Wednesday 25 September 2013

Team Rosie and Radish

Now you have had a chance to look at our website and see our products, I thought it would be a good idea to give you an insight in to how we bring our cute little characters to life. Team Rosie and Radish consists of two people - Helen (our super duper illustrator) and me, Amy, who designs stuff.

We spent many hours brainstorming, sketching out ideas and doodling before we finally decided upon Rosie and Radish being a little girl and her pet mouse. But that was the easy bit. What hair style was Rosie going to have? Should her socks be pulled up or slouched down? Should she have freckles? Should Radish the mouse be naked? So many life changing questions and so many developmental sketches done by Helen ...




But once we had answered them, Helen went away, worked her magic, and our cute little characters were born - all shiny and new and ready to be used on greeting cards and prints. And that is where I come in. As a designer it is my job to position everything on a page and to combine Helen's illustrations with other elements and type to make it all look pretty ...





Once we had our products we then needed a website to sell them on, and this process shows off our illustrator and designer hats perfectly. Whilst brainstorming ideas for our website I came up with a lovely little scamp, where Rosie has what can only be described as a wedge cut, and Radish looks like an extra out of Harry Potter, flying around on his broomstick ...




Thankfully Helen wasn't put off by the fact I had massacred her beautifully drawn characters and she (somehow) managed to translate it into this ...




After a few tweaks and the addition of a few more elements and some type I then transformed it into this ...


Our wonderful website!


The lesson that came out of this exercise is that I should definitely leave the character illustration to the professionals. But it is also a great example of how Team Rosie and Radish work perfectly together.

Amy Xx



Tuesday 17 September 2013

At last...we have a shop!!!

So in an action-packed week of brainstorming promotional ideas, photoshoots, discussions with our lovely picture framer, sorting out stock, updating Facebook and Twitter pages and celebrating the Great North Run...



...we have managed to *drum roll please amidst Radish style squeeeeaks of excitement* .... launch our official website!!!


To say it has been a busy week is a bit of an understatement but, Rosie still managed to find the time to celebrate London Fashion Week too...

Right, I'm off for a well-deserved cup of tea (and maybe a chocolate biscuit!)

Helen
x

Monday 9 September 2013

A Little Behind The Scenes Action...

So it's been a little bit crazy in Rosie and Radish world the past week. Not only are the cheeky duo taking Facebook and Twitter by storm, their first batch of greeting cards are currently winging their way to HQ from the printers and their website is only a few tiny tweaks away from launching. Yippeeee!!!! (Radish is a tad happy about this).

So to give you a little sneaky update we thought you would like to see a selection of our snapshots from the past couple of weeks...



Amy's 'How To' Book is a fountain of knowledge. What would we do without it?!


The book that helped inspire us to go 'free range' - thank you Marianne Cantwell


Helen
x

Tuesday 3 September 2013

Made in the 80's

I have had a very entertaining morning looking through photos of us as kids to put on the ‘About Us’ section of our website. As children of the 80's the choice of suitable photographs to share with the world, free from frizzy hair and neon are somewhat limited. However I am proud to say that one such photo of myself was the inspiration behind one of Helen’s illustrations long before Rosie & Radish were born. Look at this amazing ‘Made in the 80's’ illustration Helen whipped up a few years ago for my 30th Birthday … 





… and look what inspired it … 





Yes that’s right folks. That is a photo of me testing out the latest in breakthrough 1980’s audio technology. I clearly wasn’t overly impressed by the sound quality. Either that or my smile was buckling under the weight of the Walkman. I wouldn't even like to guess what I was listening to?!




Either way I love the way Helen captured the moment in her illustration and managed to make me look a little less stroppy! 


Amy Xx