Karen Little Lecture

Karen Little whom we met during our last project kindly came into college to talk to us about visiting the large trade shows for interiors. Karen has her own consultancy business called Little Designs for Life , she began her career as a cad artist for engraving and has ten years experience as a wallpaper designer. Karen gave us an over view of the Heimtextil trade show which is held in January in Frankfurt, she showed us a power point with images from the 2011 show , there are 11 large halls which cover everything from trend predictions for the next 18 months to the latest high tech wallpapers on the market. Karen felt that the advances in wallpaper technically are very interesting at the moment, she picked up that pattern is very much back in Vogue and lots of contrasts were evident in the form of animal prints as well as very heavily embellished examples including flock and crystals. Some designers and companies of note she mentioned were Barbara Hulanicki (who had designed skulls in flock ). Arte, Marburg, A S Creation , Graham ans Brown and Rasch. Karen said folk art was very prominent especially in fabric patterns and she really liked the collections by Leif and Kas.

Karen talked about future trends and said the Heimtextil prediction hall was named Reconnection and was split into 4 headings which were, sobriety, mix and match , utility and wilderness. It seems that these sub headings pretty much cover all tastes and styles so you can definitely find designs that appeal to every one.

Karen also observed that hand crafting is very much in demand and as with the back to basics and recycling themes she feels hand produced work will continue to become more and more the way forward, there were lots of examples of weaving on very large scale items.

Karen said that networking and being able to interact well with people was equally as important as talent in order to be a successful designer as this is the way you get your self known and are able to sell your work.Visiting trade shows and exhibiting your work are key for marketing and promotion as well as keeping up to date with whats going on in the industry.

Karen told us about Maison and Object trade show which is held in Paris in January and September, she felt it was far more chic than Heimtex and was well worth a visit, the trend prediction from Paris was named Intensity and the emphasis was crafted, simple , back to basics, distorted shapes and irregular patterns , Karen felt people of interest include Francois Bernard, Elizabeth Leriche and Vinvent Gregoire.

Thank you Karen for a very interesting and informative presentation.

http://www.littledesigns.info/