Description - The Brief
Sophie Leadley from www.vivavacations.co.uk told me that she has travelled all over the world with her husband and really wanted to capture this on a pocket square.
Some of the places/objects she mentioned included:
- The Eiffel Tower
- Sydney Opera House
- The famous Las Vegas sign (where they were engaged)
- The Great Wall of China
- Statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro
- Parachuting in New Zealand as he loves skydiving
- A tuk-tuk in Thailand
- A Japanese lantern
- The castle of Malcesine, Italy (where they were married).
Sophie said that she thought it would be wonderful if he spotted something new each time he looked at the pocket square. There was a discussion about colours and she said that she loves greys but her husband loves bright colours. It was agreed to use raspberry pink around the edges and perhaps some elements of pink in the middle so that it would not appear dull.
The Process
I started by sketching out images of all these landmarks, doing simple line drawings with some shading. I felt that if I kept it monochrome and clean, that this would stop the design from appearing cluttered, allowing me to combine and play around with the design.
As these elements were going to fit on a square, I thought it would be ideal to use repetition and transpose the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Christ the Redeemer from the centre to the corners to make a cross shape. The other smaller elements such as parachutes and Japanese lanterns were placed more randomly on the main surface of the pocket square and I used the Great Wall of China to create a border with the castle perched in the corner.
The Sydney Opera House and Las Vegas sign were repeated on opposite sides and birds and aeroplanes were added in pink to break up the different shades of grey. A gradient in the main square also allowed a 3D effect too.
The square was finished with a hand-rolled edge and the licence that I was given to be as creative as possible resulted in a beautiful pocket square.
The final outcome was an intricate silk pocket square that was loved by Sophy and her husband as it exactly fulfilled the brief of capturing the memories of their travels.
