Sally owns 'Sarah Paris Style', which was designed and set up by Sally alongside her full-time work as a senior creative designer in publishing. Specialising in designing for the crafting industry, Sally's designs are magnificent pieces of work.
Can you tell me a little bit about your background in Surface Pattern Design?
When I studied A level art many, many years ago (1982), I actually studied arts & crafts, including silkscreen printing, fabric printing & textiles. My work was quite patterned and textured even then, but before computers it was all hand-painted. "Surface pattern" design didn't exist, and initially I wanted to study stage design, but with only 2 courses in the country, I eventually opted to study graphic design instead as it offered more career options. After completing my degree at Bath Academy of Art I soon found myself working in publishing.
After 10 years working on designing children's books I finally discovered my real love and greatest strength was designing for stationery and gift products when I became senior designer for a stationery publisher. It was a few more years before I discovered Surface Pattern Design, which, I now realise is what I'd been doing all along!
What made you apply for the ABSPD course and what have you gained from it so far?
As soon as I heard about The Art & Business of Surface Pattern Design I knew it was what I had to do. I was working for a large corporate publishing company on very specifically directed designs, project managing large book projects, alongside running my own online shop selling digital designs for crafters and I wanted to break free of this to concentrate on selling my own designs. The course offered by Rachael & Beth gave me the ideal opportunity to do this with the amazing support of a network of fellow students. I've learnt to be more confident in presenting and marketing myself, and I've learnt to free myself from the constraints of working for others to develop my own style. I've finally taken time away from the computer to doodle and draw again.
Can you describe your style and what methods you use to create your designs?
I'm a child of the sixties and early seventies and a lover of rich, bright colours and also of art deco & art nouveau. There's a mix of these varying influences in my work. And it must be fairly obvious I love flowers and florals too. Although I follow trends, there are times when I just go with a subject or colour scheme that I love regardless, as that's the way trends are set. For my online store where I sell digital clipart, papers and stamps, I mainly draw up my designs digitally and quite graphically using a Wacom tablet & pen in Illustrator, after sketching out some initial ideas. For some of my recent surface pattern designs I combine digitally drawn elements with scans of hand drawn sketches and background textures to add variety and depth.
Where do you see your work progressing in the next few years, and what industry would you say you are aiming at?
I'm definitely going to continue developing my designs for paper-based products, stationery and arts & crafts, building on my associations with several papercraft magazines to further develop my brand and hopefully ultimately launching my own signature stationery & scrapbook ranges. I can also see my designs working on a range of homewares, accessories and even wallpaper.
If you would like to find out anymore about SarahParisStyle, please visit:
Online store: www.sarahparis.co.uk
> blog: www.sarahparis.co.uk/wordpress
> twitter: www.twitter.com/sarahparisstyle
> Facebook: www.facebook.com/sarahparisstyle
