ABSPD Module 4 / / Card Crazy Live Brief!

We are bursting with excitement about some of the incredible ***LIVE BRIEF'S*** that we have in store for you! Set by a hand-picked selection of ***TRULY AMAZING COMPANIES*** in Module 4 of 'The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design (the e-course)'! Module 4 is an advanced seven week course in which you will learn everything you need to know about building your professional portfolio. The course is crammed with masterclass video tutorials, regular live briefs from real companies, templates, tons of brilliant inspiration, invaluable content, a weekly Q&A with Rachael, & individual work reviews from either Rachael or another flourishing designer! PLUS you will get six months’ FREE access to the MOYO Directory, where you can create a bespoke profile, upload unlimited portfolios and attract potential clients. This is a rare opportunity to build your commercial portfolio in a structured way, with the support & guidance to boost your confidence & make you raring to go!

Card Crazy are a UK based, greetings card publisher with the focus of making designers stand out from the crowd! They invest a lot of time in designing beautiful greetings cards & providing a no-nonsense service that delivers at all times. They love to celebrate & showcase their designers ensuring that they share in the success of their designs! We love our own collection with Card Crazy & we are very excited for them to share their Live Brief! You can register here for March 2014, when Module 4 begins! This is an amazing opportunity to gain REAL design experience from a brilliant brief along with the chance to present your work to an innovative company. Rachael has worked with Card Crazy on her own illustration & pattern card ranges & loved designing for them!

Many of our graduates are now big players within the design industry & we're proud to say we have really nurtured some amazing talent! You can see more success stories from current students & Alumni in this Facebook album or read some of our lovely testimonials. We are so pleased that the course & our Alumni have received outstanding industry recognition, as we have been going from strength to strength since our intial launch at the end of 2011.

WE WILL BE REVEALING EACH WEEK THE COMPANIES THAT WE HAVE CONFIRMED SO FAR. STAY TUNED!

So far we have lined up wonderful textile company Dashwood Studio (see the announcement post here) & fantastic modern homewares company DENY Designs (see the reveal post here).

Greeting card collection

Happy Monday, following on from last weeks sneak peek here are a few more photos from our fun styled photo shoot with the fab navyblur.

Both the Illustration Collection & Pattern collection are available to purchase online. We hope you like them!

If you are interested in ‘The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design (the e-course)’ we are thrilled to announce we are running a new series (starting on August 19th 2013) Register here. Also, don’t miss out on our next run of Module 2 ‘Creating Your Professional identity’ which is running 19th August 2013!. Brought to you by Rachael Taylor and Beth Kempton.

Rachael on Twitter: @rachtdesign Beth on Twitter: @DoWhatYouLoveXx

You can also read some magic words from some our past students who have gone on to achieve some amazing things!

Special Offers!

To celebrate the 1st of February we have added a selection of colourful products to our 'Special Offers' section (on our online store). Bag yourself a bargain here!

Katie Leamon Design

Happy typography Friday!
Absolutely GORGEOUS typography to share with you today from the wonderfully talented Katie Leamon. Katie is a surface designer & illustrator based in London 'with a love of drawing and typography along with great ambition and a desire to create beautiful things'. Katie draws her inspiration from traditional nursery rhymes, fables & fairytales, using a monochromatic palette she makes a traditional subject matter accessible to the contemporary customer. We love her natural talent for typography & we're so glad to have found her work exhibited at Top Drawer in September! Below you can see a selection of general greeting cards & Christmas cards. You can find more of her design work on her beautiful website!
Have a good weekend!

Jenny Wiscombe

Jenny Wiscombe is another fabulous designer that we found when exhibiting at Top Drawer in September! We just fell in love with her gorgeous greeting card collections such as her 'Alphabet' & 'Sugar' ranges! You can find the rest of her wonderfully quirky & humorous ranges online and you can email her: hi@jennywiscombe.com for more information or to place an order.
Enjoy! Kelly :)

Festive dots and spots!

dots and spots has gone all festive with their newly re-designed website! dots and spots are a small design studio based in Somerset, & ran by owner & artist Beacky Peabody. 'She creates unique and original pieces of artwork by cutting and tearing paper and using collage to create the finished design'.
The site now offers some fantastic product photography as well as beautifully designed cards, wrapping paper & festive ribbon! You can visit dots and spots on their website, see what they are up to on their blog or check them out on Twitter!

Sneak Peek! - New Typography Range!

Happy Typography Friday! We are very busy in the studio preparing for Top Drawer but we just wanted to end the week with a lovely message for you from Rachael's new typography card range! Have a lovely weekend everyone!

Libby McMullin - Progressive Greetings

Last week I visited the lovely Libby McMullin at Progressive Greetings. Libby is a very talented illustrator & designer who's personal style really makes her stand out from the crowd. Her stunning designs have a whimsical, folk & modern vintage feel; they are really wide appealing & truly timeless! I've always been a fan of Libby's style & we are now really good friends (I'm very lucky to have such talented designer friends!) It's been so lovely to watch Libby progress & flourish with a very successful first trade show! I am very proud of Libby, she really is one to watch! Below are a selection of snapshots from the show, her stand looked so beautiful!
You can connect with Libby on her Facebook page here, the designer has also just launched a innovative new website. Libby is also one of our esteemed contributors for The Art & Business of Surface Pattern Design (the e-course).

Libby also designed & made this lovely necklace & ring that I received as a lovely gift!

(You may also like to read one of our earlier blog posts about Libby here)