Rug designs

I really do like the wonderful graphic approach the illustrator Chris Haughton has to his work, especially in his childrens book A Bit Lost , so when I heard that he has a show coming up at the So Far The Future gallery in London from 2nd to 7th December I pencilled it straight into the diary. Then I found out there was also a design a rug competition running as part of the show, so I just had to have a crack at it. Just got in before tomorrows deadline! The winner, as voted by punters at the show, gets their rug design made by fairtrade craft-makers in Nepal! A worthy industry to champion.

The submission requirements were for a 6 colour max rug design at 560x480 pixels and 72dpi, so these have to be some of the lowest resolution illustrations I've ever done. Curiously it was quite therapeutic and liberating, drawing pixel by pixel with the pen tool in photoshop. A great degree of the design choices are out of your control so I did find myself working in a freer way. A really enjoyable process.

Past viewers of my blog might recognise the Dodo design from a few months back as a screen print (my dodo is far from extinct and keeps popping up all over the place. The design was quite time consuming to convert to low res hard edged pixels though...) and the fish have appeared in a slightly different guise too, swimming with a polar bear. That design came together pretty fast once I had the notion that there's 'always a bigger fish'... The autumn leaves are a newbie for this competition. A bit busy as a design maybe but I just wanted a stab at an illustration that was decorative without a strong narrative, made sense being on the floor and also being viewed from any direction.

So if you have the weekend free why not check out Chris' show. Great digital artwork translated into great handcrafted products and a very worthy endeavour, promoting fair trade and the talented crafts people of Nepal.