About Me and Design Rocks!

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Hello and welcome. Here's a bit about me: I've spent my childhood and a lot of my life traveling. Places, colour and pattern are my biggest inspiration. I've surfed & lived in a tent in Cornwall. Sketched my way round Morocco. Designed from an antique textile archive in Manhattan (dream job!). Styled and written for an interiors magazine on the sleepy island of Malta. Now I live in Manchester, UK, where I run Design Rocks greetings cards. Whilst in Manhattan I amassed a large collection of vintage textiles. These were used as inspiration for my first card range, Vintage Rocks! We sell wholesale so if you'd like a brochure visit the website or get in touch. Thanks for stopping by.

Sunday 11 April 2010

Lotte Reiniger











Grandma arrived yesterday with a DVD of the work of German artist and animator Lotte Reiniger. I was so inspired, it's absolutely beautiful and the animation is so elegant. She worked using paper cutouts with stop motion animation. Her prolific work spans from the 1920's to the 1970's. You can see most of her animations on you tube.

To think that every scene was cut intricately and lace like with scissors is incredible. There's been a trend for laser cut greetings cards with a folky feel such as these by Rob Ryan, who's work I've always loved. I first saw his work when it graced the cover of my favourite novel Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louise de Bernier.

These mugs from Pintuck also have a similar feel with their cut out style. I think this style of illustration has a timeless feel and certainly jumps on the folk trend. It's always a surprise when you find out that this modern trend finds it's roots nearly a century ago when this style evolved so beautifully from the dexterous hands of Lotte Reiniger.

3 comments:

Dolly Cool Clare said...

Im currently reading 'The Book of Lost Things" by John Connolly. I picked it mainly because I loved the cover art (which is v similar to your post. Its crisp matt black paper with embossed gold - ace! http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/yalsa/booklistsawards/alexawards/2007alex/book-of-lost-things.jpg
Who says you cant judge a book by its cover?!

Cheryl said...

I always judge a book by it's cover! Will have a look, sounds lovely.
Cx

sue bulmer said...

Hi Cheryl, just wanted to say 'love the blog'. I've done a feature on some of your cards on my blog posting on weds (pm'd you on folksy just to check it's ok). hope you don't mind, just wanted to share your work with some of my readers, best wishes, sue