The 1970s Living Room

The 1970s in the United Kingdom was not, as is often thought, all about garish and overbearing patterns, it was about finesse, too.

This 1970s room is more or less complete now and I have created a paper that sums up the way the 1970s was with a pattern that is nice but not too nice. This pattern represents the ideas of that decade but made to look perhaps more modern and in a way this was probably what the vast majority of people would have chosen rather than the over-the-top designs that are often portrayed.

You can also see larger versions of this and our other work on our Flickr page which is here.

Another Kitchen Lino Pattern

Following on from the lino pattern posted yesterday, this is another similar mid-century pattern designed for kitchen or bathroom floors.

Further from what I was saying earlier, this pattern has a very subtle way to it. The motifs tend to lead the eye forward towards the units – at least that was the intention. The colour, too, is much darker than I would usually use but I think this gives the floor a better, and certainly a more polished, look.

The pattern was made with Xara Designer while the set is my kitchen floor set created in the Cinema 4D which program was used to produce the image.

You can also see larger versions of this and our other work on our Flickr page which is here.

A Kitchen Lino Pattern

One colour that was popular mid-century in the UK was green and it occurred to me that I don’t very often use this hue.

To redress I decided to create a floor covering for the mid-century kitchen that used green in a sort of pseudo-random pattern using small motifs. The difficulty with patterns like this is placement because it is all too easy to create a direction with the components which makes the pattern look odd. At this scale, too, the floor looks robust and solid rather than the much smaller scale used of late which makes it look bity and weak.

This design was made with Xara Designer while the image was produced using my kitchen set in Cinema 4D.

You can also see larger versions of this and our other work on our Flickr page which is here.

A Mid-century Wallpaper

We have created a new mid-century room to showcase wallpaper designs and maybe other furniture, soft furnishings and patterns that we produce.

The walls in this image above are intended to look like mid-century walls in the United Kingdom probably around the end of the 1950s or the start of the 1960s. This is a pattern that has a quick repeat and both horizontal and a vertical components and so tends to look good in a regular shaped room.

The pattern is based on mid-century ideas while the colours are taken from the British Standard palette in use in the UK at the time.

You can also see larger versions of this and our other work on our Flickr page which is here.

A Mid-century Wallpaper

Mid-century wallpaper tends to be small florals or small geometrics with the occasional larger and more traditional art based design.

This pattern falls into the latter category being a very large pattern although with a very recognisable horizontal and vertical repeat which helps to define the dimensions of the room. The inspiration for this pattern is based on mid-century modern art ideas and the colours, of course, come from the mid-century palette.

You can also see larger versions of this and our other work on our Flickr page which is here.

A 1950s Floorcovering

Lino, that is linoleum, was used a lot in mid-century Britain and in the late 1940s and 1950s many different styles were developed.

This pattern is based on the sort of floor covering which would have been available at that time. Lino, or later vinyl coverings, were available as rolled up sheets and the amount required was unrolled and cut to size making this a very easy way to cover a floor. The surface was slightly shiny and smooth and this made for easy cleaning of spills and marks which made this floor covering extremely popular. Sadly it seems to have fallen out of popularity today although, a glance on the Internet, revealed that there were some excellent looking floors still available.

This pattern is based on various styles of floor covering this could have been bought in the 1950s and it is used as the texture for the floor in my mid-century kitchen.

You can also see larger versions of this and our other work on our Flickr page which is here.

A 1970s Wallpaper

Designs and patterns went a bit crazy mid-century as a variety of colours and forms were chosen and used.

This design is an attempt to capture the trend towards using developments in modern art to create designs for wallcoverings. Today it is a long, long way from what is considered normal or even acceptable for patterns but in the riotous, anything-goes 1970s this might have been looked on with envy.

You can also see larger versions of this and our other work on our Flickr page which is here.