And the winner is...

A couple of weeks ago we launched a competition to win our first limited edition canvas bag, plus a £10 voucher to spend on-line at Look Like Love...we asked who we had chosen to grace the bag itself from the six designers taking part in the Pop-up, and the answer is CM Carter.

We looked at several illustrations for the final bag design, but felt the piece from CM Carter not only best represented us, and our collaboration with The HouseWith, it looked pretty cool too!

Everyone with the correct answer was put into a hat and the winner picked at random, and we are pleased to announce that Amelia Irta is the winner! Well done Amelia, we will be sending the bag, and £10 voucher this week, as well as a set of the designer postcards produced for the Pop-up itself.

But don't be disappointed, we have the bags for sale on-line right now for the bargain price of £5!
Head over to the shop to pick up your own limited edition bag, or if you are in South London over the next couple of weeks, we have them available to buy directly from the Pop-Up...

In it to win it...

We promised earlier in the week we would be celebrating the launch of our pop-up exhibition with a competition... 

So, for your chance to win one of our Look Like Love/The House With limited edition canvas bags plus an all important £10 voucher to spend on-line at Look Like Love, all you have to do is answer the following question...

We have 6 designers showcasing their work at our exhibition from the 14th April, but who's design have we chosen to grace the bags themselves?

Answers on a postcard...no not really, just always wanted to say that!

To be in with a chance of winning this already coveted bag (well by us anyway!) and a £10 voucher to spend on-line, email us at looklikelove.popup@gmail.com by 12pm on Thursday 12th April.

We will announce the winner on Saturday 14th April, and as you know, you have to be in it to win it!

Good luck...and if you're not the lucky winner, the bags will be available to buy on-line from Saturday 14th April too...

The small print...one answer per email address will be allowed, and the winner will be chosen at random from the list of correct emails received. Entries will not be accepted by anyone associated with TheHouseWith or Look Like Love. The winner will be notified by email, and then announced throughout our social media network. The bag and voucher will be sent within 14 days of the close of the competition. The voucher to the value of £10.00 will have a discount code that will be able to be used for one transaction at the Look Like Love on-line shop and will be valid for 6 months from date shown on voucher. After this date the voucher will expire and will not be redeemable - if anyone has any queries with regards to the T&C's please contact us@looklikelove.co.uk

Blog & Buy...

As part of our continuing efforts to get our new designers names and work out there for all to see, we are excited and privileged to have been asked to be part of the Spring showcase at BlogAndBuySale...

BlogAndBuySale was set-up by James and Josephine, and they understand in much the same way as us, the importance of getting creativeness showcased and promoted. It's all about working with, and supporting independent artists and designers, but instead of having a single on-line shop, they have created a virtual design fare.

They hand-pick a selection of sellers who each get their own 'stall' to trade from, and over the course of four weeks, assist in the further promotion of each stall to encourage more traffic, and ultimately more sales for the individual sellers.

To date they have achieved huge press attention from Creative Review and Digital Artist, and have also gone from interviewee to interviewers having been in conversation with Big Cartel and Made.com recently.

We hope you have a chance to not only check out our stall, but all the other creative sellers we are neighbours with this month...it's the ultimate showcase for creative talent...

Pop-up People...

From the heart of Peckham in the last two weeks of April, we will be hosting a collaborated pop-up exhibition with design company TheHouseWith. We've been dropping hints about who, when and where, but since a meeting with THW last week, we now have our final six exhibitors decided upon.

We presented all designers who applied to be a part of the exhibition, and would like to thank everyone for their interest, but numbers had to be limited due to the space, and we hope you are as excited as we are to host these hugely talented bunch of new designers.

The event is to also coincide with our first year as Look Like Love, and the designers exhibiting are a true reflection of the journey we have had over the last 12 months, as some of the first designers that caught our eye during last years shows, and initial research.

Ok, so enough waffle...here are the six you will be able see next month, some of who you will be familiar with from our support and promotion, who we will be proudly representing in Peckham!

Ben Phe - Illustrator, newest edition to Look Like Love and member of Art School Disco...

Michael Carroll - Sustainable Furniture Designer who we got chatting with at New Designer's 2011 and soon to have pieces available through our shop...

Roisin Connolly - Jewellery Designer from Dundee who uses acid-etching to create her amazing pieces...

Sandy Powell - Textile Designer who works with felt and recycled leather and will add a bit of softness to proceedings...

Kayleigh Hadley - Lyric-inspired and movie-loving illustrator is currently experimenting with lino-prints for a new collection...

CM Carter - Illustrator and all-round doodler, our first blog post, so it would be rude not to include her, and her amazing caricatures into the mix...

We'll be posting more details about the designers, the work you can expect to see, and information about dates and opening times in the next few weeks...our first literal watch this space moment...we cannot wait!

Outspoken...

It's always been a dream, being a writer of sorts, my mum and sister can vouch for the many hours I used to spend sat at a typewriter, (showing my age now!) putting my imagination down on paper.

It's been said that everyone has a book in them, and as lovely as that idea is, time isn't always there to actually sit down in the same way I did at the age of ten. So when we started writing this blog, it brought back the more journalistic side of me, and the quick, sound bytes have been a good way to get thoughts, and opinions down. Nothing too long was the key, as no one seems to have any kind of extended attention span anymore...who have I lost already?!

So when the opportunity came up a few months ago to become one of the regular feature writers for Creative Boom, how could I possibly turn it down. 

My first published article went on-line today, titled University/Life, and the plan is to write about the issues facing creative graduates, not only the impact universities have on finding a job, the new tuition fee system effects on applications, but also real experiences from recent graduates as they cope with internships, and how they maintain creative motivation on a day-to-day basis...

If you have any issues you would like us to highlight, and submit to Creative Boom, (and if we're really really good, be featured on The Guardian website too), them we would love to hear from you.

Open/Closed...

On a cold and snowy Friday evening we found ourselves weaving through a myriad of warehouses in Bermondsey. Not our neck of the woods as a rule, but we were making the exception for the one night only pop-up exhibition 'Open/Closed' from art collective Art School Disco.  

We posted about the recent graduates a few weeks ago, and have been following their progress, collectively and individually ever since, so we had to make the trip down and put a few faces, to the on-line names.  

On show was work by all six members of Art School Disco including Ben Phe, Katie Allen, Johnny Ace and Mary Roe. The warehouse setting certainly helped set the scene and added a few dramatic shadowy corners in which to view the work. 

We are already big fans of Ben Phe , having featured his own work a few months back in the post, Just Super Cool, but it was a real treat to see his intricate illustrations on glass up close.  

Katie Allen also had a small collection of illustrative and mix-media pieces, and we couldn't resist buying one of her hand-made postcards. 

What's great about these collaborative showcases is the real sense of creative spirit and coming together. You could literally feel the hard work that everyone had put into the exhibition, and the passion that continually challenges and surprises us as viewers, and appreciators.  

It shouldn't always be about the slick, curated and sometimes clinical exhibitions that see hundreds of people flocking through the doors, for us, it's about the talent, the enduring passion, and playfulness that should be celebrated from some of the UK's up-and-coming new designers...it was definitely worth getting a bit lost and cold for! 

More Tea Vicar...

We mentioned a couple of weeks ago a few new additions to our shop were on the way, and our first new arrival is from graduate jewellery designer Roisin Connolly.

We are really excited to be working with Roisin and representing her work, as we've been fans since we posted about her work back in August in, A Personal Journey, where Roisin's technique of acid-etching gold and silver with photographic images, really caught our eye.

We have a couple of her acid-etched creations, as well as her adorable tea-inspired silver earrings. What's more comforting than a good cuppa and a slice of cake, that combination never fails...

...Click on SHOP to see Roisin's pieces, as well as all our other graduate work available to buy...