THE DESIGN ASSOCIATES

Our Team

The Associates work as an inter-disciplinary design consultancy. Market, social and historical research underlies much of the work we do together.

Isobel Bushell

Illustration/Branding

Isobel’s  illustration  projects have included mathematics text books, Christmas cards for fund raising and maps for specialist outlets.  The St. Pancras Station’s 150th Anniversary involved working with others to produce a style guide for the licensing programme, more often her work is about using word and image to create distinctive packaging, books and guides.

Julie Lavender

Designer

Julie’s skill in creating patterns and designs means that they can be used for a wide range of products. She has created greetings cards for charities like UNICEF, placemats for Creative Tops, prints for Felix Rosensteils and door mats designs for Turtlemats. She has a particular eye for colour and contributes to our trends bi-annually.

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Jane Jones

Ceramic/Surface Pattern

Jane has been one of the team right from the start. Her MA in Ceramics in Stoke on Trent led to her to create surface pattern designs for decal suppliers and ceramic firms worldwide.  Working with VTA her ceramic skills were used to develop ranges of retailers like BHS, but her illustration and pattern skill have also attracted commissions from heritage sites, greetings card and book publishers.

Rachel B. Stevens

Illustrator/Design For Children

Creating images that appeal to people to buy for their loved ones is at the core of her success. In particular her illustrations have been used on ranges for children. She created all the illustrations for the BBC/RSPCA’s Animal Hospital merchandise.  She created characters for stationery, birth announcements for UNICEF and clothing collections for retailers. Much of her work appeal to the young at heart and has been commissioned for adult crafting too.

Clinton Banbury

Artist/IIlustrator

Clint approached the Consultancy to license his artwork, as it was selling well in the print market. He was receiving inquiries from firms wanting to use his illustration on their product ranges but his time was split with design consultancy work.  So, he brings to VTA not only his own distinctive style but his experience in character and range development that has proved valuable on consultancy projects.

Russell Bamber

Artist/Designer/Maker

Russell has been working with the Consultancy as they have been scaling up some of their designs for the interiors and home furnishings markets.  Customers were approaching the consultancy with requests for mural, distinctive fabrics and characters for playful and locally referenced interiors. This has led to collaborative exhibition spaces as well as individual pieces.

 

Copyright Leonie Sharrock 2018

Leonie Sharrock

Artist & Animator

Leonie is a creator of stories and imagery. She paints and illustrates. She also teaches in animation at undergraduate level. She has worked with the Consultancy on short animations, re- animating Bonzo for a new generation, creating ranges of greeting cards and developing characters and stories for clients.

Amalia's Tate Modern

Amalia Sanchez de la Blanca/Linescapes

Interior  Architect/Illustrator

Trained as an Architect and interior design, she has worked on a variety of domestic and public spaces. More recently she has turned her visualisation skills into stunning images of architecture that can be used on a wide range of products and surfaces.

Caroline Dewar

Textile Design/Artist

Caroline trained traditionally in both printed and woven textile design. When working with clothing manufacturers  she became fascinated  by CGI technology. So she set up a specialist  consultancy supplying CAD design to the High Street supply chain.

More recently she has been revitalising her hand skills and developing designs that can be used on a wide variety of products. Her designs are either abstract or more representative  with a keen focus on colour and texture.

 

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Geraldine Millett

Product/Graphic Designer

Geraldine Millett’s first projects with the Consultancy were for visualisation of glass products and light fittings.  She has created some strong graphic collections for cards and gift wrap that were produced for breast cancer research fundraising. She has her own card publishing company, so also license her patterns  for other products like celebration cakes, ceramics and crafting.

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Jessie Eckel

Illustration

The editorial and publishing world know Jessie’s distinctive style, where her work is regularly used for children’s books.  For the consultancy she has contributed  designs  for  melamine ranges and branding for Creative Tops,  illustrations children’s wooden toys and gift items for UNICEF and pattern repeats for first aid kits and kitchen textiles.

Anna Brewin

Surface Pattern

Anna enjoys developing co-ordinated and branded ranges. Her strong visualising skills have been key as we have developed style guides for clients.  She has worked with clients own initial drawings turning their vision into a commercial reality.  Her style of work seems to appeal to the fashion accessories markets, so she has worked on collections for bags, cosmetic purses and scarves.

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Sally Felton

Product/Graphic Designer

Initially trained as a product designer, she moved into graphics and the publishing. Graphics are often key to communicating what a product is and how it works. Now Sally has become involved in selling book or a concept through the design of point of sale and animation. At VTA she has worked on concepts for house wares retailers and turning illustrator’s visions into manufacturable products.

Mary Atherton

Illustrator/Author

Mary creates picture books. She enjoys writing and illustrating stories for children. The Consultancy has helped her find the right publishers. Her watercolour illustrations have been regularly licensed for greetings cards and advent calendars.  As with many of the illustrators on the team her work has a very British quality that appeals to markets and home and abroad.

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Juliet Robson

Textile Designer

Juliet is a textile designer with experience right across the sector from small fashion repeats for swim wear to carpet designs.  Traditional florals always have an appeal for giftware ranges. Roses speak of love, spring flowers of occasions like weddings or Mother’s Day or berries at Christmas.   Overseas customer in particular like her style and license her artwork for ceramics, kitchen textiles and cosmetic bags and purses.  

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Jill Moore

Illustration

Jill’s involvement has changed over time.  She started by working on wedding invitations and then was involved packaging projects; turning picture frames into greetings cards through to ranges of toiletries. This customer wanted to start a small chain of themed gift shops. Today, illustration work is her strength and so back to her first love. It is a world where her detailed  hand work is appreciated.

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Whale By Lydia Evans

Lydia Evans

Photography/ Illustration

Lydia has been working in publishing as a commercial photographer and has retuned to her first  love of illustration. Creating collections of images around themes, like the oceans. She is looking to license or produce these on clothing, furnishing and  homewares.

Wallpaper Angela Groundwater

Angela Groundwater

Pattern & Animation

Having trained as a traditional animator, Angela brings storytelling skills to design work via detailed, hand drawn, narrative, repeat patterns, telling unique, bespoke stories, either historical or fantasy.
She also works in collage with vulnerable older groups, making patterns to celebrate their lives. Both these avenues have been produced on packaging, upholstery, wallpaper, fabrics and album covers.

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Shirley WAlker

Artist/Illustrator/Resercher

After experience in adverting illustration and art teaching. Shirley  also undertook an MA in Design History but studied at prize winning children’s picture books  She has continued to research the history of graphics and  collaborate with Vicki on heritage and educational projects.  Her artwork has been licensed on to greetings cards, tin ware  and packaging for  cakes and even Christmas socks.

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Roy Simpson

Sculptor/Ceramic modeller

Roy was involved with two of the most successful and long running product ranges.  J Luber AG approached us to design a collection of novelty teapots. Roy produced some very novel designs that were distributed across Europe. Individual designs and the ideas were much copied but the company simply asked us to come up with a new concepts. When we were working for Englefields Pewter Roy designed their Teddy Bear’s Picnic range which continues to sell after 25 years.

Our Skills

We work as a team to meet out our clients needs
Most projects require a variety of design  skills. Most project start with research but at least 30% have a report element. Most require a management overview to make sure they run to budget and deliver on their aims. We are a design consultancy, so all projects have elements of visual and design creativity.
  • Research – 30%
  • Design Managment- 90%
  • Design and Product Development – 70%
  • Surface Pattern & Textile Design – 40%
  • Illustration – 30%

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