Competition: The Next Designer Wallpaper Collection 2020

Just over 12 months ago, we announced Kelly Kratzing as the winner of our designer wallpaper competition. Her beautifully delicate floral murals are now adorning the walls in many homes around the world.

We were so impressed with the entries last year, we decided to open up the opportunity to runner ups: Michael Zindell, Andrea Haase, Danielle Nelisse, Katy Clemmans, Tenyo Marchev and Yani Mengoni. You can see all of their wallpaper collections in our designer category.

After the success of last year’s competition to find the next designer wallpaper collection, we decided to have another go at finding another bunch of talented artists. Having teamed up with the lovely people at Make it in Design, 'the home of everything you need to know about becoming a successful surface pattern designer', we’ve had a wonderful abundance of entries that we have (not easily!) narrowed down into this shortlist. But now it’s your time to take over. We’re asking you to vote for your favourite designer from our shortlist.

The brief: What’s your era?

History always repeats itself. What goes around the interior trends, always comes back around. So for this year’s competition, we set the artists the brief of choosing their favourite era and basing their designs on this time period.

All we asked from the artists were:

• Design two murals based on an era

• Both designs have to relate to each other

• The two designs will both feature in the winning collection

• Bear in mind, you’re designing something that will look great on all shaped walls

Of course, we wouldn’t ask for all of this without a reward! The winner will receive an agreement with us and earn on any sales from their collection. Based on last year’s success, we also hope to choose some runner ups with a similar agreement.

Your vote for the next designer wallpaper collection

We need your help! It was a real challenge narrowing down the entries for this shortlist – the competition was fierce! But we think we have chosen what you guys will love… We just need you to let us know which artist from this shortlist you’d like to see join our designer wallpaper collection.

Scroll down to view the shortlisted entries and vote by commenting with their name at the bottom of the blog post. 

Nici Gabriel

Austrian-born Nici Gabriel hasn’t always had a career as an artist. She studied business informatics and worked amongst others as an IT project manager. After having two children, she realised that she made some wrong decisions in her working life and rediscovered her creative skills that got lost when growing up. She learned everything you need to know about surface pattern design through several online courses before developing her own label and quitting her day job. Her colourful and versatile portfolio is inspired by her life with family and nature in the countryside.

Having chosen the era of Art Nouveau for the competition, Nici said: “This decision was obvious as I lived many years in Austria. One of my designs is a geometric, floral pattern with bows and loops on some marigolds and a reflected magic flower. The other is inspired by some clovers and mallows in my natural garden. Scrolls and bows give it the necessary elegant feeling of art nouveau.”

www.nicigabrieldesigns.com

Catherine Worsley

Catherine Worsley is the creative director of Northern Lights Creative, she loves creating dynamic and vibrant designs in her studio in Yorkshire. She loves experimenting with different styles and playing with colours and motifs – her main aim is to create designs that make people smile. Her designs have appeared on various products both in the UK and the USA.

“I absolutely love Art Deco! The designs from that time are so luxurious and immediately transport you to that era when it felt like anything was possible, I’ve tried to convey that feeling with my patterns using bold motifs, I would love whoever is looking at them to feel inspired, comforted and most importantly, happy! I’ve chosen a colour palette using warm tones that would suit many different environments.”

www.northernlightscreative.co.uk

Julia Fonnereau

Julia Fonnereau is a British artist and surface pattern designer from Hertfordshire. Having enjoyed a career in art educations, she focuses on creating her own artwork and developing a portfolio of surface pattern designs. Julia’s choice of era for the competition was the Georgian period, focusing on the fascination with the decorative arts from the Orient.

“Transport yourself back to the late 18th century. You have distinguished guests coming over for tea and you are looking forward to showing off your new wall décor. The latest fashion is chinoiserie style and you have taken care to create an ambient mise en scene. You love the frivolous fun nature of the patterns which beautifully complement your brand new willow pattern tea service!”

www.juliafonnereaudesign.com

Rebecca Johnstone

Rebecca Johnstone (aka Dainty Dora) is a writer and designer with a first class honours degree in Textiles & Fashion Design Management. Having graduated from Heriot-Watt University (formerly the Scottish College of Textiles) Rebecca specialises in print.

Living in Lanarkshire, Scotland, and influenced by her local surroundings, Rebecca interprets the culture of Glasgow, Paisley, the Scottish Highlands (where she grew up) and beyond, to create her bold and colourful hand-drawn pattern designs and illustrations.

“My collection for Wallsauce draws on influences from the early ‘Belle Epoch’ era of Art Nouveau. La Belle Epoch – meaning ‘beautiful time’ was a period of optimism, peace, prosperity and innovation in the late 19th and early 20th century, which allowed the creative arts to flourish and ended only with the onset of World War 1.

The dragonfly is a symbol of wisdom, change, transformation, light and adaptability in life. I have also used butterfly motifs across the collection, the butterfly also symbolising transformation, resurrection and hope as it completes its metamorphosis. These motifs fit well with the Art Nouveau and La Belle Epoch era, but also feel very apt for our current time of flux as we grapple with the fallout from the current pandemic.

I have chosen a soft and muted palette in keeping with the era, but equally the designs work well with brighter colours – I have been experimenting! Charles Rennie Mackintosh - a personal design icon who I have been studying for a few years - used the fritillary flower in his work which I love. It symbolises majesty, pride and power, also very significant for our time.”

daintydora.co.uk

Would you like to see one of these artists join the designer wallpaper collection at Wallsauce? Use the comment box below to give us the name of your favourite artist by the 28th September 2020 (BST). Please note, only one vote per person will be counted and it may take around 24 hours for your comment to be shown - don't worry, we'll have received it! Don't forget to tick the box and sign up to our newsletter to be the first to hear about the winner!