up in the clouds

happy australia day! yey, im off now to an engagement party to sit in the sun and drink champagne, but first i wanted to post something iv been working on as of late. up in the clouds, a print/ illustration that (may) be used in some upcoming collaboration work iv been busy with. have a great day all, and for all those australians out there, enjoy your beer and sausages! x

creative womans circle

im so excited... this saturday im off to the creative womans circle in melbourne. there will be a speech from the great Shelley Panton who is an amazing potter. The event will be held at frankie and swiss' new studio... and i am busting at the seams to go! michelle the director of frankie and swiss has asked me to design some prints to hang up in her studio for saturday. im thrilled. a while ago i started this illustration of me on a bad day... the weekend ended up being a great one, but i never got round to illustrating it (well these one stretch the truth just a weeee bit!) . so these are the prints that will be displayed at frankie and swiss studio this weekend. yey! there will be so many wonderful ladies there who i admire... one being dawn tan. dawn illustrates alot for frankie magazine (aaahhhhh i know... tell me about it!). pllleaaaase hurry up saturday you are too far away for my liking!

until next time... xx

community health work

i have been busy lately with the wedding and all sorts... but i have also been busy with a project to help support a young mothers group in geelong.

I designed 2 tshirts in the help to promote the fair treatment of young mothers aged between 18-21, who quite often receive negative comments from others. The aim was to show that these young girls are proud of who they are and that they are doing all they can to give their babies the best life possible.

these were the final designs, i will post again when i get the samples.

it was great to be asked to be involved in such a powerful project. and these young girls SHOULD be very proud of who they are.

skip hop

hi everyone, apologies for my lack of posts. this wedding is keeping me quite busy as i thought it would. victor has not been forgotten,

just at the bottom of the pile, (unfortunately at the moment)

this is a short post but i wanted to share with you some exciting news.

i received an email a few months back from a lady from skip hop NYC... asking if i would do some work for their company... i thought originally that it couldn't be true... what! a New York company has emailed ME and asked ME to design for them? sorry? surely they must think its someone else. anyway... i have been working along, secretly squirrel like on the new project for skip hop. i cannot give any sneak peaks or any themes, but all i can say is that ill keep you posted... and ill let you know as soon as it is available... (these images are of existing skip hop product)

skip hop is an incredible children's linen, play equipment, gorgeous company that does all things cute for kids, im thrilled and very chuff to be apart of this. yey for me! ( i think i can say that... yes i can... yey yey for me!)

how to get to know clare in 10 facts

ok so I have thought long and hard about these 10 things about myself. im sorry i have taken a long time, i (i know i know) been so busy!

first off, let me introduce myself if you dont already know me. my name is clare miller. im 27 years old…i am a graphic designer for kaisercraft by day and an illustrator and creator by night... now for the juicey stuff

1) i am petrified of ghost, no no petrified is not a powerful enough word…beside myself, horrified, phobia style scared of ghosts! i cannot even talk about them! i cannot think about them and certainly hate people starting off with the sentense “lets tell ghost stories”. it is also not funny, don’t laugh! I swear to god I am petrified…i have never seen one and nore do i even want to think about the possibility. hideous… im getting tears just writing this. YUK!

2) I cannot stand sweet and savory mixed together. whoever thought putting pinapple on a pizza was a good idea needs serious help. i hate it. i hate cream and jam on muffins (i have to have butter) i hate (like I said) pinapple on pizza, jam/ honey or marmelade on toast.. are you serious??! Fairy bread (who ever is not sure of this its sprinkles on bread), honey or apricot chicken- WHAT?! mandarine in a salad- excuse me?! apple sauce with pork, maple syrup on bacon- common!

note: I consider toast/bread and muffins to be savory… maybe that’s weird but hey that’s how it is!

3)i have the most incredible finace. and he is just gorgeous. he is so smart, funny, fit and got the best body… thankkkk-you! so coordinared in any sport he plays, has the most beautiful eyes. . we are taloir made. i adore him and am so thankful for every day he is in my life and look forward to every day in the future. we also were lucky enough to meet eachother in a pub in thailand and we are both from the same town half way across the world- pretty special i think.

4) i worked for rip curl for 2 years in advertising. i used to go on great photoshoots all over the world, where i was incharge of making the models look hot! one of most favourite memories is when i floated on a boat in the marshall islands for 10 days on the most incredible photoshoot of all time. there was about 8 of us all up on the boat including the surfers and models. i spent new years on a tropical island (where basically noone had stepped foot) eating sword fish which one of the indo boys caught that day and cooked under the sand.

5) time to get embarressing... from year 7, me and my friend meg were obsessed... insanely, mad teenage girl obsessed with the band take that. howard and mark were my favourite. when they broke up. i locked myself in my room playing their cd's and crying for hours! ahahahahhaah. in year 8 my family and hers were in sydney. we made our dads drive out of the way to a hotel where we heard that take that had stayed a few years ago. we stood in the foyer and took a photo of ourselves...we then proceeded to skate our feet across every square inch of the floor so that we could say ' we have stood where take that have stood!'

6) i can and love to eat lemons like oranges. i cut them up and without a wince or a twinge of the eye i can and looove to enhale the whole thing, every bit of it. mmmm-m!

7) i cant touch cotton wool balls..arrrgggggg! when people hold them and grind them my whole body goes crazy. when i think about holding them, i get shivers all over my body and the inside of my bottom teeth get all sensative. bbllllaaa!

8) i bite my nails. no i am shocking. absolutely terrible. and have been for years, as long as i can remember. they are stubbs. my dad always used to say to me as a little girl that the day i get engaged i will have to hold my hand into a fist so that people dont see my nails when showing them my ring. and guess what i did last year when i got engaged... yep!

9) i think im am extremely emotionally intelligent and aware of peoples behaviour. i love to help people and to feel i have made them feel better. i hate bullying and when people are left out. i actually cried in the movie nutty professor because i couldnt stand how awful they were being to the fat man. i hate it so much when i can see people are feeling left out of a conversation or feeling unhappy. i honestly cry myself when i see others upset, and i will always try to make others feel special, included or better in any way i can.

10) i am (in the words of my dad) " a thousand miles an hour with my ass on fire". maybe because i am creative?? i dont know. and scatty, jumping from one thing to another in a flash! i can have a terribly messy room, but concentrate on having a vase on my bed side table with beautiful flowers and make that look amazing whilst the rest of my room is a bomb. i can be running late to something, not even dressed but can stop in my tracks to peel the sticker off my new candle that has been annoying me! im hopeless. i catch up with friends and have to imaginarly 'post-it mark' my ideas because i have jumped from one thing to another so quickly that i will forget if i dont. in a way i love it though, i think thats what makes me live each minute as i do.

thanks for reading my 10 special things that you didnt know about me. i would like to now pass on the creative award to the lovely belinda strong of honey jumble. what can i say... i adore her work! its just brilliant and each idea of hers never ceases to amaze me! her use of colour and expression on her characters is the best! my favourite (i wonder why) is her magic fox cusion! so there you go bee... i cant wait to hear 10 things about you, and thanks for having such a great blog!

to finish off, i wanted to share with you a few photos. enjoy

x

41 orchard sneak

gee i forgot to show you a sneak peak of the work im doing with 41 orchard at the moment. iv got about 6 designs on the go, but wanted to share (even just a taste or tease) of my favourite. ill be catching up with 41 orchard next week to get some samples out... cant wait to see them. its been a bit hard to share the ideas as some of them werent finalized... anyway stay tuned x

the collective with meaghan cook

its been six months from the day we met. set up to meet on a blind date. i had never met meaghan before, nor knew what she looked like.

but i knew when i saw her!

i had been thinking to myself and wondering "what will she be like? how will i know who she is? do i kiss her hello, hug her, or be totally out of character and shake her hand? what if she thinks im too immature? or unprofessional?" well the minute we were introduced, all that flew out the door. my thoughts quickly turned to " why the hell has it taken us our whole lives to meet?".

meaghan had bought my cuckoo clock from a shop in barwon heads, and then searched out to find me. Thank goodness i listened to my fiance and put my contact details on the back of it.

when we caught up, meaghan told me that she wanted to create a new look for her branding- to spice things up a bit a really portray who she was.

we stayed and chatted for about 3 hours, and i wished it was longer. we just clicked.

i was now thinking "is this a meeting to be your newest friend" I ACCEPT!!!

i have had so much fun creating her identity visually and linking her ideas to the drawings. there was reason behind every illustration i did, and every stroke of my watercolour brush.

apart from the fact she is awesome, and i mean really awesome, meaghan 'got' me too. she found me first and that really gave me a lot of confidence to take on her project.

so, this is a bit of what we have been beavering away at, and what a project it was. the logo, branding, web, blog, swing tags...the whole lot. countless hours and stupid amounts of text messages, 5 million emails, 4 or 5 catch ups, and funny delirious jokes in between.

its been brilliant. it really has, and what a 'feather in my cap' as my pa always says to me.

i have been extremely lucky to have a client like her. too lucky really. she always gave me so much encouragement, and there were times there i thought 'right clare, you really can do this!' get your shit sorted!

i know you will be reading this meaghan, and i want to tell you how much i adore you. your brilliant. so much of your work and how you work is all about 'others'. YOU my friend are the talented one, and its been just the best working with you.

everybody, head over to her new website. she really is one talented lady (lady??/ girl?)... well anyway she's rad!

and THIS is what i've been hanging out to show you all.

x

yey yey yey!

hello tuesday! and what a lovely day you are!!!

i had some extremely exciting news last night, well and exciting proposition last night.

victor fox has been asked by childrens decal company '41 orchard' to be a guest designer.

41 orchard is an awesome australian company with bright, fun, funky & beautiful totally removable wall art for nurserys and childrens rooms.

take a wander over to 41 orchard and take a peek. i am super excited about this!

you will have to stay tuned for updates on this collaboration...im sure ill be rambling about it again very soon! (and using even more exclamation marks!!)