We’re excited to feature Vicky Yorke this month! This artist brings British flair to all her collections, including From London with Love, Village Life, and the brand new Urban Jungle line.

Camelot Fabrics – Please introduce yourself and tell us what you do!

Vicky Yorke – Hi! I’m Vicky Yorke and I’m a surface pattern designer and illustrator living in semi-rural Worcestershire, UK and I am lucky enough to license my designs with Camelot Fabrics!

My career as a designer started with a degree in Illustration from the Arts Institute, Bournemouth and from there I went to work in-house for various stationery and homeware manufacturers. In 2012 I decided to become freelance and set up my own business, Vicky Yorke Designs, working with suppliers to create surface pattern designs and innovative new products for their own label ranges – something that I continue to enjoy doing today! In 2015 I expanded my business into art licensing so that manufacturers can now also license designs from my existing (and continually growing!) design portfolio straight onto their products.

CF – What was your favourite thing about leaving in-house design work to establish your independent brand, Vicky Yorke Designs? What was the scariest / hardest thing about that jump?

VY – The best thing about leaving in-house design has definitely been the independence to follow my own creative direction and to develop a design style that is uniquely me. I love to let my personality shine through! I also enjoy the creative freedom of being able to design whenever I like. I’m not constrained by working 9 – 5 and even though I do work all day, I am often at my most creative late evening, so it’s great not to have to have to break my design flow. The hardest thing about working for myself is that I literally have to do everything involved in running a business on my own from social media to accounts. Except for the accounts, which I hate(!) I really enjoy it all, but I just wish there were more hours in the day sometimes.

CF – How does your UK location inform the designs you create?

VY – I think that living in the UK influences my designs a great deal. The UK as a whole has a very forward thinking design aesthetic and I am always inspired just walking around the shops here by all the amazing patterns and prints on display. We also have incredible design heritage and my design hero is William Morris who pioneered the Art Nouveau movement in the UK. I love the ethos of Art Nouveau to create designs inspired by nature to bring the outside indoors. Since moving to a semi-rural village 4 years ago I have increasingly been drawn to include nature and the colours of nature in my designs. I am happiest when outdoors, so it’s no surprise that being outdoors sparks my most creative ideas. Similarly, the coast and my travels are also major influences on the designs I create.

CF – What inspired you to design your first collections for Camelot – From London with Love and Village Life?

VY – My first collection for Camelot is ‘From London with Love’ and it really came about from wanting to celebrate all things quintessentially British. I am a very proud to be British – I love our royal family and our unique traditions from the changing of the guard to afternoon tea. (I even love our eccentric British weather!) British life is filled with colour from our fashion to our architecture to our big red London buses, so perhaps it’s not surprising it appeals to my design aesthetic, which is often bold and bright – and there is no more iconic city in the UK than London! We Brits are also often considered to be a little bit quirky, so it only seemed right to capture our exemplar landmarks like Buckingham Palace, Big Ben and The London Eye through the medium of my whimsical drawings and typography. Although I live a few hours away from London I hope the collection has captured my admiration for this beautiful city as well as my love of my native British culture!

My second collection is ‘Village Life’ and this was inspired completely by the village where I live. These designs always make me smile because when I look at them I think of home. My home studio overlooks the village allotments and the floral prints in this collection were entirely inspired by my view of beautiful packed together blooms – I like to think of these prints as a modern interpretation of Art Nouveau. At the time of designing the prints I could also see chickens running around in their coup, but they have now moved to the other side of the allotment, so I don’t get to see them as often. A little unknown fact for you is that I used to keep chickens in my garden and these beautiful birds will always have a big place in my heart! Watching my fellow villagers tend to their allotments with such passion and hard work was also the inspiration behind the statement ‘I love my garden’ border panel in this collection, while the runner ducks and pig prints were inspired by the farm at the bottom of the road. If ever I am feeling a little bit down I go for a wander to see the ducks and their funny little walk always cheers me up – they are wonderful! This collection also has a big statement typography print – I really enjoy creating this sort of pattern where I combine quirky illustrations and fun typography. It’s a really freeing way to work. The piece references the post office, the village store, the church, the bridle path, the canal, even our annual beer festival and more – basically it covers everything that makes this village a community and why I love living here so much. But the biggest reference to where I live is our iconic clock which stands in the village centre and was erected to celebrate the millennium – it’s a very important landmark for the village so it had to be included in the design!

CF – Can you tell us a bit about your creative process?  What do you most enjoy?

VY – My creative process always begins with a drawing. I usually start with a loose pencil sketch, before working back over with more detail in ink. I try to keep my drawings really loose and whimsical before being transferred onto the computer to be ‘live traced’ and coloured in Adobe Illustrator. Most designers choose to ‘clean up’ their drawings at this stage, but I prefer to leave in wonky lines and broken textures so that my hand sketches can still be seen in my final artwork  – I think this helps to create designs that are warm and inviting. I enjoy trying out different colour palettes, but my favourites are always those that are bright and vibrant. Even with a more muted palette I always add a flash of bright colour or metallic just to make the design ‘pop’ a little bit more and to make it feel like me! I always ‘assemble’ my compositions in Illustrator too. It gives me the freedom to move things around to get the perfect composition for an illustration or the perfect repeat when I am making patterns. I tend to design in collections with a combination of typography, illustration and pattern designs that can be used on their own, or mixed and matched for a more eclectic look. I love that Camelot totally get my design vision for the collections displaying patterns side by side exactly how they were intended!

CF – What is your creative workspace / studio like?

VY – Well … At the moment my home studio is in one of the spare bedrooms in my small cottage. It was never intended that this is where I would work, but I quickly outgrew the office room I had set up when I moved in! I need a lot of space for samples and materials and have a huge desk that goes all the way across the back of the room so I can spread out. I have everything I need for creating from pencils, pens and paper, to my trusty Apple Mac, to storage buckets filled with paints! I also have a whole wall of floor to ceiling shelving just to hold all my product samples from my licensed collections! I still haven’t decided if this will remain as my workspace (I have other plans I would like to put into action eventually…) but for now I do love the view of the allotment and the light that floods the room in the morning. On my desk I like to surround myself with many of my existing products, which constantly remind me of my design aesthetic and help to spark ideas for new exciting collections!

See more of Vicky’s work around the web:

Collections – camelotfabrics.com/designers/vicky-yorke.html

Website – www.vickyyorkedesigns.co.uk/

Instagram – vickyyorkedesigns