"The cardinal sin for any designer is to not research your subject"
A few years ago, after visiting lots of craft events in and around Nottingham, I noticed that the stalls were predominantly housed by the female of the species and any potential purchases followed that feminine path. With this in mind, I started to design and make prints and objects which I would be happy to purchase myself. I wanted to produce football-related prints which could sit happily on any wall and be appreciated by both sexes. The challenge when designing these was to avoid the obvious, steering away from club badges for copyright reasons. This lead to the contemporary designs that hint at the team but can still be appreciated without being a supporter. I made these particular pieces two years ago, and designs like this normally take me around half an hour, from the digital design through to the printing.
The cardinal sin for any designer is to not research your subject – something I realised after hearing, “You know you’ve only got one magpie on that print?” As a Peterborough fan, my knowledge of Notts County was limited to the fact that they’d been around for a while and were nicknamed the Magpies. It slipped my mind that one’s for sorrow and you need two for joy. On my first print run of fifty, only one magpie was present. Now, I can’t be to blame for their less-than-average league finish last season, but I’ve rectified my mistake and, lo and behold, now they’re not doing too badly.
Working as a full-time creative artworker for a Hockley design agency and having a daughter of eighteen months, my creations are worked on as and when, but I love what I do. I get such a buzz when I get positive feedback from my customers at the various crafts fairs where I show. I’d love to own a retail shop one day, named Relick, with half of the work on show from my own collection, and the other half from local designers and crafters in and around Nottingham. There’s such a buzz in the crafting circles at the moment, with so many opportunities to show your work at many great venues.
My work can be seen at various places around the city: the Notts County Club shop, Dezigne in Hockley, Bee and Bird in Mapperley, Blades Barbers in Mapperley and, my proudest design moment yet, on the front cover of LeftLion’s sixtieth issue.
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