Daniel is a designer-maker specialising in wallpaper, textile and surface design. I’d heard his name floating around for a while but I really fell in love with his work after seeing this lovely video which was used as part of the W is for Wallpaper exhibition at the Ruthin Craft Centre. I’m quite the wallpaper fanatic (made my own ya know!) so it was a delight to take a closer look at Daniel’s designs and snoop round the studio whilst he worked on his latest bespoke project.
Blackhorse Workshop is Daniel’s community studios of choice. It has a really great social vibe with a coffee shop, brewery and monthly markets happening for the artisans of Walthamstow. I’ve seen some of the breakfast options available and it all looks pretty darn tasty! The downstairs area of the studio is actually a public workshop which can be used if you sign up to a membership so look no further if you are after a woodwork or metalwork shared studio. Upstairs are more permanent studios which are occupied by a variety of crafts people including Daniel and his team of two Laura’s, one of whom his is wife which is rather lovely.
Mr Heath started off at Loughborough University before moving on to train in the traditional process of silk-screen printing at the Royal College of Art. Having started off sharing a dingy space with a fellow graduate after the RCA, Blackhorse is now his workplace home and when he’s not occasionally teaching at Bucks New University, he’s creating beautiful limited edition pieces for a range of clientele working for a number of months on each project.
I was pretty chuffed to catch a glimpse of the Onyx Skyline Wallpaper which launched earlier this year at London Design Festival. The metallic hues on this art deco piece would make any wall look a million dollars and interestingly the piece was inspired by The Hoover Building in Perivale. It’s the inspiration behind Daniel’s pieces that make his designs playful and fun as well as providing a little narrative. His work is decorative and this is something he’s not afraid to shout about. He’s simply putting a lot of passion and love into beautiful illustrations and hand-crafted products. Having been faced with the issue of needing to be ‘conceptual’ throughout my whole university life its pretty bloody brilliant to meet someone successful in the industry with this way of working. Although of course its taken him a lot of hard work and late nights to get there.
Thanks so much to Dan for having me over for a little chat and for allowing me to photograph him whilst being busy at work.
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