chris haughton - Filed under 'rug'

Im an Irish designer and illustrator. I was listed in Time Magazine's DESIGN 100 for the work I've been doing for fair trade company People Tree. My book 'A Bit Lost' is in 8 languages and won many awards including Dutch Picture Book of the Year. 'Oh No George!' comes out in March 2012

www.vegetablefriedrice.com
www.noderugs.com

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rug

September 12, 2011

Gibson Hotel Artwork

I recently made artwork for the interiors of the Gibson hotel in Dublin. The Gibson is a very modern 4 star hotel right next to, and same owner as the O2, which is Irelands largest music venue. The idea is that the performers and audience can stay after gigs and so its music themed. They asked me if i could do some artwork 'around rock legends' Eventually we decided to do artwork with songs hidden inside them. It was a pretty nice job to work on (!)

(download)

The mural in the bar features three songs hidden inside the images. Its 5m high.
play> Led Zeppelin: Stairway to heaven
play> Fela Kuti: Water No Get Enemy a good article about Fela
play> Bob Dylan: All Along the watchtower 'said the joker to thief'

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The mural in the restaurant is 10 metres wide. In the details you can see..
play> Velvet Underground: Venus in Furs based on the sascha-masoch novel
play> Can: Mushroom 'when i saw her mushroom head... i was born, i was dead...' (see the atom bomb)
play> Bob Marley: Get Up, Stand Up 'if you know what life is worth... ' ..some of my favourite lyrics
play> Jefferson Airplane: White Rabbit (this is the psychedelic section!)
play> Beatles: Lucy in the sky with Diamonds
play> Bob Dylan: Mr Tambourine Man.'..then take me disappearin' thru the smoke rings of my mind'

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These additional pieces were used as their menus and elsewhere

play> Bob Dylan: You aint goin nowhere
play> Billie Holiday: Strange fruit wikipedia article>

play> Beatles: A Day in the Life 'woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head....'

play> Brian Eno: Spider and I

play> Beatles: Hello Goodbye

play> Pink Floyd: See Emily Play

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These are some shots in production or ideas that didnt make the final cut. The original idea was to have the actual lyrics alongside the artwork but we couldnt do that in the end for fear of copyright issues.

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Perhaps the most unusual thing about the project was that i did all of this work while i was in Kathmandu. I was working there with a fair trade group to make rugs when I was approached by the Gibson. In fact i originally proposed that we do the artworks as RUGS!! A huge thanks to the design team and Harry Crosbie, (he's the developer behind the hotel as well as Vicar St, The O2 and Grand Canal Theatre, some of Dublins nicest venues) The team were very keen on the rugs, I explained about the work we were doing at NODE and they were considering making the entire mural as a rug, the only thing that stopped it was the long production time (for 40sqm+ of hand knotting!!) Instead it was done as a digital laminate print

After we finished the job they have since bought 5 big rugs for the best rooms. They are in the penthouse room where the artists stay, this year including Bob Dylan, Roger Waters and Kylie Minogue (!) Pictured is Gibbo Pink from Aslan in the upstairs rooms

Thanks very much to tim at Neworld design and also to harry crosbie, im very proud to be involved in this. Take a look at the Gibson site below, it really is a stunning hotel

gibsonhotel.ie

Filed under // design node rug

Comments [2]

August 30, 2011

Un poco perdido

A Bit Lost is launched in Spanish! It is published with the AMAZING editoria milrazones. Have a look at their books 'Learning without Dogmas: Secular Education for Co-existence' (great!!!) Im so proud to have owl published by them. They are keen to support the fair trade projects also. For every copy of 'Un poco perdido' sold we are donating a euro to a project to build a library in Colombia. Im really happy to have met them, they sounds GREAT! Hopefully we can do exciting work in future. This window is in Liberia Gil bookstore in Santander.

Check out Olivia and the Wild Thing wearing the t-shirts! :) The owl rug can be found here

Filed under // a bit lost little owl lost rug un poco perdido

Comments [0]

November 10, 2010

My rugs are in London!

My fair trade carpets have finally arrived!

I did them as samples when i was in Nepal a few months back.

Take a look at the blogpost about making them here

If anyone would like to help stock them please get in touch

UPDATE..................

I have just set up a new website for these carpets

please take a look at

www.noderugs.com

to view and order...

thanks!

(download)

Filed under // fair trade kumbeshwar technical school nepal node rug

Comments [2]

August 6, 2010

Kumbeshwar Technical School Carpets

Through People Tree I was introduced to the really excellent Kumbeshwar Technical School I posted about them a little earlier here. Like Mahaguthi they support and train lower caste women and also men. They also support a large school of 260 and an orphanage of 19 children. I have been having exhibitions of my digital illustration work from time to time, i have been converting the files to screens and screen printing them or simply printing them digitally.

I saw the opportunity to collaborate with KTS. They make these amazing natural hand-spun Tibetan wool carpets. The carpet making process is quite similar to the pixel make up of digital images so as many of my images are quite flat with few colours so I had the idea of producing some of my designs as carpets. Together with Satyendra and the design team we found a way to covert digital images directly to carpet graphs which will hopefully make the design process a little easier.

Im really excited about the possibilites with designing carpets though, could be great.

UPDATE.....................................

I have just set up a new website for these carpets

to view and order please take a look at

noderugs.com