Vicky Yorke Designs

Some of you may know that I'm a member of the Art Licensing Show website from my previous Christmas blog post . This is a great site where artists / designers pay a fee to host their portfolios in a completely private way. (We have to be soooo careful about posting too much publicly online as things sadly do get stolen). Art directors can sign up for free and I can then connect and share my work with any company that I feel might be a good fit for my brand. I love the fact that I have complete control over who can view my work. My portfolio is obviously also hosted by my agents, Jewel Branding , but this is an excellent additional way to strike up new art licensing relationships. The above image shows my thumbnail from the site and is all images from my 'Tea Party' collection. If you haven't discovered Art Licensing Show yet you can find out more about how it works here. Another great aspect of the site is the other artist connections I've made. Everyon...

As a designer I often get asked how I create my images and if I draw everything by hand. I thought it might be fun to answer these questions in this blog post to give you a quick overview of the process of how I work to create my designs.  At the moment I'm working on a new range of greetings cards, which is something a bit different for me... but the process for each design is similar to how I work for creating all surface pattern designs or placement graphics for products. The starting point is always an idea. Sometimes this comes in the form of a client brief and sometimes it's the spark of an idea in my head. For these greetings cards I decided I wanted to create a range of cards based on my existing typography range, 'Well Hello There!', but with sentiments that were more focussed on the greetings card market. Often at this stage I create an ideas board, but because the look of the new range is to follow existing designs I simply reviewed the existing work...

Today is the first day back for many UK schools after the long summer break. Part of going back for me was always the excitement of buying new school stationery - I have always LOVED buying new pens and trying them out to see what effects I can create! My first design job was working in-house for stationery company, Helix, which was so much fun as I got to work on all the new product development for all their lovely back to school stationery each year. The company is now Maped-Helix , but they remain one of my favourite freelance clients as the design briefs they give me are always so creative and fun! Maped-Helix recently sent me some of their 'Graph'Peps' fine point pens to try out, which come under their Maped brand.* In honour of the back to school period I thought I would make a little doodle film to show what they are like to draw with. The film shows the first time I used them, so you can see I took to them quite easily - they allow lots of control. My favour...

It's been great to hear from my agents, Jewel Branding , that the summer shows at Surtex, New York and Licensing Expo, Las Vegas were a resounding success with lots of exciting companies visiting the stand and many of them choosing to view my portfolio with the possibility of becoming licensing partners in the near future! Jewel have kindly shared with me some photos of their booths, which I'm sure you'll agree looked absolutely fantastic! First, are some images of the booth at Surtex, where each of the Jewel designers were asked to format their designs into hexagons, which were then used to create a really striking stand display. How many of my designs can you spot in the photos below?! And below are images of the stand at Licensing Expo, where some of my designs were shown on large digital display screens.   If you missed the shows, but would like to view my full portfolio please contact Beth Franklin - beth@jewe...

A little video of me doodling for all my friends in the USA, including my agents, Jewel Branding & Licensing . Have a wonderful day! Music by bensound.com

Following on from the success of Surtex in New York last month, my agents, Jewel Branding & Licensing will be exhibiting at another major art licensing show this week - Licensing Expo in Las Vegas, which runs from 21st - 23rd June. I've been extremely busy preparing for this show over the last few months and in addition to my portfolio shown at Surtex, I have now added over 50 brand new pieces of art including repeat patterns, illustration and typography! These pieces add to existing ranges, as well as making up 6 completely new themed ranges, with designs suitable across many different product areas. There are designs for everyday including my 'Geometrico' range, which was developed from sketchbook doodles created while travelling around Italy earlier in the year ( - shown above). 'Mosaic' (- below) is loosely inspired by the current trend for colouring book art and mixes black and white geometric line drawings with bright pops of colour for a really f...

The day designers have been working hard towards for months is finally here. Surtex begins today in New York! I'm so sad not to be there in person, but I'm wishing my agents, Jewel Branding & Licensing a truly great day! I know they are going to do such a great job representing me! For those of you visiting the show over the next few days I have lots of new designs for you to see including my quirky hand drawn typography range, Well Hello There! which playfully mixes pattern and inspirational phrases. I have many designs inspired by my love of travel and artwork from around the world. For example, my La   Dolce Vita series of designs aims to capture the wonderful essence of Italy, while my Global collection references tile patterns from around Europe. Closer to home my Fruits of the Forest designs were inspired by my love of the English countryside around my home in Worcestershire... There is much, much more to see, so if you're in New York for t...

The Stationery Show 2016 took place in London at the end of April (26th - 27th) and I was thrilled to receive these photos from stationery experts,  Maped Helix this week, which show one of my designs in action!  Several months ago I was asked by Maped Helix to create a design for a giant colouring page to be used at the show to demonstrate their adult colouring products, which include colouring pens and pencils. The brief was to create a unisex design, which incorporated geometric and mandala style elements that would work around their existing 'National Stationery Week' typography. There was a huge amount of drawing involved in the design to make sure that the illustration remained detailed even at an enlarged scale and this kept me busy and very happy for several days!  I loved working on this project and am so happy to see my illustration featuring in the wonderful stand design as well as seeing how much fun people had colouring it in! ...

There are lots of exciting things happening behind the scenes at Vicky Yorke Designs , (which I'm looking forward to telling you about as soon as possible...), so I am very happy that my wonderful American agents, Jewel Branding & Licensing are going to be looking after my brand interests worldwide from now on! Visit them at Surtex booth 417 to view my portfolio and discuss opportunities!

I'm so honoured to have been featured on the wonderful Print & Pattern blog as part of the Surtex 2016 promotion. The blog is viewed by thousands of people every day, including art directors and manufacturers who are looking for unique art, as well as other designers who are looking out for inspiration and trends. The standard of the design featured on the blog is always very high, so I truly was delighted to be included in the run-up to the Surtex show! 

Annie Troe has kindly featured my 'Beside the Seashore' pattern square on her 'Pattern Parade' this week where she promotes designers by linking to their portfolios through her blog and social media. Annie has a wonderful blog, which is full of interesting information about art licensing, as well as lots of lovely art, which you can take a look at here.   'Beside the Seashore' is one of my art licensing collections that will be shown by my agents, Jewel Branding at Surtex next month. The patterns were inspired by two holidays I took last year in England, where I loved just wandering along the beach, or looking at the little fishing boats docked in the harbour. I am so inspired by looking at the sea - I couldn't wait to draw it all! I hope the collection captures all of the special moments that make a British seaside holiday. The drawings certainly hold a lot of happy memories for me! Please contact Jewel Branding to view the whole collection.

My wonderful agents, Jewel Branding & Licensing will be in New York from May 15th - 17th for Surtex . If you're looking to license art / designs pop by booth 417 to say hello and view my portfolio. I've been working very hard and have lots of lovely new collections for you to see! To make appointments email beth@jewelbranding.com

I'm very happy to announce that I am now represented by   Jewel Branding & Licensing   exclusively in North America and Korea. I am so excited to be listed among their amazing designers and brands and can't wait to work with these brilliant agents! To find out more about Vicky Yorke Designs you can download my brand sheet   here.