Trend spotting at Pick Me Up Design Festival

Screen-printing was a popular technique at the festival, regenerating the trend to produce prints and patterns. In the same way that printed tiles add a simple but contemporary look to a home or office space, the various screen-printed work was eye-catching, reflecting modern society.

Studio Fludd led the marble trend, showing the versatility of the material through their marbled graphic designs. Graphic artist Rop Van Mierlo utilised the aspect of motion with marble to create spontaneous artworks with no control over the end result.

Marble is not just a major trend for interiors at the moment. Artists are experimenting with the stone as a source of inspiration for paper products and graphical designs. The growing marble trend brings things back to traditional crafts and methods of marbling. As a material, marble evokes the themes of motion and movement.

Designer Hattie Newman also used bold pops of colour in her playful paper art series. Taking inspiration from the countryside and cities with a sense of wanderlust, Newman’s work celebrates all kinds of architecture, “balancing precision with jolly surrealism”, in the artist’s own words.

A number of artists chose to focus on architectural spaces. Illustrator Gaurab Thakali creates his artwork after vast research on the environment and world around him, choosing a bold colour palette for the cultural settings. The colours are not too unlike our bright Prismatics range, showing how colour can inject life into a space.

The common thread throughout Pick Me Up was society. Many of the artists were motivated by current trends, as well as the impact of modern day culture such as social media and technology on the creative community. Society was explored from various angles to produce these key themes.

Pick Me Up graphics and arts festival returned to London’s Somerset House for its sixth year, with more colourful and exciting artworks. Our Design Team went along to find out the latest trends in the world of graphic design.

Featuring a mix of both emerging and established artists and designers, the festival had a whole host of trend-led work, with the artists using a variety of inspirational techniques to create something special.