Cillian Johnston
Surface Pattern Design

2013

I was approached by an Irish furniture and design company called Cillian Johnston who were looking for someone to help them design and create a unique print for fabric, that they could then make into cushions and lampshades to sell in their retail store.

The brief was to come up with a graphic representation, but not a directly literal representation, of a lamp that was awarded best new product in the category “Table Top and Interiors” at Ireland’s premier design and craft expo, Showcase Ireland, 2012, The Aran Beag rectangle lamp. It has two Aran knitted panels with a distinct cable pattern on the front and back of the base.

I combined 2 different ideas, one of making the basic repeat pattern very graphic and bold following the honeycomb aran knit style (kind of), and the other of highlighting the smaller finer detail of the actual knitting stitches themselves. I wanted to try and show the changing colours and textures of different angles of the stitches graphically, and did so using lots and lots of different purple and blue photographic textures.

You will notice the difference in scales of the pattern, up close and at a distance, it allows the pattern to be used to create two completely different styles that can work together as a team or completely on their own.

We decided to use use the bigger scale on the front of the cushion, and the smaller on the back so you could switch them around or feature them side by side.