What I did for my summer vacation (part 2)

My other major project for Merida (besides the usual intern tasks like assembling three dozen sales binders) was to use existing rug designs to develop patterns for greeting cards. Every pattern was created in Illustrator and I'm really thrilled with how these came out; the sales reps for the company are already using them for correspondence with clients.

They wound up printing five designs in four colorways each. Here are the cards and the designs that inspired them:















The final thing to come out of the internship--and this was suggested but it was still a surprise to see arrive in the mail--were two notebooks using variations on two of my card patterns.





The blue one, based on a poor-quality photo I saw of the rug that inspired it, is probably my favorite pattern and colorway of the series.







The best part about these notebooks is the huge production quality. They're printed on recycled paper with matte covers. Merida is a fairly green company, and I'm so happy that they gave me the opportunity to create so much work and then produced in such a high-quality and responsible way.

What I did for my summer vacation (part 1)

I finally had some free time during a sort-of sunny day to photograph some things, including the work I did for Merida over the summer. Five decks of these finally came in the mail a few weeks ago:



These are playing cards I designed from start to finish; each card has a pattern from Merida's Viewpoint Collection, and each suit represents one of the four sets within the collection. They're going to be handed out as promotional items at trade shows.




Every card was done in Illustrator and is symetrical like a commercial playing card. The company had them printed by a service, so they look really great.



These are my two favorite cards, along with the informational card included in each deck. Since the rugs are all wool, I made the Joker a sheep (the King, Queen, and Jack show the process of designing and making a rug). And one of the designs from the Kids' Viewpoint Collection is called Eloise. I take it as a sign.

Rock Hard Times

My classes progress at a good clip, but until I get to a scanner, I don't have much to show. I did color charts all week, though. So that was good.

A certain interview (more later, one hopes) propted me to throw two knitting projects onto my website, which has moved to the far more memorable www.narrigan.com and has been completly revamped! This is the final product of slaving away at web design, finally.

The unbearably chipper tone of this post is brought to you by white chocolate and raspberry ice cream and the prospect of reading about the Northern Renaissance for a few hours.

Dispatch from New York

In celebration of having no homework for one of my studios, I've been drawing with my graphics tablet with a vengeance. This was brought on mostly by the realization that I have very little digital work. I'm so contrary, though, that I'm beginning to miss gauche.

So! A pomegranate:



And a more graphic artichoke:



And resultant patterns for apparel:





I knitted on teh bus to New York for about three hours, so I'm almost finished with the leg warmers, and then I have to finish a sweater, and then I'm going to start messing around with this pomegranate pattern.

The internship search continues, and is going considerably better than last year.

This started as a thank-you card

I may still use this as a tear-sheet-type post card, although it's pretty different from a lot of my other work. I'd like to connect the way I paint with gauche and the way I use Photoshop.

Speaking of post cards and analyzing my work, I have officiallly begun the hunt for a summer internship, in either Boston or New York. (My loyalty lies with Boston, but New York would, believe it or not, be easier.) I am going to be positive, organized, and successful. Wish me luck!

(Finally, something I am still upset about from last year: Marvel Comics only has unpaid internships.)