interview :: lovely pigeon - confessions of a design geek

This article was published 12 years

Additions is a new show at Clerkenwell Design Week, dedicated to small design pieces and interior accessories. I was very excited to discover that Lovely Pigeon will be showing there, so I thought I’d catch up with founder and designer Kirsty Thomas…

What’s the most important thing to know about you?

“It’s really worthwhile doing the unnecessary with love” Sam Smith

What inspires you – where do your ideas come from?

I am inspired by all kinds of things – geometry and pattern, Midcentury design, new materials – but at the moment my work is influenced by where I work and live. Our home and studio is in a tiny fishing village on the East coast of Scotland and I am constantly inspired by the paintwork and graphics of fishing boats, the angles and lines of masts and sails and the colours and reflections of the sea.

What effect does being based in Scotland have on your work?

I love living and working in Scotland but I also love getting down to London for shows, shop visits and exhibitions. It’s pretty easy to run the company from a Scottish base and it’s really nice to walk out of the studio and be on the beach in less than 2 minutes.

How does your design process work?

I keep lots of sketchbooks, and scraps of paper, and I use Pinterest and Instagram as virtual scrapbooks for new ideas. Depending on what I’m designing I will work directly on the computer or sketch on paper first. With new screenprints and stationery designs I tend to work in Illustrator straight away – this works well with at the moment as my current designs are particularly graphic.

With the jewellery collection, I tend to sketch more and make paper models before committing to any ‘real’ materials. I then plan out component parts for photo etching or laser cutting on the computer.

Lots of sample making, test runs and gluey fingers later, the final pieces emerge.

Describe a really good day and a really bad day in the life of Lovely Pigeon

A good day would start with the sun shining and a quick run round the block. Then a sensible amount of time in the studio to answer emails, do some research, devise new plans and create new pieces. Maybe lunch in the garden then a bit more making before stopping early, going for a walk with the kids to get an ice cream and maybe meeting some friends for a quick pint.

A bad day would be wet and grey, which is often the way here, and would involve a backlog of emails and orders and a day on the production line making lots of the same jewellery pieces. I hate it when the weather is bad and I can’t get out of the studio – one day I’ll work in Spain and have a studio on my terrace!

Tell me about the products you’re showing at Clerkenwell Design Week?

We have recently launched the Brass collection – an extension of our Metals collection, which launched at designjunction last September. We’ll be showcasing the whole collection. It includes hand crafted jewellery, stationery and print. The jewellery range combines copper and brass with panels of Formica and had just been selected for Tate Modern’s Malevich exhibition shop.

The paper collection includes foiled notebook and cards in shades of blue, yellow and concrete grey, and our foiled screenprints celebrate the geometry of landscapes and seascapes in their most simple geometric forms.

What are you looking forward to most?

I haven’t taken part in CDW before, so I am really excited just to be there! I am really looking forward to being part of the new Additions space, which celebrates independent designers, and exhibiting alongside folk like HAM, Chisel and Mouse and Custhom.

What are you most proud of?

Working as an independent designer and running your own business is hugely rewarding and ridiculously tiring. When I left my teaching career to start the Pigeon studio, I never expected to be working with some of the world’s best design retailers. To have shops and galleries like Conran, Skandium, Tate and the Design Museum selling my work makes me really, really happy.