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.

As well as the partyware shown in my previous post, I had to design characters that would work across a variety of baking products and gift bags for the 'Spookily Does It!' brief. My background is in creating designs for children and the trick when designing characters of this type is that they mustn't be too scary. By giving them all slightly smily faces or rounder features than would normally be expected it stops even the most sinister of characters from being too alarming and adds an almost cute feel to the design. This was important for me as well as the children as I am not a fan of spiders, so by giving the spider character a happy face it made him much easier for me to work with!!! I was asked to use the characters to design some chocolate moulds. I think they work perfectly for this and as I also designed a variety of treat bags, once you have made them there is a choice of cellophane or paper treat bags in which to present them to your friends!