Vicky Yorke Designs

For their new novelty Christmas range I was asked by Kitchen Craft to collaborate with the work of another designer, who had created concept artwork for them. I am a huge fan of the illustrations of Susan Wheeler, so was delighted to add snowman and robin characters to match in with her lovely Rudolph and Santa designs. The new additions were needed when taking the range from flat artwork into a whole product range to create a bit more depth and interest. I also added in a gingham print as a contrasting pattern against the main motifs. Above are name place cards and Christmas tree decorations featuring Susan Wheeler's original Santa and Rudolph designs and my new Robin and Snowman characters, which I hope fit in well. I simplified the characters slightly so that they could be turned into felt napkin rings and also used the basic shapes to design some new matching cookie cutters.   Images copyright Kitchen Craft 2013.

Earlier this month I was lucky enough to visit Spring Fair 2013, which is an annual exhibition at the NEC showcasing new products across many genres from greetings cards and gifts, to toys, stationery, homeware and kitchen products. It was a great few days seeing all the products that will appear in UK stores over the next 12 months and I was delighted that Kitchen Craft were there exhibiting a number of new ranges I have designed for them. Photographs aren't permitted in the exhibition, but exhibitors are allowed to photograph their own stands, so these images are taken from the Kitchen Craft Facebook page. Above is a sneaky peak at three new summer ranges designed for the Cool Movers brand and below is an exclusive look at my new Christmas design! More to come on all of these ranges later in the year!!! Images copyright Kitchen Craft 2013.

December has been such a busy month and I have been working on so many new designs... I just can't quite believe that Christmas is here already! I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for following my work and to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Please do visit the blog again in the new year as I promise there will be lots of new product launches (2012 has been such a productive year!) and some exciting projects ahead! xxx (The card designs above are from my licensing portfolio - hope you like them!)

We are now well into the festive season with all of the UK high street bringing out their best Christmas designs and it has been a huge thrill for me to see my two Christmas ranges, Christmas Fayre and Partridge & Pear in stores all around the UK. The above photo of me and my cookie cutter Christmas tree was taken in my local Garden & Leisure store, Barnett Hill, which also stocked the complimentary tins from the range and a selection of Partridge & Pear. My biggest delight has probably been seeing Partridge & Pear displayed all together in it's own unit in my local BHS . (Not the best photo of me though thanks to a strange angled phone-camera!) It was also spotted in another BHS by friends who sent me the photo above. People have been so kind with their comments about these ranges and it has been great when they have taken the time to let me know they have seen the designs in stores all around the country. Your lovely comments have meant a lot, s

Following on from my last post where I showed you the 'Partridge and Pear' cake stand, I am continuing today by posting about the matching cake tins and cupcake cases / cupcake picks. As with the cake stand I had great fun playing around with pattern. There's lots going on, but I think it works! Finally, I come to the last set of products for 'Partridge & Pear', which is a collection of felt tabletop items... ...including, place mats with matching coasters... ...napkin rings, place card holders... ... and a matching table runner. It was tricky work converting my drawings into files for the felt factory as I had to work out all the spacings for the cut-outs. When you look at a cut-out you don't realise how tricky the technique is... it's very easy to accidentally lose a whole section of your design because it isn't correctly 'attached' to the rest of the piece. I loved working on this range and hopefu

  The 'Partridge & Pear' designs are continued across a number of festive porcelain platters, which are ideal for serving your Christmas feasts! I think that the heart-shaped platters below would also work well as a trinkets tray - I'm going to get one to put my jewellery in! However, perhaps the more traditional use for the bowls is for figs and nuts! My favourite product in the range is the cake stand, where the heart and dove motifs are combined to very decorative effect. (I love combining patterns together for a pattern overload!) I'm looking forward to using this for my Christmas cupcakes and mince pies! Images copyright Kitchen Craft 2012

As we move through the first week of August I have been extremely busy designing my THIRD Christmas range for 2013. This is the sixth Christmas range I have designed in twelve months ( - it's lucky I love Christmas so much!) and all of the ranges are completely different, focusing on very contrasting styles and themes. Among my favourite ranges is ' Partridge & Pear , ' which was launched by Kitchen Craft at Exclusively Housewares . I am a big fan of Scandinavian / folk style prints and I hope that these designs capture this essence. Inspired by the trend for paper cut-outs and following the range name of 'Partridge & Pear', I designed a series of motifs, (heart, turtle dove, pear and partridge) and applied these boldly across the product range. I used a limited colour pallet of red, white and silver to create a dramatic effect. These work as a design for Christmas, but because of the current trend for folk designs, I personally think they could be used