Designer Session: John Booth

East London-based illustrator, ceramicist and artist John Booth is a polymath of creativity, whose bold use of colour and cartoonish style cannot help but fill you with a sense of joy. His stunning Giovanni, Technique and Flower rugs, produced exclusively for FLOOR_STORY, expertly recreate his life-affirming, quirky designs and vibrant hues in wool and silk and are sure to create a cheerful and optimistic mood anywhere they’re laid.

Since graduating with a BA in fashion print design from Central Saint Martins in 2009, Booth has been in huge demand in the fashion and design worlds. He has interned with John Galliano, collaborated with Fendi – daubing bursts of bright colour onto backpacks, t-shirts and holdalls – and created textiles for Zandra Rhodes, as well as lecturing at Central Saint Martins and the University of Westminster. Now working with the art and interiors collective House of Voltaire, John is all about making sure there’s something for everyone and with that we can’t argue. We asked him to talk us through the design of his three rugs for FLOOR_STORY and for his thoughts on the creative processes involved.

How would you describe your style and what has influenced your design?

My style is colourful and joyous, with a focus on the use of mixed media. When creating my FLOOR_STORY designs, I used a mixture of different materials, which I feel has come through well in finished pieces. My original marks and textures have been translated really well into the woven textiles.

Can you tell us a little more about your designs for FLOOR_STORY and exactly what inspired them?

The designs are very much an extension of my usual drawing work, and all of them are motifs and patterns I have worked with before. It was fun to rework them into designs suitable for weaving into rug form.

The designs are very much an extension of my usual drawing work

John Booth

Giovanni

What attracted you to working with FLOOR_STORY and more importantly, the process of rug making?

I have a background in textile design, so despite currently working in lots of other media, it’s really nice for me to come back to this particular one. I really like seeing my drawings translated into textiles. It’s also really great to see the drawings scaled up to suit the large format of these rugs.


Can you describe your new rugs?

Bright, colourful, very well executed, and a really good translation from original drawing on paper to finished textile. I chose every single yarn colour personally, by hand, matching them as closely as possible to my original design drawings, so I feel they are a true representation of my design work.


How do the rugs make you feel?

Happy!

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