Lettering Artist James L Lewis On His Collab With Hopeful Traders
Cardiff based James L Lewis’ work has been featured in publications including Creative Review, The Guardian and Good Type. Pretty impressive considering the 21 year old only graduated last month – oh and he’s also managed to rack up over 75k followers on Instagram.
We’ve been working alongside the young lettering artist to create a limited edition screen print for social arts initiative Hopeful Traders. It will be one of the many rewards available from their Kickstarter campaign which launches this Friday so we had a chat with James about his journey and all things letter forms.
Hopeful Traders – The Exciting Social Arts Project Helping Artists Dealing With Homelessness And Mental Illness
It’s been a while since we’ve had the pleasure working on an exciting collaboration so we’re really happy to announce our new partnership with social arts project Hopeful Traders. The organisation works really hard to remove the stigma around mental health and homelessness through working with artists affected by these issues on a clothing range. We had a chat with Charlie Wright who founded the initiative about how the project started, his commitment to producing ethical products and his upcoming Kickstarter campaign.
Our Highlights From London Fashion Week Men’s
Over the last 6 months London Collections Men has evolved into London Fashion Week Men’s. The aim of the move initiated by the British Fashion Council was to “recognise its equal importance to womenswear” and if you look at the stats it makes perfect sense. The men’s clothing market grew by 4.1% in 2015 and is expected to rise a further 22.5% by 2020 (Mintel’s British Lifestyles 2016). The 10th edition of the showcase was opened by London Mayor Sadiq Khan who called it “a truly international celebration of fashion, design and creativity”.
3rd Rail At The London Illustration Fair In Pictures
The London Illustration Fair came to a close this Sunday after hosting 69 exhibitors, dozens of workshops and showcasing the work of countless creatives. As well showing a selection of Artist Beer Visions screen prints we also used this as an opportunity to give the screen print series we released for Pick Me Up a bit more air time. It was also a great excuse to release a few more products which included festive tea towels and Christmas jumpers designed by Kristyna Baczynski, a new t-shirt and matching sticker sheet by Tony Riff and a fresh 5 colour screen print release from Hattie Stewart. All new products will be hitting the web store tomorrow (Wednesday 7th December). If you didn’t get a chance to make it down fear not! We’ve compiled this gallery of photos of the highlights across the 4 days.
A Quick Q&A With London Illustration Fair Co-Founder Sam Bennett
We’re super excited to announce that we’ll be one of the many studios and creatives exhibiting at this year’s London Illustration Fair. As well as showing our extensive range of limited edition screen prints you can also expect to find t-shirts, sweats, tea towels and exciting new products from artists such as Kristyna Baczynski, Tony Riff and Hattie Stewart.
We’re pretty nosy here at 3rd Rail HQ so decided to quiz Sam Bennett, one of the co-founders of the fair about the origins of the event, what to expect from this year’s edition and all things illustration world.
How To Prep Your Brand For The Christmas Rush
This year Black Friday falls on 25th November and it will mark the start of the 4 busiest weeks of the year for most retailers. A trend from across the pond which has grown significantly in popularity here in UK since the Credit Crunch is now the biggest day of trade for many stores. The flip side is that shoppers have come to expect discounts and are unlikely to spend much money in the first half of November. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as it means you still have 3 weeks left to prep so here’s our list of top tricks to get your brand is ready for the Christmas rush.
Jump on the Cap Embroidery Trend
The classic sports cap dates back to the late 80’s with Ralph Lauren being the brand often held responsible for originating the trend. It spread into urban sub-cultures in the 90’s when it was adopted by the hip-hop community and has remained there ever since. A recent resurgence in streetwear trends from that era has seen a rise in its popularity once more.
Over the past few weeks we’ve been working with Space Age Wear on the re-launch of their embroidered cap collection. They’ve really made the most of the process and have managed to incorporate all the main embroidery styles into the range. If you’re still looking for inspiration these guys are an example of how to jump on the cap embroidery trend.
Welcoming Urban Classics To Our List Of Blank Garment Suppliers
If you’ve browsed our garment page over the last few weeks you may have noticed the addition of a new blank garment brand. Based in Germany Urban Classics have been established for over 10 years in which time they’ve managed to create a collection spanning over 3000 items spread across men’s women’s and kids styles. Focusing mainly on streetwear cuts, outerwear and caps they’re the go to place if you’re looking for long tees, bomber jackets or snapbacks. To celebrate we’ve decided to list our top 5 styles from their catalogue and of course all are perfect for either screen printing or embroidery.
The London Fashion Week Round-Up: Top Trends For SS17
London Fashion Week came to a close last Wednesday so as is customary we’ve compiled a list of our favourite trends for Spring/Summer 17 with a particular focus on looks that will be easily adaptable for smaller independent labels and brands that create collections using primarily ready-made garments. We’ve also included links to relevant blank garments to make planning that SS17 collection a little bit easier.
