Design Musings

We recently have been designing quite a few business cards for our clients, this one in particular is for luxury holiday cottages in Polzeath, Mesmear. I love business cards as they are a chance to have a little fun with the brand. In such a small space, bold colour and design can be used to full effect.  With these cards I wanted to make the most of our client's location. Being so close to the sea and great holiday spots on the North Cornish Coast, I thought the best way to communicate this was by drawing a little map. As well showcasing location, the friendly style of illustration speaks of escapism and holiday vibes right from the outset.  The business cards are full colour using soft blues, greens and grey, and for added interest we picked the logo out in blue hot foil. The foil makes the logo shimmer beautifully, just like the sea.  The tone of voice is friendly and inviting with a well-chosen quote setting the scene, The Sunday Times writes "This is as...

Recently we were approached to design a website for an antiques shop in the heart of Wadebridge, Cornwall. The challenge was to create a clean, modern website that was easy to use and navigate, that would be packed full of historic and eclectic pieces of furniture. I wanted to keep the colour palette very simple as there would be so much detail in the products themselves, so created a minimal layout using a soft grey and shades of British Racing Green. I also used period style swirls of illustration to add some flair and creativity to the white website. The Home page has fading images, hinting at the hugeness of the space Victoria Antiques has. Featured products are also included here to encourage viewers to become buyers.  Our client can add and remove  products , and each product has the option of different views that can be browsed. The shop itself is in the centre of Wadebridge selling everything from barometers to bookcases, Georgian chairs to pine dressers. We wa...

We thought you would like to see a brochure we designed for the Wheelhouse. We posted a story about their website in 2012 which you can read here . This friendly guest house has a great location, right on Porthcressa Beach, St Mary's, on The Isles of Scilly. Previously our clients sent out a leaflet to anyone enquiring, but we wanted to create more of an upmarket brochure. We preposed larger sized pages to a standard six page DL, to allow more of a journey, meaning the central spread matched their panoramic views. We printed the brochure on uncoated stock to add texture to the feel, adding quality and really making use of the great photography of their location. There are elements of the website that we carried across, sky blues and boating navy complement the Polaroid style images. We layered the pictures - images of sea views, details of hospitality and pictures of the rooms - to create interest. Phrases from the website were brought in accompanying minimal text, making ...

Having our design studio based in beautiful Cornwall means we often design for accommodation clients. Every cottage, hotel, campsite has its own personality which we really enjoy trying to capture. Clients Lanneves Cottage Holidays approached us to design them a logo and a website to promote their self-catering cottage in Lanivet, the heart of Cornwall. First we designed their logo, capturing the holiday feel. This lovely cottage has been thoughtfully decorated and comes with a private garden and access to vegetable patches and play equipment. We used the hens and chicks to suggest family and illustrated elements, which we picked up on the website, show the country location and homely feel. We used bright bold colours of rosy red, bright Cornish blue and a verdant green. Next was their website. We kept the handmade feel throughout with illustrative touches, bright and beautiful photographs and a contemporary mix of fonts. Using fading images on the Home page to suggest the life...

This week we enjoyed having Carissa in the studio for her work experience, she wrote a little about her time with us: "Hi guys. My name is Carissa, here's a bit about my week at Pickle Design. First of all I don’t think it could have gone better as I am a very nervous person and Carl (although absent most of the time as his wife had twins!) and Emma made me feel very welcome, which made it easy to work and learn from them. When I started I had not use the Apple programming before, so I was introduced to that as well as the programmes I used throughout the week. The programmes I used were InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop, all made by Adobe. They each had their difficulties and challenges, but with help from Emma I managed to figure out basic use of them. My first project was to create a logo for a local restaurant that my father owns called “The Granary”, this took the longest as I had to learn all the programmes, but I learned a lot from this. Next, in Photosh...

The Molded Plastic Dowel-Leg Chair. View source .   Wow, this year is moving fast! Now we have embraced March and 2014 is looking to be a good year, we are working on some really interesting projects. The month of March on our very lovely Pickle Design calendar showcases a chair by husband and wife team Charles and Ray Eames. The rather does-what-it-says-on-the-tin name it has, is Molded Plastic Dowel-Leg Chair. Despite having an ugly duckling name, this 1950s chair has become a design classic due its simple and beautiful design. Eames Chair Design. View source . The designers never saw their furniture as finished, constantly updating when new materials and techniques came available. Charles and Ray Eames saw their legacy as “getting the most of the best to the greatest number of people for the least” - quite a mission statement! Their designs have stood the test of time and still look very contemporary in chic modern interiors. You can download March’s calendar f...

Here is the new website we have just completed for Rock Boat Charters. A long standing client of ours, we felt the original website we created needed a little refreshing, so while happy with the basic format some updating was applied. The Camel Estuary based firm have a motorboat available to charter and explore the coastline around North Cornwall, especially Rock and Padstow. The best way to explain this to potential clients was to create a website that would expand and communicate the views, feeling of space on the water and uniqueness of each charter. We chose large photographs to set the scene for the background and also inset shots to show more details of the boat. The site is very simple to use and informative, working with the original brand we created. The new look site commands the screen and allows the scenery to sell the experience. Emma Julian.

The Y Chair by Hans J. Wegner. Image found here . We find ourselves in February, and on the 2014 Pickle Design calendar we are showcasing the Y chair. Download a desktop version of the February calendar here . At Pickle we love looking at all areas of design for daily inspiration. We use Facebook , Pinterest , Twitter , Tumblr to drench ourselves in creativity, but there really is something quite special about chair design. Not only does a seat need to be comfortable (trust us, we sit in one all day!) but a well designed chair can make a statement about the designer themselves, the home owner, or society at large. Hans J. Wegner created this chair in 1950, basing the design on traditional Dutch paintings of merchants sitting in Ming chairs. Wegner was a perfectionist. Stylistically there wasn’t necessarily a common thread between his designs, it was more his ethos that shone through, he said "the good chair is a task one is never completely done with", it was "...

2014 is here! We like to start as we mean to go on, with good design, so we have a little present for you. You may have seen our new calendar showcasing classic chair design, well, we thought we would make each month available for you to download for free. Now you can have a sleek calendar for your computer desktop. January depicts the Tulip chair designed in the 1950s by Eero Saarinen. A version of this chair was used in the original Star Trek series but slightly altered. One of the Tulip chairs from Enterprise’s bridge once sold for $18,000! To download yours, visit our website here . Each month we will post a link so you can download the next one. Enjoy! Emma Julian.