Today, I found a site call Cargo, which is a creative community, and a package caught my eyes. I think the package is fun, I’d love to buy one, mind you, I don’t smoke but I wish I could have that box just to look at it… The designer is Taylor Pemberton from RoyalT.  Check out is website, he’s got a lot of great stuff!

Design by Taylor Pemberton

I like super heroes, not as much as husband and sons but enough to be thrilled when I found out -it’s old news ,I know - that Disney was going to open a Marvel theme park in Dubaï. I would prefer in the State or  somewhere in Europe - like in my town for instance- rather than Dubaï, but what the heck, we are talking about a Spidey theme park, here!!!  Anyway, I never come to think of who create the concept of theme park. Must be pretty cool and difficult to do that job. In the case of the Marvel theme park, it’s the company Chimera Design . Well, we’ll have at least until 2012 to save up some money to go all the way there to see “our friendly neighborhood Spiderman” and co!

Cristina Masferrer is a spanish graphic and interior designer. I discover her work last month and I wanted to share it with you. Check it out! Hope you’ll enjoy.

Ulrika Gyllstad and Wilhelmina Wiese are the owner of Bantie, a Swedish fabric company. They design and produce their own fabric. Have a look and enjoy!

Don’t you have sometimes the impression that new technologies go to fast or aren’t amazed to see what we are able to do with anything? Daizi Zheng was asked to design a eco-friendly for Nokia. Et voila, the first phone with a bio battery that work with softdrink! You fill up the phone with sugary drink and once you don’t have battery empty it and fill it up again. A single charge is four time longer than a regular. Great for the environ but let you think about what we are actually drinking… Please check her website, she does some cool stuff. Have a nice sunday.

Today’s interview is with Spanish illustrator Charuca.  She’s one of the fews Europeans  that are in the Kawaii Market, market that began to be huge few years ago. Recently, Charuca become a brand and has entered in the licensing world. Be aware! The invasion of Cuties has begun! And if you don’t know what mean kawaii, Charuca is the owner of a blog magazine, which is all about kawaii and cute culture. Can’t speak Spanish? Believe you me, sometimes cuteness doesn’t need words. I love her character designs.  Her licensing brand has its own website.

What does a licensing illustrator actually do?

Actually, I don’t feel myself like a Licensing illustrator, but as an illustrator and designer. In my daily work, I do everything, creating new graphics, product designs, and some advertisement work. I take care of promoting my websites, try to stay in touch with the followers of Charuca. I love my job, but there aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything I’d like to do.

What is your background?

I’m self -taught. I always had it inside, I just had to let it out.

How long have you been in the illustration industry and how did you start?

It’s been 4 years since I exclusively work in illustration. I’ve always drawn but as hobby.

How would you define your style?

Cutie

What’s are your influence?

A mix of oriental pop culture and occidental

How do you get inspire? How do you feed your creativity?

I get inspired with the things that I live with everyday. Barcelona is a big city to live inspired. Plus, I think that being happy is a good way to feel inspired and do a good job.

Have you been stuck creatively? What’s your remedy to get past it? When being stuck creatively, I think the best is to stop working and do something fun. In those cases, I try to disconnect and have a good time. Inspiration comes and goes.

How do you work? (the process)

I draw with a pencil. Once the design is done, I scanne it and vectorize and color it with my computer.

Mac or pc? Software used:

Mac. Illustrator and Photoshop

Favorite material to draw:

Technical pencil and sketchbook

Your favourite place to work:

My work table with my favorite music. I don’t like workin out of my space. I like to work in the calm.

What are your current projects?

I just find a nice office to work in there. My current project is to decorate it until I get the look I always dream for my own studio. I’m so thrilled!

Your favourite artists:

Nara, Colonel Moutarde, Anna Chambers, Lilidoll, Leo Espinosa, Helena García, Paula Sanz Caballero…

The kawaii trend is relatively new in Europe compare to Japan, was it difficult to impose your way of drawing?

The fact that the kawaii trend isn’t huge in Europe helps me out in some ways, but in others no. There are less artists in this market therefore there is less competition and more exposure. But on the other hand, less work too, and that is negative part.

You just start licensing the brand Charuca . Are you only going to work as a licensing artist from now on?

I’ll keep on doing the same as ever. A part of time will for professional project and the other part for artistic/personal project. I do not consider myself as a licensing artist.

If you had one tip to give for those who want to work in this industry, what would it be?

Work hard every day. Get a style that stand you out from the crowd. Enjoy your work and everything will come. ^___^

Not so long ago, an Ikea opened where I live, so when you talk about Sweden it’s the first name that come out. But there are so much more, so I decide to digg a bit. And I found the duo Susanna Zacke, a stylist and Sania Hedengren an interior decorator.Ijust love how they mix bright color with white.

Sempre Livre Teen from Birdo Studio on Vimeo.

Birdo is a studio of character design animation and graphic motion from  Sao Paulo,Brasil

I’m excited to share with you my first interview. I discovered Ink & Spindle ,a screen-printing studio,few months ago while wandering in the blog of Lara Cameron, Kirin note, one of the three co-owners of this new company, which just turned 1 year. Ink and Spindle is run by 3 designers from Melbourne (Australia) Lara Cameron, Bianca van Meeuwen and Tegan Rose. The patterns of their fabrics are delightful & whimsical. In two word Just Fab.

What does a textile designer actually do?
Here at Ink & Spindle we only spend a small fraction of our time designing, which mostly involves drawing and then finishing in Illustrator or sometimes draw directly in Illustrator. The exciting part of being a textile designer at Ink & Spindle is actually getting to print the design as well and see it ‘come to life’.

What is your background?
We all come from a somewhat unconventional background. Tegan studied fine arts and then teaching, Lara comes from a multimedia and webdesign background and I studied International Business & Management.

How long have you been in the textile industry and how did you start?
Ink and Spindle was born about a year ago and that’s when we all really started to focus on the textile industry. Before Ink & Spindle Lara & Bianca designed patterns and outsourced the printing for about 3 years.

How would you define your style?
Lara’s style could be defined as cute and whimsical, Tegan’s style is more classic and my style is often described as ‘European’.

What’s are your influence?
Our main influence is Melbourne and Australia, but that said, inspiration comes from all different sources.

How do you get inspire? How do you feed your creativity?
Creativity is not something you can switch on or off, it’s an ongoing process. We try to step away from the business every so often to get inspired by our city and surrounds.

Have you been stuck creatively? What’s your remedy to get past it?
We’ve all been stuck creatively and the best thing for us is to actually step away from the business and seek inspiration by going on a trip or a stroll through the city. We are also inspired by the art and designs around us.

How do you work? (the process)
Our designs usually start on paper and are then scanned into Illustrator where we design in a repeat pattern format. Once the Illustrator file is completed we get it printed on a big piece of film, which in turn gets exposed onto a screen. Once the screen is ready, we print the pattern repeat on fabric.

Mac or pc? Software used:
Lara & Tegan use a pc, Bianca uses a mac. We all use Adobe Creative suite.

Favourite material to draw:
Moleskine & artline or straight into Illustrator.

Your favourite place to work:
The Ink & Spindle Studio or a local cafe.

What are your current projects?
We have lots of projects on the go, mainly pattern design, printing and preparing for next year’s craft shows.

Your favourite artists:
Lotta Jansdotter, Catherine Campbell, Wendy June, Publisher Textiles, Cloth and many more.

What can you say about Ink and Spindle?
Ink & Spindle is a boutique screen-printing studio. We specialise in high quality textile printing for designers and independent labels.

And finally, If you had one tip to give for those who want to work in this industry, what would it be?
Our best advice to give is to ‘do it’! Be proactive and promote yourself or start your own business.

Please not only visit the Ink & Spindle site but also Bianca’s blog and Lara’s blog