If, like me, you have become an avid follower of @FionaFlame aka Fiona Davies of Flame Interiors you will have heard about the Top Secret Project she has been working on for the past few months. Some of us even wrongly assumed that the Top Secret Project was in fact the not-so-secret bump that she had been carrying around for the past nine months!! (Welcome to the world Noah!)
Fiona is a fantastic interior designer who brings joy to us all with her quirky and unique outlook and style. She describes herself as “an all round good egg, fabulous, fun, colourful, quirky, smiley, deep & very into detail – but able to laugh about it and most stuff!” I couldn’t agree more and the Twitterverse has been a very different place without her hilarious updates and news of her humourous blog posts!
Anyway as I was saying, Fiona has been working on a Top Secret Project, which we have all been dying to find out more about as she has tortured us with the little hints and scraps of information she has been divulging. But last week, lo and behold, we were finally all enlightened! And it was worth the wait.
The highly anticipated Top Secret Project was actually a series of printed blinds, designed by Fiona herself, and which has now gone into production and is available to buy from Creatively Different, a company that specializes in roller blinds. Luckily for me, Fiona agreed to answer a few questions about her exciting new venture, despite being sleep deprived from her duties as a new mum.
Why did you decide to bring out your own product range?
I love art and I’m especially drawn to pattern. I have all these ideas in my head and as I am an interior designer, creating them and getting them put on to products just seemed the natural way to go.
How did the collaboration with Creatively Different Blinds come about?
I was put in touch with Creatively Different Blinds via a design friend on Twitter, as they were looking into the possibility of having an interior designer blog for them. As I was talking to them about the blogging, I cheekily asked if they would take on my designs. Fortunately they said yes.
Where did you get your inspiration from for the designs?
Some of the designs came about from mistakes I made when playing with Adobe illustrator and seeing something interesting in them and playing around with them until I came up with a pattern. Others were just ideas that were in my head and I can’t say where they came from, they’re just there. Owl Be Watching You came from a window I saw with a scallop shape in it. Other people saw glass and lead, I saw lots of owl shapes looking back to me, so I recreated it and added eyes and a beak.
Which of the designs is your favourite and why?
I like Owl Be Watching You and Trouble and Squeak equally. I love the strong, simple, graphic element, and the simplicity of the pattern repeat. I mostly like them because they make me smile and I hope that’s the effect they have on other people too.
I’ve got to ask, who is that in the Laughing Pop design?
Laughing Pop? Aha, well that would be me. It’s not an egotistical thing, it was the result of me playing around on photoshop and thinking the image looked interesting. I laugh a lot, so who better to use as a laughing person than me?
How or where would you suggest that people best use these products in their interior schemes?
These designs really could be used in any room, but if you aren’t sure where to put them, then kitchens/utility rooms, bathrooms and/or downstairs loos or kids bedrooms would be a good place to start. Home offices are usually uninspriational places, so that’s where I’d put mine.
Can we expect to see any further developments from you regarding product design? If so what will you be designing next?
Yes. I have lots of plans and ideas. I’m not sure when I’ll be developing them yet as I’ve just had a baby, which is keeping me rather busy. But yes, watch this space…
How did you manage to juggle the Top Secret Project with being a mum and how is baby Flame getting on?
I’ve been working on the Top Secret Project for about 18 months, as I had to fit it in and around my interior design work. I managed to get all the images off to Creatively Different on my last day of work before I took maternity leave. The images have actually been live since Easter, when I gave birth, but it’s taken me until now to have the time to launch them online via Twitter and Facebook (the baby was asleep in the sling whilst I did it!). Baby Flame is a joy and my best design project to date!