Vicky Yorke Designs

You may recall from an earlier post that I teased you with a photo of a new range of products for Bar Craft, called 'Lock In' . I am so pleased to now be able to show you the whole range! The brief I was given was to create a design for a male gift range that would be evocative of traditional pub imagery for use on bar associated products. As the pub is a very British phenomenon, I decided to use the British bulldog as my main motif with pub imagery such as bar stools, beer barrels and beer glasses to support this. I wanted to keep the illustrations very strong in line-work, (as can be seen in the beer mats above) to create a style with a modern twist on traditional etching. The idea of a 'Lock In' at home is further reinforced with lock and key imagery and a strong typographic layout using words associated with beer. Colour also played an important part, as I chose creams and bronzes to emulate the rich amber colours of beer, complimen

The logo plays an important part in the 'Lock In' range being used as part of the repeat print, stand alone on products such as the bottle beer glass shown above (- this product always makes me smile!) and also on packaging. Therefore I wanted it to be visually strong and to form a decorative image in it's own right. Hopefully, the Victorian padlock in place of the  letter 'O' works as quite a masculine image, while simultaneously reinforcing the idea of tradition.  Products available include beer mats, beer runners, neoprene can and bottle coolers, where the repeat design can be seen in entirety...  There is also a large tray, which I think shows off the design to very good effect! As you can see from the beer glass at the top of this post there was room to have a bit of fun with this range and one product that I really love is the key corkscrew and bottle opener, which was inspired by my key illustration within the repeat desig

This month my designs have once again been showcased by Kitchen Craft on their stand at The Spring Fair (NEC, UK) and Ambiente (Messe Frankfurt, Germany). Thousands of people walk the halls at these prestigious industry shows including buyers from top retailers around the world. It is always a privilege to have designs shown at these exhibitions so I was really upset not to make the shows in person this year due to other design commitments (... more details to follow soon hopefully!), but I was able to get these images from the Kitchen Craft Facebook page. Above is a lovely display of my 'World of Flavours - Chinese' range at Spring Fair, which I showed you in more detail on the blog back in August. Above and in the below shot (left and middle of the Cool Movers stand) is a sneaky peak at my two new summer ranges...! Above is a spooky display of my Halloween range design for 'Spookily Does It' ( - You can read more about this design here ) and below is a

In addition to 'Lock In', I was asked to design a second range for the Bar Craft brand, which is now known as 'Mix It' . The brief for this range was to create a fun and playful design for a cocktail / party range that would appeal to young adults. There were two parts to the brief. The first part was to create illustrations of products / objects associated with cocktail making, which were to be used on packaging and some of the products. I wanted to create a strong, yet playful look, so turned to my trusty dip pen and ink to create a set of fluid drawings. I love 'accidental' mark making, so embraced all the ink splatters and smudging that tend to form with this type of illustration. This can be seen to best effect on the cocktail coasters, which come in a set of four. I really took these as the starting point for the whole range, using my favourite vibrant and acidic colours to set the party tone! Images copyright Kitchen Cra

I am delighted to tell you that the first of the homeware / kitchenware items that I have designed for Kitchen Craft   have been launched at Exclusively Housewares in London this week. Over the coming weeks I will be telling you all about the many products I have designed for Kitchen Craft, but for now above is a sneaky peak at my colourful 'Mix It' cocktail range and pub style 'Lock In' bar range. And above is 'Partridge & Pear', one of two Christmas ranges I have designed - all styled beautifully at the show! Images are copyright Kitchen Craft 2012.