Gift Tags

Yes, Christmas is less than two months away, and it’s time to start thinking about gifts, right? (more…)

October 2011 Calendar

I had to skip September, but made this October Calendar with extra love.

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August 2011 Calendar

I was in desperate need of a calendar in my work space and had been wanting to design my own calendar for a while now, so I decided to give it a try. I thought it would be nice to share it, so if you want you can download it and print it.

I made two versions, a small one, to fit in a CD case, and a bigger one, letter sized, that I taped to the board I have on my wall.

Here are some pictures of what they look like once printed:

August 2011 Calendar - CD Case

August 2011 Calendar - CD Case

August 2011 Calendar - Letter

August 2011 Calendar - Letter

If you’d like to print out these calendars, all you have to do is click on the links bellow.

August 2011 Calendar – Letter (8.5 x 11 in or 21.6 × 27.9 cm)
August 2011 Calendar – Letter (8.5 x 11 in or 21.6 × 27.9 cm) With smaller numbers
August 2011 Calendar – CD Case (4.7 x 5.5 in or 12 x 14 cm)

I used one of Design Seeds‘s beautiful palettes as inspiration.

Have a nice week 

Textile, Ceramic and Paper

You can find surface design in almost everything in your house, office, school…anywhere where there are people circulating that has been decorated, even if it doesn’t seem like a propper decoration, it’s impregnated with surface design. The tiles on the bathroom floor and walls, the plates you eat off, your pillows, notebooks…I could go on forever.

In our lives, surface design is mostly present in three different areas: textiles, ceramics and paper. There are a number of other materials used, such as melamine, plastic, wood, etc. But authors tend to focus on these three categories, maybe because they are more traditional and have been around for quite a long time. Hey, wood has been around for a long time too, I know, but it’s always been associated with crafts when it´s carved or decorated, so it´s hard to position it in the life of a graphic designer as well. A wooden bowl, as beautiful as it is, did not have to have its surface projected by an artist or a designer, its beauty is 100% natural.

So, going back to those three main areas, they’re pretty self-explanatory:

Textile surface design comprehends rugs, carpets, curtains, pillow cases, towels, bed quilts, bed sheets, etc.

Print on cotton. Kenya, designed by Nathalie du Pasquier for Memphis, produced by Rainbow (Photograph courtesy Furniture of the Twentieth Century, Inc., N.Y.) Scanned from Marypaul Yates's book: Textiles-A handbook for designers.

Examples of textile objects decorating a room. Photograph from Akiko Busch's book: Wallworks-Creating unique environments with surface design and decoration.

Ceramic surface design comprehends porcelain articles, dishes, trays, bathroom and kitchen tiles, mugs, etc.

Oxford's Coup Twiggy ceramic collection. http://www.oxford.ind.br/collection/pt/coup/twiggy.php

Ceramic Tiles. Photograph in Abigail Trow's book: Surface

Portobello bathroom tiles. http://www.portobello.com.br/

Paper surface design is found in stationery items such as notebooks, folders, stickers, address books, file totes, etc., and also in gift wrapping paper and wallpaper.

Hallmark gift sets. http://www.hallmark.com

Wallpapers designed by Jocelyn Warner. Photograph in Abigail Trow's book: Surface. http://www.jocelynwarner.com/

Galison Origami Lane social notes. http://www.galison.com

On my next post I’ll focus on talking a bit about textile design, there’s so much to say about it that I don’t know where to start, but I’ll give it my best.

What is Surface Design?

Hi everyone!

Now, I think we´ll never be able to answer that question in a way that everyone will agree. Even the definition for Design isn´t totally clear, let alone surface design. None the less, in this blog my intention is to focus on surface design, it´s definitions, meanings, appliances, amongst others.

Glass Tiles from Abigail Trow's book: Surface

There are a few blogs about surface design around, some of them are wonderful, such as Design*Sponge and Print & Pattern, but ever since I started studying Surface Design I´ve really missed seeing more academic references around, and I think I´m not alone.

Of course, I don´t know it all, I have so much to learn about surface design, and through this blog I intend to share my discoveries with everyone.

Now, going back to the question above, I have a few definitions by some designers that I find interesting. As I said before, none of them is the absolute truth, but it´s always enriching to find out more about the topic and to hear other people´s opinions.

Surface Design Association

Surface Design encompasses the coloring, patterning, and structuring of fiber and fabric. This involves creative exploration of processes such as dyeing, painting, printing, stitching, embellishing, quilting, weaving, knitting, felting, and papermaking.

Renata Rubim

According to Rubim, Surface Design is used to define all projects made by a designer, in respect to the graphic treatment and color used on a certain surface, industrial or not.

Evelise Rüthschilling

Surface design is a technical creative activity that aims to creat bidimentional images (visual and tactile textures), projected specifically for the constitution and/or treatment of surfaces, presenting aesthetic and functional solutions to the different materials and processes of industrial and handicraft productions.

As you can see, the SDA’s definition refers exclusively to textile surface design, but I think it´s a valid statement none the less. For those of you who read Portuguese, Rubim´s book, “Desenhando a Superfície” (Ed. Rosari, 2005), is a must-have. I´ll talk more about it an other posts.

In my next post I´ll be talking about the different areas in which surface design is most active, hope you guys enjoy it!

Kisskiss
Camila