With a dream to start his own fashion line, Brent Rosenberg spent his early 20s learning how to create technical drawings and in turn, digitise them. And while the fashion dream didn’t reach fruition, it did lead to a new path of becoming a graphic designer and now, a full-time artist.
[contextly_sidebar id=”hOAxl2OqiegCskAY8JCzW6nnvBTt482w”]Despite creating digital artworks, Brent often begins by hand sketching to get the formation and perspective, before spending hour upon hour designing on his computer. Ending with contemporary artworks that combine geometric shapes with contrasting colours, his latest collection is very visually impactful. “I like the impact artworks can make. It doesn’t have to be deep and meaningful, it can just be a reaction, a simple ‘oh that’s cool,’ would make me happy enough to put my work out there.”
Influenced by the world around us, indigenous and generational culture and nature, his work has an underlying street art edge. “I love street art, not so much hood rat graffiti but more creative street art, whether that be paste ups, installations or pieces on massive walls. That urban street world has really influenced my latest works and I hope I can evolve it more and more.”
Having made art his career for the last three years, Brent is 100% self-taught, as he says: “You could say YouTube gave me my degree!” His proudest moment thus far was when Simon and Shannon Vos used his artwork in their Block Glasshouse apartment, an experience that was pretty darn cool and surprisingly unexpected. “The proudest moment was when I bumped into judge Darren Palmer and his praise was pretty flattering. I never take life too seriously but that moment I definitely felt like I found my place.”
While Brent isn’t one to ever look too far into the future, he is hoping to spend many more years creating art. “I see myself still being me, doing what I love, surrounded by my family and friends. I’d love to travel lots more and just enjoy the experience which is life.”
If there’s something we love as much as great homewares it’s a good old-fashioned love story, and today we bring you both! Aussie textile and graphic designer Jemma Bell moved to India for love and as an added bonus, has ended up starting her own textiles business with some gorgeous results!
The globetrotter was previously living in London and each year, she would meet her sister Phoebe (of homewares store Sage x Clare) in India for her annual designing and buying trip. “During our trip early last year, we decided to treat ourselves and see India from the air. We took a hot air balloon flight! After the flight, I met the man who is crazy enough to actually start and run a balloon company in India, a fellow Aussie called Paul. We spent a few days having dinner with him and then I went back to London. But Paul and I kept in contact and not long after, he came to London for eight days to visit. And about five days in, he asked me to move to Jaipur! Turns out I’m just as mad as him. I made the big move in July last year. Scary, daunting, challenging, but very rewarding!”
Jemma Bell
Starting Soda + Stitch was somewhat of a natural progression with Jemma always having wanted her own textiles business. She had been freelancing as a graphic and textile designer and gotten restless designing for other people and their businesses.
“It did take me a little while to find my feet in India,” says Jemma. “Everything in my life had changed! But I slowly started working on finding suppliers, making decisions on branding and the process of creating patterns and designs. I have to admit, the creative process took some time. It’s hard to be your own critic and make decisions when it’s just you!” But she got there and Soda + Stitch was born in April.
Jemma is the third member of her family to make the move into homewares but her background was perhaps the most relevant! Sister Phoebe’s background was in law before she became a stylist for Country Road and then started her online homewares store. “Her experience with Sage x Clare has given me a massive helping hand, especially with sampling and production here in India,” says Jemma. “But the funniest twist in the family has been our Dad, Brian. He was always a corporate, suit kind of guy, but is now the man behind Twiggargerie. Some sort of creativeness must run in the family!”
Starting a business in India has of course had many challenges. “It’s the simple stuff: haggling with tuk tuk drivers, couriers, fabric merchants and so on. One day I might pay $10 for cotton, the next it will magically go up to $15. And I can barter until I’m blue in the face and sweaty with frustration and I’ll only get it down to $14.50! It took me two weeks to find envelopes for sending product and a month to get just the right shade of blue. And the electricity always seems to go out when I really need that afternoon cup of tea! I’ve learnt you just got to take what you can get, roll with the punches and be very, very, very patient!”
The advantages are many too though.”There’s a huge amount of amazing techniques at my fingertips: hand block printing, screen printing, weaving, embroidery, and moments of inspiration that constantly spark new ideas. And at the very least, when you’re in a traffic jam because you’re stuck behind a huge painted elephant, you get a good laugh!”
Soda + Stitch initially launched with a range of textiles that are sold by the metre and children’s bedlinen was added last month. “When I first started designing the prints and patterns, I really tried hard not to look at what was already on the market. I wanted the designs to feel new, playful, colourful and cheeky,” Jemma says. “I think I’ve come up with a debut collection that is just that. All our fabrics are also block printed completely by hand, but in a very different style to the Indian block printing you may have seen before. I’d say we definitely shake off the norms of block printing, without losing out on the texture, quality and colour that comes with it.”
Jemma hopes selling her fabrics by the metre offers something a bit new too, for all the craft lovers and creatives. “But if you’re not much of a sewer, all our textiles can also be stitched into custom or bespoke products just for you and your home. We can also print existing designs in different colours or on different base materials. And if you’re feeling really adventurous, we can create a whole new design that becomes yours and only yours.”
Inspiration can be found everywhere. “It could be a bit of embroidery on a piece of vintage fabric here in Jaipur or even the carpet in an airport! I’m a big fan of geometrics, but geometrics that aren’t perfect, and I love hand drawn patterns. I really like to find little marks that come from sketching and playing around, that can be altered and transformed in some way.
“And being in India is a big inspiration. There’s never a dull moment. Life is full of hustle and well, more hustle, loads of colour and plenty of crazy moments!”
Find Soda + Stitch online. If you’re interested in becoming an Australian or New Zealand stockist, contact Jemma via her website.
DISCOUNT
Jemma’s offering a 10% discount for our readers. Simply use the promo code IHEARTINTERIORS at checkout for the next 6 months.
Copper, foil typography, letterpress, fun with words; they’re all things I LOVE, so I’m a fan of these new limited edition prints from stationery brand Inky Co. and we have a set of four to give away to one lucky reader.
Inky Co. is an Australian stationery and gift wrapping online store, established in 2011 by three graphic designers (mum and daughter) Chloe and Carolyn, and Sarah. Inky Co. operate in a colourful creative space in Melbourne, where their sketch pads are currently open to pages of reindeers and snowflakes as they are in full Christmas preparation mode!
All papers and prints are designed and manufactured in Australia using 100% green energy and environmentally friendly materials. These new prints are foiled on a 1961 Heidelberg Windmill Platen letterpress using beautiful gold and copper foil. Each print is lovingly presented in a clear sleeve with cardboard backing and hand numbered. While designed to be unique and fun, they also keep practicality in mind, so they fit a standard frame size and will suit a wide range of interiors.
There’s a limited run of 50 of each design, making them a great starter piece to a collection.
The Inky Co team are passionate about interiors and hope to continue to expand upon this collection with new typographic prints and art already in the works.
WIN
To be in with a chance of winning one of each of the four limited edition prints, complete the form below by 6pm Sydney time on Friday 26 June 2015.
Just over a year ago, I had the honour of being MC at the wedding of my beautiful friend Amanda to her now husband Scott, at a stunning venue in Waiheki, New Zealand.
Amanda and I met at work at a publishing company in Sydney, where she was a graphic designer and I was an editor. We first bonded over being foreigners (her a Kiwi and me, a Pom!). She is one of my most creative and stylish friends and I knew her wedding would be super cool and non-traditional. Today, I have the pleasure of sharing her wedding styling with you.
Tell us a bit about the look and style of your wedding and your inspiration. The style came about quite unintentionally, it was just me thinking of all things I love really. Scott and I also joked around that it was going to be an awesome wedding on and it kind of stuck! My favourite colours are black, grey, white, gold and bright neon coral. They became the colour palette for the wedding (Scott was cool with whatever!). For everyone who knows me, this wasn’t a surprise. Even my engagement ring is a black diamond, set in yellow gold with smaller white diamonds and I don’t leave the house without wearing a pop of neon coral. Crazy? Yes.
Your invitations were amazing. Do you feel they set the tone for the rest of the wedding? I hope so, that was what I was after! It started with an idea I had of an invite revealing something as it’s unfolded. I had never wanted a traditional invite as it just wasn’t us. The folded idea took me to origami and I found the perfect fold online. I wanted to incorporate a bright neon coral colour, of course, so I began a search for neon paper and found the perfect fluoro red origami paper and bought tonnes of it. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it, but it was so perfect I couldn’t leave it!
I thought of a few things to create in origami, but the hearts were the obvious choice, and they slotted into the invite perfectly. The origami and invite ended up being the catalyst for the theme I guess, as I really love geometric shapes (although arguably the theme was just ‘Amanda’s favourite stuff’)! I ended up finding origami-style lanterns and some amazing geometric-shaped candles, so it all worked in nicely.
How would you describe the style of your wedding in 3 words? Bold. Geometric. Personal.
How important was the styling element of the wedding? It was important to me because being a designer it became my own little (big!) project. I didn’t want someone else to do the creative work, that’s the fun part.
How much did your job as a graphic designer and being a creative person impact on your ideas for the wedding? Probably a lot more than I had imagined. I probably went a bit more crazy over the detail. My invite turned into a more elaborate project than I had first imagined, and the favours became personally designed screen printed tea towels, with printed paper wraps! Every part of it grew as I had more and more ideas! It was dangerous!
What did you spend the most money on in terms of styling? What was the biggest bargain? I spent a lot on the geometric candles, they were through a local stylist and imported from Sweden. I accidentally ordered two boxes instead of one. Each box was over NZ$300. Yikes (I am now in the process of selling off the other box. Any takers?)! The biggest bargains were the table centres, as they were mostly homemade. And using succulents instead of flower arrangements was a huge saver. They were $5 each but looked amazing. I also didn’t have a cake made and instead ordered macarons to put onto a tower I found. I bought two chocolate mud cakes from a beautiful chocolate shop to put either side: $50 each!
Was anything really hard to source or to get just right? Making sure all the bits I ordered online were the right colour match was difficult. It was hard to get the right neon coral! It hadn’t all been put together until the day of setting up, as a lot was brought over to New Zealand with me from Sydney. I was so relieved when it all worked! The only sourcing issue was with the lanterns. I had them ordered through a local stylist, but then she couldn’t get them, as they they had sold out. So I began a hunt online, and eventually found them all to buy in various parts of the world. Way more expensive!
Did you enjoy doing so much yourself and making it very personal? I did but it did become a lot larger than I had thought. I think I bit off a little more than I could chew, and in the end, that became a race against time and quite stressful!
What was people’s reaction and what things did they notice? The first thing people noticed was the view, of course! But I think people loved to see something different, the colour and the detail. They thought my tea towels were a cool gift, and enjoyed the macarons!
Did the venue dictate the styling or do you think would you have had similar styling in a different venue? We fell in love with the venue ( I mean, who wouldn’t, right!?) and the styling was personal to me and luckily they suited each other. I think wherever we had chosen, I would have done the same styling.
How did the styling of the venue tie in with the dresses, jewellery etc? My dress had a black bodice with a strap on the back, and my shoes were black and gold. The girls had black dresses with a geometric crossover front and black crossover shoes. It all tied in nicely. In mine and the girls’ hair were bright coral flowers. The girls wore gold bracelets and their earrings were actually called ‘origami’ and were gold triangles overlapped! I know, I was a bit obsessive!
Anything else you’d like to share about your big day with our readers? It was an amazing day, it all came together so well and the sun was shining! We were so lucky to have all our friends and family there too, considering we are from different sides of the Tasman. The venue was such a find, it’s worth hunting out those gems! The styling was a big job, but so amazing to do. I would recommend getting in and doing it if you’re tempted, it’s so rewarding!
Bridesmaid Julia (left), the bride (right) and I
What a gorgeous day to be lucky enough to be a small part of! What do you think of Amanda’s non-conventional and very personal wedding styling? Would you like to see more wedding styling on Interiors Addict?
Amanda and Scott were married at Waikopou, a private house on Waiheki Island, New Zealand. They kept the venue a secret so we had no idea what to expect until we were bused there on the day. And wow, what a venue and view it was!
As individuals they both have very impressive resumes: Laine Fraser as head of design at Typo and Fleur Harris as the print designer behind the Lara Bingle for Cotton on Body swimwear range. But their newest venture, Tassel + Gaine, has seen the friends join forces to shows a completely new side to them.
Laine and Fleur. Photo credit: Nikole Ramsay
Their fine art cushion brand was launched last year. “We’re all about providing affordable, easy products that people can buy and use instantly to style their homes in their own unique way,” says Laine. “Many interior pieces are a big financial investment — furniture, artwork etc — so we want to provide a range of products that make it easy to refresh your space. Cushions are the perfect solution to changing the look and feel of a room easily and affordably.”
Photo credit: Nikole Ramsay. Stylist: Emma O’Meara
Designing all the cushions themselves, the process is entirely collaborative, with the duo constantly bouncing ideas back and forth. “We work together, and then individually and we keep coming back together to continue refining our designs until we’re both 100 percent happy with the end result,” explains Laine. “We’re both very critical of our own work first and foremost, and we balance each other out well by giving each other constant feedback. We are both on a mission to create the best art we possibly can for T+G, and we don’t stop refining our work until we get there.”
Having a combined total of almost 20 years in the design industry, the Melbourne creatives have worked as textile designers, graphic designers and illustrators. As a result of their diverse backgrounds, they use a variety of techniques to create the art for the cushions; anything from designing on their Macs to throwing paint on a giant canvas in the back yard!
Photo credit: Nikole Ramsay. Stylist: Emma O’Meara
Laine and Fleur are currently in the process of creating their second collection, an evolution and extension of their debut range, which Laine describes as having: “Lots of colour, fun artworks and good vibes all around!”
Set to be released in August, in the meantime you can purchase any of the looks from the first collection here.
