Meet Fabric8 finalist Sarah Johnston, an artisanal textile maker based in Glasgow, Scotland. Voting on the final fabric collections opens tomorrow, June 6th!
I run a small textile label, producing screen printed fabrics inspired by nature. For most of the designs for my label, Marram Studio, I start by taking photographs outdoors to get ideas and then draw and sketch in pen or pencil before working on the artwork in Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator using a Wacom drawing tablet.
The Geek Chic theme for the Fabric8 contest is about as far away as you can get from my normal style of floral screen printed designs, and I loved the idea of challenging myself to do something new. I knew I wanted my Fabric8 collection designs to be very crisp and precise, so it seemed best to work digitally. I only did very rough doodles on paper before starting to draw in Illustrator.
I like to listen to music when I'm designing, so I often have the radio on in my studio– lately I've been enjoying the new Daftpunk album and Somebody That I Used To Know by Gotye. I like such a varied and eclectic mix of music, and there's all sorts on my iPod: Motown, The Beatles, Lady Gaga, cheesy 80s pop, Foo Fighters, 90s Britpop, etc. One day I might be listening to David Bowie or The Killers and the next day something really cheesy like Wham or Dolly Parton– it really is that random!
I currently live in the south side of Glasgow, Scotland, although I'm originally from the Orkney Islands, a remote group of islands off the north tip of mainland Scotland, in Stromness, the little fishing village in Orkney where I grew up and still visit several times a year.
I like visiting the glasshouses in the Glasgow Botanic Gardens to look at all the beautiful tropical flowers so I think it would be interesting to visit somewhere like the Amazon rainforest to see some of these exotic plants and flowers in their natural habitat. I would also love to go on a road trip in the USA and see some of the amazing sights like the Grand Canyon and Yosemite National Park.
I watch quite a lot of horror films so perhaps it's not that surprising that I wouldn't want to meet the characters! I would like to meet Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory– he is just such a brilliantly weird, geeky and mad character and it's one of my favorite shows. Also I would like to meet Max from 2 Broke Girls– her sarcastic one liners are the best!
I could be here all day talking about textile designers whose work I love! I really like the 1950s designs of British textile design legend Lucienne Day and I've always liked Tricia Guild's sense of colour too. I think the designs Fiona Howard has done for Sanderson are gorgeous. I love discovering new designers on Etsy and design blogs too– there are so many talented independent designers out there right now.
