Vicky Yorke Designs

  Those of you who have been following my blog for a while will remember that last year I launched a selection of personalised handmade items through my Etsy shop. I have been so busy with design work over the last year that unfortunately I just don't have time to make products myself at the moment.  Never fear though! I have now teamed up exclusively with the wonderful people at withlovefrom.com to bring you a brand new selection of personalised gifts illustrated with my 'Bright Hearts' designs. And my products couldn't be in better hands. With Love From is a family run company who have been experts in engraving and printing personalised products for many years. I love their philosophy: We believe there's nothing more special than the feeling you get when somebody gives you a really thoughtful gift. One that really means something to both the giver and the recipient... We want to help people create and celebrate memories and to give gifts that m...

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...