Lotta Kuhlorn: Book Designer

Earlier in June, I blogged about Lotta Kühlhorn, the Swedish pattern, textile, product and graphic designer. I was first attracted to Lotta for her beautiful pattern and textile designs that cover tea towels, cutting boards and trays in many Scandinavian stores, but she’s done an impressive amount of book cover design, the holy grail of graphic design. I wanted to take a moment to look at this work more closely. So sit back and enjoy more of the work of Lotta Kühlhorn, and if you’d like to see her pattern/textile designs, check my earlier post here.

I also really like this style of her illustrations.

Hope you enjoyed seeing more work from Lotta Kuhlorn.
Check out her website here.

Read Full Post »

Introducing Lotta Kühlhorn, illustrator + pattern designer

Photo: Anna-Lena Ahlström

Today I’m sharing the work of Scandinavian pattern/textile designer and illustrator Lotta Kühlhorn. I stumbled across Lotta’s work while browsing the Huset Shop website (a great place for Scandinavian design inspiration) and immediately recognized her work from my travels to Sweden and Denmark last summer. Lotta is a great example of a designer using bold graphic colors and prints to create simple yet beautiful pattern designs. I particularly enjoy her fruit and vegetable patterns. According to her bio on Huset Shop,

Lotta Kühlhorn is a Swedish-born illustrator and designer. She started her professional career while attending Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and Design. Lotta is known for her bold patterns and vibrant colors. In the 1990s, she was one of the first Swedish designers to begin experimenting with the graphic elements of “junk culture,” using pop art, films and mass produced items as the basis for her inspirations. Lotta’s simple “happy-making” products are inspired by her childhood and feature a bit of retro seventies style. –Huset Shop. 

I really love that she turned ‘junk culture’ or things considered lowbrow into beautiful patterns and works of art. What I really enjoy about Scandinavian Design in general is designers in this genre use simple elements, patterns and shapes found around them and create pieces of art from it. It’s not that deep and conceptual … and THANK GOD! Scandinavian design is stripped down to its simplest elements and is therefore democratic and more accessible to a larger population. That’s what I’d like to do with my work. Just look at IKEA and H&M, two Swedish designed brands with simple, honest approaches to design and world-wide appeal. I don’t think as designers we should be creating barriers to understanding and communication. But I digress ..

I also like that Lotta designs book covers, which as a graphic designer myself, I really connect to.  So check out her work below, on Huset Shop and on her website here. Enjoy!

I love her simple illustrative style. Great for patterns and surface design.

Pear Mugs.

Pear Tray – cute right?

Hotplate.

Apples.

As an illustrator, her work varies in complexity of pattern.

Great kitchen illustration. Love.

Lotta uses this same approach to book cover design. I want a set of all her books!

I’m going to blog more about her book cover designs later this week, so stay tuned! Hope you enjoyed the work of Lotta Kuhlorn so far!

Read Full Post »