & your work could well be shown as part of our exhibition at the Imago Gallery, 4 Clifford Street, London W1S 2LF from the 14th to the 20th September

Some lovely Turnaround examples

Here are some examples of Turnaround designs - ancient and modern - that really illustrate how enduring they are as a design format.

These all follow the traditional way of repeating them, although there are lots more variations which you can see if you go to the Virtual Wallpaper Challenge, on the competitions page of our website.

Join us in designing . . . Create your own as part of the Virtual Challenge!!!

Mood at Brussels - the interiors Trade Fair

'Mood' at Brussels is going to be on at the same time as our exhibition at the Imago Gallery in Mayfair. 'Mood' is the International Trade Fair for Producers of Upholstery, Windows & Wallcoverings . . . so surfaces for interiors basically. 

Its the Premier Vision of the Interiors world.

If you want to know where the future lies in commercial, mainstream wallpapers etc this is one of the places to look.
Their website is on - http://www.moodbrussels.com/

and via Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/moodbrussels

GO TO IT AS WELL AS OUR EXHIBITION - NOT INSTEAD OF !!! WALLPAPER HEAVEN!

Emily Charman - Alicerose Turnaround design

Emily Charman was one of the finalists in last years Competition with her wallpaper based on 'Chav Culture'. She has gone on to study at the Royal College of Art.
Here's her blog -  http://www.tumblr.com/blog/emilycharman

This is the length she created for the competition last year. Fantastic, powerful piece that looked as if it had been wood or lino cut :

And here she is one of the Turnaround designs she has created for this years competition. It's called Alice Rose:

And two different variations on how it repeats:

You could progress both these ideas on - the first one could swivel around so it becomes a diamond repeated as a 'half-drop' & the second one could become a check, with blank brown squares - or even the same rose in s different colour!
Anyway - like all designs you can push them around, fiddle, play & perfect forever! You can also make lots of variations on the basic 'tile' or 'module' repeated in different ways.

There are more ideas for this in the Virtual Wallpaper Challenge guidelines on our website
http://camacdesign.com/files/Camac%20Wallpaper%20Challenge%202012.pdf

Virtual Wallpaper Challenge - Join in !!!!

As part of the Exhibition (& on-going on the Website) we will be exhibiting selected pieces from the Virtual Wallpaper Challenge which we are running through our website.

The challenge asks anyone who wants to join in on it, to create a design for a wallpaper based on an archetypal design format called the 'Turnaround'. We chose that format because Pugin loved it, so it fits with the whole Pugin theme that the Student Competition was built around this year.

But it's such a traditional design format that everyone still uses now. For example these ones are available from Fired Earth at the moment . . .
http://www.firedearth.com/evora

And you see the format used time & time again in all sorts of ways & in all sorts of cultures. This is an African Wax Print.

The ones we've shown above are very 'geometric', the diagonals are 'straight-ish, but a turn-around doesn't have to be.

The guidelines for how to participate are on our website . . . go to the Competition page on the general Camac website (http://camacdesign.com/index.html) & go to the blue button on the Competition page, or go directly to the Virtual Wallpaper Challenge via this link . . .

http://camacdesign.com/competitions08.html

Have a look at whats already up there & join in!

The 2012 Student Wallpaper Design Competition Exhibition

We've not been blogging much - concentrating on the Website, Facebook & other Camac related matters . . . but it's time to return seriously to the blog to start talking about The 2012 Student Wallpaper Design Competition Exhibition and it's associated events.
It's being held at the Imago Gallery in Mayfair from the 14 to the 20 September, & is part of the London Design Festival.
There will be workshops & talks as part of it all as well as the Virtual Wallpaper Challenge, which everyone can join in with . . . more news to follow.

Here is the flier for the event:

Pugin in Birmingham

This years Camac Competition is based on the work of Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin.
He was an artist, designer, architect, critic & writer whose work  most people will know because his patterns are all over the Palace of Westminster. It's 200 years since he was born.

We went to Birmingham, where they have a 'Pugin Trail' & saw his work in the Cathedral, the Art Museum & the Jewellery Quarter. There is lots more up there but you can only do so much in a day.

Pugin believed in decoration & the beautification of the world around us as a force for good - a social force that could improve the lives of people who were struggling in the newly industrialised cities of the  1830s & 40s. Decoration was a moral issue.

He used pattern on pattern on pattern; any individual pattern is not particulary complex in it's own right, but there are so many of them used together that the surface of the building as a whole becomes immensely rich & complex - pattern filled.

Pugin believed in the honesty of the structure; so you didn't hide the structure of anything - you worked with it. As long as you did that, & the structure was visible you could decorate it as much as you liked. He uses a sort of 'piping' to emphasise the edges of the structure of the surfaces & buildings he's designing for.

What struck me about the emphasis on the delineation of the structure of everything, including imagery is that a lot of the stuff is actually quite cartoon like. After all, that's what you do in a cartoon. And then as a rider to that, of course the images in a church were used to tell stories to an illiterate public - so they were 'cartoons', a sort of graphic novel across the walls & windows of the building.

The Yellow Wallpaper - wallpaper as a facade to another world

The Yellow Wallpaper is a book by Charlotte Gilman Perkins, first published in 1892. I concerns a woman, diagnose by her physician husband as suffering from some sort of nervous exhaustion, trapped in a claustrophobic house who starts to feel that there is a menacing world held in wallpaper of the bedroom that she has been confined to. It's stunning.

The piece that begins this YouTube clip is by Lesley Ford, from the MA Costume Design course at London College of Fashion.
You can see stills from it on her Showtime page - http://showtime.arts.ac.uk/LFORD2

At Danson House in Bexleyheath, a restored Georgian Manor House built by a man whoes fortune was made from sugar & the slave trade, is a Crafts Council exhibition curated by Tom Gallant, also based around the Yellow Wallpaper.
 This piece, by designer Marios Shwab with Tom Gallant is one of the works on show there.

The house itself is worth a look - fantastic Chinese wallpaper, beautiful staircase & an odd bereft atmosphere. Bexleyheath is now very much a London suburb, but you can see from this house & it's setting that not long ago this was countryside, with amazing views over Kent.

Around the corner is William Morris's Red House - well worth a look

minimalgothistimetravel

On Thursday spent the day at the study centre at the V&A to handle some of their vast Pugin archive http://www.flickr.com/photos/southofbloor/4799676752/. Its always exciting to be confronted by archival boxes and the anticipation was worth it as there was some wonderful items to look at. It was all part of the support structure offered by Caroline of Camac Design around the wallpaper competition that year 2 Norwich University of the Arts (nuca) textile students are undertaking. I became specially engaged in a small book of designs for furniture after looking at an ecclesiastical catalogue in the British Galleries before i went in the study centre. I think that I am interested in creating designs for a box-like structure that could not be made – gothic tardis – and then thought about the idea of minimal gothic. But most of the time I became really aware of the idea of heritage and felt really manipulated in that if I thought what does the monarchy look like? or englishness created in the technicolor films mainly with Stewart Granger or Richard todd in them – it would look a bit like the boxes of Pugin material – all those bold designs of roses and entwined rope.  

http://lesbicknell.blogspot.co.uk/

The start of on-going stuff about Pugin

This year Camac are organising a Design Competition for students from various selected art / design degrees around the country.

The 2012 brief is based around the work of Pugin as he would have been 200 this year. Part of the aim of this blog is to let the students from those courses know about things that might inspire their design submissions

He created most of the surface design in the Palace of Westminster so we went there for an evening with the Pugin Society.

Here is a taster of some of his amazing wallpaper – these pictures don't do it justice - the colour is so vibrant. Apparently when Pugins' house in Ramsgate was re-decorated in reproduced Pugin wallpaper, the colour was dulled slightly as it was felt that a modern audience almost wouldn't believe that the original bright colours were truly victorian.

More info about the evening & other Pugin related stuff to follow.

The work of the finalists, as well as pieces by invited artists and designers will be on show to the public at various venues later in the year. We’ll keep you up to date via this Blog as the competition progresses.

Pattern & Tidiness in Holland

Just been on a trip to Delft in Holland. We cycled from the Hoek van Holland, and whilst cycling along their amazingly civillised cycle paths it struck us how neatly ‘patterned’ everything is. 

It’s all tidied up, not a thing out of place, but with a real enjoyment in creating pattern & structure from the everyday things that surround us.

From the trees:

To the gardens:

To the pavements:

To the forks on a café wall in Delft:

To the egg cups in an Easter Window:

Fine Art & the Decorative: current shows at Tate Modern

Yayoi Kusama is showing at Tate modern at the moment. She’s an obsessive artist who plays around with lots of things that we often associate with ‘decoration’. Things like repeat, polka dots, surface ‘design’, creating environments, fashion and so on. It’s such an enjoyable show, and the infinity space is magical. It’s much better seeing it in real life than imagining it from a picture in a book. So go if you can before it shuts on June 5^th 2012.

And while you’re there look at (and buy!) some of the products they have made to go with the show - fantastic plates, tea towels, hankies etc.  She fits into that space between fine art & surface design & her work translates so well into ‘mass production’. She was the first artist to make an installation with her images used as 'wallpaper'.

Although she started off well before the 80s so much of the Tate product that goes with the show has a fantastic 80s feel. And they look great with those lovely black & white Marimekko plates

Damien Hirst is showing at Tate Modern until the 9^th September. Lots of people dismiss him because he makes nice things that make money for him. But he is a product of Thatcherism and central to his artistic practice is the canny business attitude that was at the core of the Thatcher era.

And he makes (or has made for him) beautiful crafted ‘art objects’, especially as his career has progressed and his work has become more ‘decorative’. The work has meaning; it’s not just about being aesthetically pleasing.

He’s not alone. Think of artists like Jeff Koons, Andy Warhol or even Alighiero Boetti (who is at Tate Modern too until 27^th May 2012). 

Their art was backed up with philosophy, with thinking, with ‘meaning’ if you like – not least about the artist being a commercial (or even anti-commercial’ creature). But it’s also fairly easy to grasp because it deals with the stuff we all care most about: life, death, love, sex and so on – in a way that looks nice.

That doesn’t make the work worse – or denigrate them as artists at all in our eyes. We’re just pointing out that the craft involved in the making of it, & the fact that it is pleasing to the eye is really important. It gives us as an audience an ‘in’ to the ideas behind the work, which we can deal with or not, depending on how we feel that day. We spend so much of our lives surrounding ourselves with things that make us feel good when we look at them, or try them on or whatever. 

It’s central to all of our existences, even in the ‘Fine Arts’, even if we don’t all like to admit it.

Hockney at the RA until April 9th!

Take a walk through the land of Hockney.....

This wonderful feast of markmaking, design and colour is not to be missed. The fantastic scale of paintings and pictures, the intimate sketchbooks and iPad designs are all worth the effort.
Don't miss out on this amazing experience - treat yourself!