Quaint Pastel Oulton Mugs

This is a deceptive design that looks simple but in fact took quite a lot of work over quite a long time to materialise.

It came about by my taking an element out of a more complex pattern which was too involved to use commercially and trying to make a pattern out of that. I tried a variety of different designs, using the element with others and in the end I realised that I need only just use it by itself.

The actually pattern was created by chance really using Illustrator’s new pattern options and it was then that I realised that it had potential.

I decided to use it as a pattern for mugs on Redbubble because, having purchased some of the mugs, I was impressed with the look and workmanship of them (and anyway, I like designing mugs). Having got a scale I like, I decided to use mid-century original pastel colours taken from the British Standard in use at the time. Pastel colours seem to suit mugs so well and set off the colour of the drink (in my case green tea). A bit of experimentation produced the following colours, porcelain blue, shell pink, vanilla and lovely yaffle green.

If you don’t know, yaffle seems to be the local English name for the woodpecker so it’s really woodpecker green which sounds maybe nicer, I don’t know.

You can find them (and buy them) at my Redbubble shop which is here. Also, you can see larger versions of this and our other work on our Flickr page, here.