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INSPO

Robert Mawdsley

HOW THE PAST INSPIRES THE FUTURE

Why do so many top designers seek our antique designs for print inspiration?


Because antique prints are stunning and totally original. Our archive is a treasure trove of beautiful colour, amazing motifs and unusual ideas. Many prints look so contemporary and commercial that you can't believe they are over one hundred years old. As a designer myself this where I get a little too excited (!). I love to pour over vintage prints, my heart beats a little faster as I admire the beautiful hand painted quality. I love how non CAD artwork has a human touch, a softness and loose fluidity that only hand painting can bring. I love that we have every kind of flower in a design from every era. I'm astonished that you can use a circle or square in so many different ways that I have thousands of versions of the humble but hardworking geometric design.


It's so fascinating to me that throughout history, through social influences designers in the past could create a design out of the craziest subject matter. I have designs created from black carrots, another with singing chickens, a frog band and 3D wallpaper from the 80's that came with 3D specs - that caused a lot of fun and squeals at a meeting with Boden Mini who use lots of our prints in their collections. 


As an industry designer you're under a lot of pressure to deliver. You have to create beautiful commercial design that both stands out from your competitors, fits with trends but also keeps to your brand handwriting, all this whilst working to tight deadlines and restrictions with garment limitations and print manufacturing costs.


The catwalks and trend forecasters have their part for inspiration but often lead to a glut of copycat designs coming out of regular design studios. Designers can't use any online resources because there's a risk someone else would have found that gorgeous floral motif to rework too. So...what's a designer to do??!



That's where Print Pattern Archive comes in. My super power is to take a trend board or 5 words of print direction and distill our entire archive of over 50,000 prints into a neat portable collection for a client. Once the designs have been selected we can even digitise the design and put it into repeat so it's modernised for production and ready to wow the world.


This service is great for clients who love vintage but maybe they don't have an in-house print team or need something fast. Wiggy Kit loves to use our design studio for this. We have a notable client base including Marks & Spencer also recently used one of our beautiful 1920's wallpapers to create this season's statement print - this


The store is awash with our designs!


So the past is an incredible source for inspiration and will always have a place in a designers toolkit. Designers often gasp when they enter the archive, lots say it's 'like being a child in a sweet shop'.

You know where we are if you want to get fired up! 

Contact me for an appointment: cheryl@printpatternarchive.com

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