Hasta La Ideas

This Christmas, reserve your favourite spot on the family sofa with a ‘reserved’ cushion, one of several new printed products launched this week by hand lettering artist Alison Carmichael…

Since we posted almost exactly a year ago about Carmichael’s new line of Made By Alison Carmichael printed products, she has completed a screenprinting course and this week releases a new set of products including three limited edition screenprints (pulled by her own fair hand), a cotton tote bag, and the cushion (£50, shown above) which features the word ‘reserved’ on one side and ‘vacant’ on the other, thus allowing it to be placed accordingly depending on your seat-reserving needs.

Carmichael’s three new prints are all all screenprinted on 50 x 70cm colorplan 270gsm paper and priced at £120 each. “They are very limited runs,” she tells us. “I only did them in runs of 20-30 depending on how many I printed perfectly,” she continues. “I printed them all myself apart from Everything You Know Is Wrong [shown above] because the facilities I had access to meant that I couldn’t print that one exactly as I wanted it so I outsourced it to Dan Mather who is a really talented young screenprinter I have worked with in the past.”

“I like phrases which can be interpreted in different ways and love how you can adjust the perception of the message with a particular lettering style,” says Carmichael of the new work. “I’m really excited about the idea of collaborating with product and furnishing designers to produce more interior pieces.”

Above and below: To Those Who Think Otherwise, £120, printed in an edition of 20. Also available in a turquoise edition of 25.

Below, the same design also adorns a black cotton tote bag, £12.

Find these products, and more, at Carmichael’s shop website.

To see more of her work visit her portfolio site at alisoncarmichael.com, recently redesigned by Adam J Evans of Ordinary Designs.

CR In print

In our December issue we look at why carpets are the latest medium of choice for designers and illustrators. Plus, Does it matter if design projects are presented using fake images created using LiveSurface and the like? Mark Sinclair looks in to the issue of mocking-up. We have an extract from Craig Ward’s upcoming book Popular Lies About Graphic Design and ask why advertising has been so poor at preserving its past. Illustrators’ agents share their tips for getting seen and we interview maverick director Tony Kaye by means of his unique way with email. In Crit, Guardian economics leader writer Aditya Chakrabortty review’s Kalle Lasn’s Meme Wars and Gordon Comstock pities brands’ long-suffering social media managers. In a new column on art direction, Paul Belford deconstructs a Levi’s ad that was so wrong it was very right, plus, in his brand identity column, Michael Evamy looks at the work of Barcelona-based Mario Eskenazi. And Daniel Benneworth-Gray tackles every freelancer’s dilemma – getting work.

Our Monograph this month, for subscribers only, features the EnsaïmadART project in which Astrid Stavro and Pablo Martin invited designers from around the world to create stickers to go on the packaging of special edition packaging for Majorca’s distinctive pastry, the ensaïmada, with all profits going to a charity on the island (full story here)

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