Vicky Yorke Designs

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!)

The logo plays an important part in the 'Lock In' range being used as part of the repeat print, stand alone on products such as the bottle beer glass shown above (- this product always makes me smile!) and also on packaging. Therefore I wanted it to be visually strong and to form a decorative image in it's own right. Hopefully, the Victorian padlock in place of the  letter 'O' works as quite a masculine image, while simultaneously reinforcing the idea of tradition.  Products available include beer mats, beer runners, neoprene can and bottle coolers, where the repeat design can be seen in entirety...  There is also a large tray, which I think shows off the design to very good effect! As you can see from the beer glass at the top of this post there was room to have a bit of fun with this range and one product that I really love is the key corkscrew and bottle opener, which was inspired by my key illustration within the repeat desig...

You may recall from an earlier post that I teased you with a photo of a new range of products for Bar Craft, called 'Lock In' . I am so pleased to now be able to show you the whole range! The brief I was given was to create a design for a male gift range that would be evocative of traditional pub imagery for use on bar associated products. As the pub is a very British phenomenon, I decided to use the British bulldog as my main motif with pub imagery such as bar stools, beer barrels and beer glasses to support this. I wanted to keep the illustrations very strong in line-work, (as can be seen in the beer mats above) to create a style with a modern twist on traditional etching. The idea of a 'Lock In' at home is further reinforced with lock and key imagery and a strong typographic layout using words associated with beer. Colour also played an important part, as I chose creams and bronzes to emulate the rich amber colours of beer, complimen...

I thought for this post I would share a little bit about one source of inspiration for my artwork... Until two years ago I was a little suspicious of birds, but then my boyfriend convinced me that we should get some chickens for our garden. We were only supposed to have two, but within a very short space of time we had gathered four beautiful birds - three hens and a cockerel. I have been completely converted - they are so much fun to watch and each has their own very individual personality. I have found that not only do I now love chickens, but I actually love all birds and bird motifs seem to have become a very common feature of my artwork. I have a personal project coming up over the next few weeks, which involves some actual chicken designs so watch this space for plenty more chicken posts! By the way - the beautiful birds in the photo are Posie the cockerel and Penelope-Helen! They don't like keeping still so it is a little blurry!

Ok... well not really, but that hasn't stopped me designing some Christmas themed images for my Advocate licensing portfolio. I've added a few above, or you can see more by going to the Advocate Art site. It may only be June, but Santa will be on his way (again) before you know it! 

I thought I would spend a bit of time telling you about my brilliant art agents, Advocate Art , who represent me in licensing my artwork for products, greetings and well, anything really! I have been working with Advocate to create imagery for less than two months and they have already taken my artwork to Surtex in New York and the Progressive Greetings show in London! Although it's very early days, I found out yesterday that they have already licensed some of my designs to a company in the USA, which is hugely exciting! See my Advocate licensing folio here , or you can contact Advocate to commission me! I've put a few new examples from my folio above.