Sarah Campbell Designs

Hello! A couple of weeks ago we had the delightful Sarah Campbell come into university to chat to us about life as a textile designer. It was such an inspiring talk, and she showed us her fabrics and sketchbooks full of lovely colour palettes and beautiful drawings. I will write a few key points that she made, such an inspiration.

"We are surrounded by textiles. There is a lot in the world, from your knickers to the queens robe to refugee's tents, all textiles. It is a huge business. But sometimes you don't make a lot of money. The peas and beans of textiles are the dot and stripe. They are very British staples. We need to remember what animals give us: jersey, wool, cotton, goats, spiders, bamboo. Nature goes into textiles as well as oil. It is an industry that is all over the world."

Design process snapshot - drawing, colour palette and fabrics

She always paints in Gouache. Does not use formulas just uses strong feelings.

She is surprised by her success. She also knows to be kind to yourself and self critical too but not too much. You need to be aware of the market but not influenced too much. Don't take trends too seriously. 

She always seemed to use animals within her work somewhere. She likes the narrative of it. "Exit the cat" was a piece where she had to take the cat out of the print as animals weren't welcome as much then as they are now. She found herself having to not mind changing designs for people, even when she did mind.

People wanted pattern, even if it was on poly-cotton fabrics. When she had to print on fabrics she didn't agree with she made a statement with the colours and the scale. 

People buy from people, that is why building a relationship with someone in a company is great. Herself and her sister Susan were conscious of their father being successful but people not knowing his name. You should fight for your name! As their mother was theatrical they were also conscious of this. They once made colour characters and gave each one a personality - Red being flirty/bossy etc. They used humour sometimes. 

She feels nervous about inspiration. If you are always working, it is a progression. Start at what is the most easy, practical thing to do at that time and work on it.  She keeps a little sketchbook for plans and ideas.

She has a huge pile of colour palettes on her desk, and revives them with water when needed. She also uses a sketchbook to record colour studies.

Lastly, time is important. If you can grab it do, as deadlines are hard time pressures which mean you sometimes have to stay up all night. But if you love what you do, then don't give up.

I hope you all have a lovely week and enjoyed reading about Sarah Campbell!