Kate Brewer, founder of Look Like Love profiles a different new designer every week. With the tagline “support, nurture, promote” echoing confessions of a design geek’s own “discover, champion and inspire” and a similar commitment to advocating for emerging talent, the parallels between Look Like Love and confessions of a design geek are clear. Watch out for her features every Thursday afternoon. This week’s designer? The ever-understated Sophie Cobb…
Creating something mass-produced is not an option for ceramic designer Sophie Cobb. Since graduating from Central St Martins in 2013, she has been crafting her one-off pieces at her own pace. Not governed by trends or commercial expectations, her recent collection of functional dishes in striking hues of soft pink, jade green, and blue bear the hallmarks of a true designer-maker, where their imperfections make them even more desirable.
Sophie’s graduate collection ‘Pick, Mix & Match’ first caught my eye at the New Designers event, where she talked me through the rather tricky method of achieving a perfectly straight line, that runs from the top to the underside of each dish. A seemingly innocuous element, but as I’m sure anyone working with ceramics will know, whether you end up with a triumph or disaster is completely in the hands of the kiln.
One thing she was more assured about was the colour palette she wanted to use. The softest hint of pink and green, stacked with off-white options made a refreshing mix, and all complimented with a soft grey line. Sophie has continued to experiment with the line detail in her more recent pieces on a smaller scale. But with her latest ‘No Glaze’ dishes, the punch of chalky colour is all that is needed, and with their varying proportions, they work well alone, or as a set.
Being based in London, and with higher costs associated with renting a studio space that could house a kiln, Sophie has found a way to expand her CV and create her ceramic designs, working as an art teaching assistant at a school in North London. With the use of the on-site facilities, she’s found the perfect balance of inspiring the pupils, as well as taking the time out of hours to grow her own body of work.
Throughout her work, form and surface qualities go hand in hand. Be it a change in tone, glazed next to unglazed, or a functional plate displayed with a decorative dish, Sophie has no doubt carved out a signature style of simplicity and subtlety, that all started with a single straight line.
To find out more about Sophie Cobb, and to purchase pieces from her collection visit Look Like Love.
