Thinking & doing things differently

One of my most admired designers is Sir Paul Smith, I love the happiness and the beauty of his products, his brand , life phylosophy, his style, but most of all I admire him as a person.

Sir Paul Smith 

Sir. Paul Smith  is keen in the importance of lateral thinking for designers and creatives.
He openly speaks about the importance of observation, not only looking but actually observing what surround us and obtaining inspiration from it. Sir Paul Smith also encourages creatives to balance between electronical devices, computers and mobile telephones, with visiting  museums, traveling and looking at books and common surroundings as a source of inspiration.

The term lateral thinking by Edward de Bono commonly known as "thinking out of the box" is the way to approach a solution by looking in different and unexpected persectives. Lateral thinking is going beyond the obvious leaving behind traditional thoughs and preconceptions.

Being a designer focused in children designs sometimes I often find my self in a mental debate on what else to design, once I have created artwork with all the animals, flower types and hearts I possible can. But then I find a different approach to what I have already done, but normally as answer after the question… and now what?

Currently I am following the Lilla Rogers Assignment Bootcamp, on where monthly assignments are given to us in order to keep developing pieces under specific briefs and this month I found my self drawing gelatine molds and jelly; which is  subject that I personally would never think on creating in first place.
I originally started creating artwork in super bright colors with ink and watercolors to give the traditional transparency look a jelly has.

©2014 Believe Creative Studio

Later on as a part of the challenge a new color palette was suggested to us by Lilla Rogers : neutrals!
Although at the beginning of the rbief I  went directly to superbright ,almost primary colors, after Lilla's suggestion I decided to give it a try to exlore a completely different approach and to think "out of my box" and although I still used quite bright range of colors I balanced out with neutral tones.

Definetly thinking laterally is a great benefit to every designer and a practice we should master. After all the world still need designs every season and after a while the animals, heart and flowers will start looking the same if we do not find a way to strecht ourselves in different directions.

"No copyright infrigement  intended"

Indigo SS15-Feb14 Review

Hello:

After almost a month of our participation at Indigo-Paris SS15  is time to share a brief review of the show.

As every time we exhibit is an intense, exhausting yet rewarding experience. The previous months before  exhibiting are days of planning and working really hard; this for only 3 days in where you have to give all you got.

Source: Indigo-salon

Source: Indigo-salon

This year a new member joined Believe Creative Studio!! We were really thrilled to introduce our  new studio development manager to our customers, and we were extremelly happy to have during the show the support of one of our dear friends, the 3 of us were with the best energy to rock the show.

We had a great collection that we createvely directed trough eleven briefs and  one to one design mentorship  program and  together with our talented and enthusiastic guest designers, we broght to live artworks full of color and joy.

As every season the show is super well organized with tons of visitors walking the isles and tons of amazing studios presenting their work. Enviroment is always great!

We absolutely loved our booth and our background (which is the main image of Believe Creative Studio) was the center of attention and we received tons of compliments.

Also we had a lots of fans for our printed cocktail umbrellas, which we offer along with dutch egg shaped  chocolates typical of eastern season

With the time we have learned to manage realistic expectations, there is too many factors influencing the decision of a buyer to get or not a design.

Definetly there is nothing written in stone about what a customer wants, everyone has completely different requests and everything that we have been told, changes when customers request things completely different of what we have heard as a rule.

Years ago when I used to visit Indigo as an art director and a buyer, I remember the rush to get early to the show, the importance to have a good relationship with the studios to get the best designs, and the importance to bring tons of chash for onsite payments; with the time this has changed, there are so many others shows, so many other studios selling online and lots of companies sourcing artwork even for free with the such called "contest".

"Designs do not sell as a warm cupcakes in the shows anymore" but from my point of view shows still  are a good source of business & marketing.

Definetly exhibiting is a decision that must be weighted and planned, there is too many aspects and a big investment to consider, a big deal of self believe and persistence is needed, external support, tons of enthusiasm, resistance to frustration & stress, time management and lots of patience, but  every solid business requiere the same.

I can not express my gratitude to our studio team, guest designers team, friends, fellow designers, family and customers who support us, cheer for us and believe in us!

Love

Rosie

I'm in paper love blog hop!!

Hello! Welcome to the "I am in paper love bloghop" organized by the amazing team of: Paperphilia & Do What You Love 

My name is Rosie Martinez-Dekker, I am a mexican designer based in The Netherlands, 
I am the co-founder and creative director of Believe Creative Studio a design studio focused in print and patterns for babies,children's and teen's.

You probably are visiting us from: Doreen Marts blog :Doreen Daily Treats

As long as I remember, I have been in love with paper products and decorations. 
From  decorating my homework and notebooks with collages, paper, colors & stickers  to receiving birthday cards from my parents and friends, and later on creating greeting cards my self in high school; which was  a turning point in my life, because thanks of the joy I got doing them, I changed my mind to go to college to study Graphic design instead of Business.

Now  even being a "grown up" I still love and use stickers, colorful notebooks, greeting cards and sending and receiving letters from my friends and family from the other side on the world.The best part of all is that I also get to create art and designs for all this type of products!

I am from Mexico, where the post is almost a myth, and now I currently live in The Netherlands where everything is celebrated by post. There is greeting cards to celebrate every milestone in a person life, from a card to congratulate people when they get their driver license, to say thank you, to celebrate birthday's, new job, new home, pregnancy, retirement, the birth of a new family member, getting a new pet, to wish someone strengh for the lost of a beloved one, and of course to say someone how much you love them.

A huge Dutch tradition is announcing the birth of a new family member by sending a paper card by post, where the details of the new little person are announced but also the name is revealed!! Names of the future newborn are kept into secret until this very last moment, when he or she finally arrive to this world, then parents send beautifully designed announcements to friends, family, co-workers & neighbors.

Christmas time is a big time to send and receive paper cards in The Netherlands, lots of envelopes arrive continuosly during the season to each home  which is really exciting to me!  I decided to kept the ones from previous year to create an alternative  X'mas Tree with repurposed cards.

Notebooks are a huge fascination for me as well, I keep collecting them! 
I have several notebooks in different sizes, colors and all of them with totally different purpuses, and despite all technology available I prefer to have a paper agenda over an online one, I still can not get over the fact of having my biggest pleasures on an electronic device, so I also keep reading real books & magazines, after all the magic of flipping pages or putting ink on a blank page never page will never be substituted with anything.

We still need to consider the environment therefore is important to find second life to those magazines and paper we use, and to buy paper products with FSC paper (which  is a certification that the paper is produced from protected sources) at the end of the day we need to keep our trees alive so we can always read a book,write a love letter or sketch under the shadow of a tree.

I would love to hear from you so get in touch with me & with my desing studio:
Believe Creative Studio, 
Believe Creative Studio Facebook page  
Twitter

To continue the hop visit  the next designer blog : Tori Mears 

Here are all the participants list ! Do not miss the amazing and inspiring work :

Majo Bautista / Tona Bell / Louise Best / Cathy Bluteau / Jennifer Bomgardner / Giova Brusa / Lindsay Buck / Beka Buckley / Joanna Caskie / Jonathan Chapman (Mr Yen) / Halle Cisco / Sarah Clare / Cathryn Clarge / Dawn Clarkson / Rhiannon Connelly / Jenny D'Fuego / Molly Dhiman / Ian Dudley / Ayisatu Emore / Akmal Farid / Monika Forsberg / Claire Fritz-Domeney / Louise Gale / Chrissy Gaskell / Julie Hamilton / Emma Hawman / Rachel Hazell / Holly Helgeson / Claudine Hellmuth / Kim Henkel / Sarah Hoffman / Joanne Hus / Paula Joerling / Beth Kempton / Julie Kirk / Eos Koch / Katie LaClair / Kristy Lankford / Michelle Manolov / Doreen Marts / Rosie Martinez-Dekker / Tori Mears / Maria Mederios / Lise Meijer / Debbie Miller / MaryJane Mitchell / Suzy Naidoo / Grace Noel / Hannah Nunn / Camilla Olsson / Jo Packham / Rachelle Panagarry / Monette Pangan / Melanie Paul / Nicole Piar / Jen Pitta / Liz Plummer / Julie Reed / Michelle Reynolds / Lisa Rivas / Angee Robertson / Natalie Ryan / Aisling Ryan / Elisabet Sapena / Kyrrha Sevco / Jamie Sprague / Elizabeth Steele / Terri Stephens / Juniper Stokes / Mary Tanana / Maike Thoma / Linda Tieu / Gabrielle Treanor / Tammy Tutterow / Deborah Velasquez / Jordan Vinograd Kim / Cat Whipple / Brooke Witt / Katie Wood / Amelia Woodbridge

The PaperLove Blog Hop is a celebration of all things paper! Follow the links to discover more bloggers who love paper and use it to inspire and delight. And if you want to explore a whole world of paper, and stretch your paper passion further with a host of creative projects, why not join the innovative new online course PaperLove (starts March 31). Led by book artist Rachel Hazell, PaperLove is a five week creative adventure for paper lovers. Find out more here. 

Some designs in the images are from different artist around the world, this images are to share their beautiful work and no Copyright infringement is intended.