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The minimalist 1990s. Not a decade that evokes memories of exciting interiors. Or, as Orla Kiely describes it in her recent book, Pattern, a time when colour and pattern “almost disappeared from our homes”, while “neutral, natural or monochrome palettes reigned supreme in the form of pure white walls, pale hardwood or stone floors, glass and stainless steel”.

This was also the period when the Dublin-born designer, whose name has since
become a byword for colour and pattern, went from being an up-and-coming hat
designer to an instantly recognisable brand, thanks largely to what has
become her trademark print, the retro-tinged “Stem” graphic, now
found on everything from mugs to cushions, notebooks and even cars (look out
for the new Citroë* DS3).

So how did Kiely, who heads her business with her husband, Dermott Rowan,
pioneer a style that was then so unfashionable? “We weren’t about
over-designing or over-embellishing,” she says. “Everything was
quite clean and simple. So in a way [the designs] were actually very
minimal. They just had a great big pattern all over them.” And it’s
true. Take a second look at an Orla Kiely motif and, while it might evoke an
age of garish Formica, psychedelic swirls or a bit too much brown – the
Fifties, Sixties and Seventies are big influences – what it takes from those
times is cleverly distilled into something stylised, tasteful and clear of
twee nostalgia.

Orla Kiely’s first degree course, at Dublin’s National College of Art and
Design, was in Print for Fashion, but her first job was with a wallpaper and
fabric designer in New York. It was the mid-Eighties, before digital design,
and colours had to be mixed in gouache, by hand, painted on to strips of
card and dried with a hairdryer before they could be presented to the boss.
Once approved, they’d have patterns hand-painted on to them with tiny
brushes, which would be copied and pasted until a sufficient repeat emerged
and the design could be looked at from a distance to see if it was working.
Kiely says the process gave her “the best colour training anyone could
have had”, and remembers that some of the most frequent comments from
her boss were “not dirty enough”, “add linden green”,
and “make it cleaner”. They resonated with the apprentice, whose
earthy tones would become the backbone of her designs.

But it was the Ireland of her childhood in the Sixties and Seventies that
first inspired her. “It was lovely,” she says, “the greens,
the yellows … the clouds, the skies and the sea. In a sense, it’s not
colourful, but you do see accents in the wild flowers by the road, or the
yellow gorse on the mountains. I love all those dirty colours – and mixed in
with sharp brights they look more sophisticated.”

Her parallel taste for the domestic vintage styles echoed in her prints
developed early too, helped by her mother’s kitsch kitchen: olive green
Formica cupboards and a gloss orange ceiling. “You’d never do that now,
but I remember at the time thinking it was quite cool. I still like the idea
of a mad ceiling.” There was also a passion for knitting and for
crocheting multicoloured waistcoats, “inflicted” on her younger
sister.

Back in London, after working for the fashion company Esprit, she took an MA
in knitwear at the Royal College. Which is where the hats came in. A buyer
from Harrods had been at the degree show and liked her designs.

A year or two later she made a significant change of direction. While visiting
her “tiny stand” at London Fashion Week, Kiely’s father observed
that no one was wearing hats – but everyone had a bag. Starting up any type
of business, Kiely says, requires “hard work, a steep learning curve
and an element of luck”. This moment, perhaps, was the latter of those
three, as it was via the bags she went on to develop that Kiely’s
distinctive prints first hit the public consciousness.

The next lightbulb moment – after her printed fabric bags had made an impact
in the “sea of monochrome” in the late Nineties – was the idea of
laminated cloth. “At the time,” she explains, “no one was
doing anything like it. Laminated fabric, in those days, meant tablecloths.”

It meant her print designs could be more prolific as she was able to create
them all year round. Stem’s imminent status as the Kiely trademark was
cemented as it got its first of the many makeovers which have helped it to
become so popular: this time, its first wintery colourway. “It’s very
flexible,” she reflects of the design. “We’ve been able to adapt
it, modify it, rescale it, recolour it, add texture … It’s also quite
clean and unfussy – and interestingly, perhaps because of that, is also not
off-putting to men.” The bags and their best-selling pattern were fresh
and unique. They took off. Since then, every Kiely collection has featured a
version of Stem.

The ubiquitous graphic, of course is just one strand of Kiely’s textile
design. But it is far from her only familiar print: cars, apples and pears,
martians, glass tumblers, acorn cups – without even looking, you’ve almost
certainly seen them all, whether printed on furniture in Heals, bedding at
John Lewis or toiletries bags in giftshops nationwide – not forgetting
fashion, which Kiely is still passionate about (she has just opened a
dedicated new shop in the King’s Road).

Aside from her childhood, Kiely takes inspiration from the geometry she sees
in nature; a kitchen shelf full of mid-century cups and saucers, vintage
fabrics by designers such as Lucienne Day and the less famous Barbara Brown,
who designed textiles for Heals in the Sixties and Seventies, as well as
anonymous charity shop or accidental finds. As a student in rented flats,
she says she used to “love opening a cupboard to discover layers of old
patterned wallpaper inside”. In Tokyo she snapped rows of bicycles and
twisted concrete flyovers for her moodboards, while this year’s
spring/summer collection was inspired by the Cornish paintings of Patrick
Heron. And these things get translated – cleaned up, transformed, repeated –
and become, eventually, a Kiely design. “I sometimes think that my
brain works in repeat,” she writes in Pattern, “I love the order
and regiment of repetition and how everything can be patterned in this way,
as if you are looking at the world through a prism or kaleidoscope.”

Easy for her to say. But not necessarily an easy look to incorporate into the
home. How does she advise the pattern-shy and colour-phobic to be bold? “I
always think it’s good to plan one strong feature rather than lots of bitty
things,” she says. “So if you’re going to go for patterned
wallpaper, you don’t really want print on your sofa and print on your floor:
make it a focal point. There’s less opportunity to get it wrong.”

“I actually think brown is a very sophisticated colour; cool and very
strong. It’s a great base for colour – if you have brown walls then it’s
nice to have colour in other places – a yellow chair or a kingfisher blue
sofa. It’s what you put with it,” she continues. That said, there are
certain colours she would never combine: “Purple and pink. Purple’s not
a big colour for me anyway,” she says, “but I’d combine it with
brown. When I’m doing colour, I tend to work in families rather than
opposites. For example, red is lovely with soft pink; ochre is lovely with
yellow, and so on.”

Take inspiration from your accessories too, she suggests. One of her favourite
photographs is an atmospheric shot taken for the French fashion house
Courrèges in 1970 – of the back view of a girl on an orange spacehopper,
bouncing past an old Renault van on an otherwise deserted road. “Treat
photos and objects as pattern,” she says. “You need to plan what
goes with it and so many people go for white, perhaps because of that – but
you don’t have to. Not if you look at the colours in the artwork.”

Are there rules? In her book she goes in some detail into the mathematical
proponents of pattern, and Isaac Newton’s theories of colour. “It’s
interesting to be aware of that,” she says. “Theory is all very
well – but I like to break the rules.” Again, easy for her to
say. Are there ways that those less confident and experienced can practise? “Looking
at paintings is always good,” she says. We do that for our collections
and it can be quite surprising. There’s a Danish painter, Per Kirkeby, who’s
a good example. His colours are beautiful – and there’s always a surprise,
something completely strange in the corner. It’s a great way to study colour.”

What about pattern itself – where does one begin to mix and match? “Different
scales are good, different coverage is good,” she says, explaining that
the idea of “clashing” is the point, rather than the thing to
avoid. “They kind of need to contrast – you want to link the colours
somehow, but if you put similar patterns together, ones with the same
weight, for example, the risk is that it can look like a mistake.” But,
she adds, it’s also personal. “One person will make it work. Another
won’t.”

Even so, people shouldn’t be so scared of pattern in the home. “You just
have to go for it. That really is the point. Just be brave.”

Pattern by Orla Kiely is published by Octopus Books (£25). To order a copy
for the special price of £21 (free P&P) call Independent Books
Direct on 08430 600 030, or visit www.independentbooksdirect.co.uk

A coward’s guide to pattern

* Less is more – make it a focal point rather than going mad

* Don’t assume brown is drab – it’s a great base

* Try working with a family of colours, rather than opposites

* Rather than having a white backdrop, work with the colours in a favourite
painting or object

* Link patterns by colour, but mix and match scale, coverage and weight to
make it look deliberate

Since the recession struck a year and a half ago, designs with a “humourous”
edge are on the rise with irony, wit and lashings of absurdity cropping up
all over the interiors sector.

But, while not many people would argue with a reason to smile, sometimes, one
has to question whether humour in the home décor should ever stray further
than a novelty cushion, a silly apron or, better yet, be eternally relegated
to the downstairs loo.

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“The use of humour in design can be difficult to master, the key factor
being that design should always look practical,” says Ryan Kohn,
director of Interior Architectural, Design and Build company, Living in
Space, who warns that “pointless ‘funny’ items around the home can often
look ridiculous.”

To most of us, that might sound obvious, but it’s amazing how many “joke”,
or should I say “junk”, items end up in our homes. This is
especially true at Christmas, something I know too well having once received
a tacky plastic book stand – funny for all the wrong reasons, not least
because it said “Happy Birthday!” proudly across the top.

But there are ways of injecting humour into an interior without making it too “silly”,
says Kohn.

One of the biggest interior trends of the last two years with a big dash of
humour, he points out, has been along the Alice in Wonderland theme. This
trend has been typified by oversized items such as Diamantini &
Domeniconi Gomitolo’s enormous knitted wall clock at Rockett St George,
Holly Palmer’s Tea Cup Stool at Mocha or Anthroplogie’s piled up tea set
lamp. Meanwhile, at this year’s design week in Milan, Dutch designer Marcel
Wanders and French furniture manufacturing company xO exhibited their
Alice-inspired “eden” collection of monumental ceramic vases,
tables and stools, which had been shaped into the pawn pieces of a chess
game. Adding an element of humour with one or two high quality,
design-focused items, and combining them with your current décor, helps you
to be stylish without being silly, the main point being, says Kohn, that “you
carefully tread the line between kitsch, humourous and downright ridiculous.”

So, while the bone china cup and saucer featuring a “bite-mark”
design from Evthokia is both playful and stylish, referencing notions of
etiquette and gently poking fun at traditional values; the Terrorist Tea Pot
from SUCK UK, complete with balaclava-style tea cosy, is of the humour your
home could probably live without.

Likewise, while it’s a “tick” to Julian Appelius’ highly modern “pulpo”
coat hooks, which look like brightly coloured paint dripping down a wall;
the more obviously “funny” Regnah Hange hook from Meninos, is
taking the joke a step too far.

Homeowners aren’t the only ones who should take to humour with care. Indeed,
those designers who attempt to add an amusing or ironic edge to their
creations face extra challenges if they wish their design to be successful.
At this year’s New Designers exhibition, Jack Wilesmith told the joke well
with his Sit Stool, which was inspired by his old teachers telling him not
to lean back on his chair, or risk hurting himself. The design lets the
sitter “lean in safety” on his chair, thus turning his childish
tendency and the familiar worry of grown-ups on its head.

“I try to find humour in anything I do, especially design” says
Jack, “I believe subtlety is the key. I go about designing in the same
way that a stand-up comedian would go about their shows: I stand back and
look at life, spot the silly things people do and poke fun at them.”

It’s important that you can justify why you have designed something the way
you have, he says, and, sometimes, it’s just good to “feel like you’re
12 again.”

Humourous design should surprise and amuse. It should be subtle and clever.
Use it with care, or the joke might be on you

Emily Jenkinson is interiors writer for furniture
and interior design website mydeco.com.

When nowadays we ascribe messianic significance to the arrival of the latest smartphone, it’s easy to forget the simpler products in life. Such is the pleasure of Tools for Living: A Sourcebook of Iconic Designs for the Home by Charlotte and Peter Fiell. A flagship title for the husband-and-wife team’s publishing house, it’s a hall of fame for those household objects we could not live without, showcasing “ultimate” examples of everything from beds and baths to staplers and salad servers.

So what are the measures of an “ultimate” design, exactly? Elegance
and functionality, of course, but above all it’s a matter of durability, as
Peter explains. “The book was really predicated on one maxim: ‘If you
buy cheap, you buy twice.’ Patently, products that are intended to last a
lifetime give you better value for money, but you’re also likely to derive
greater joy through their use. And then the undisputed fact is that if you
double the life cycle of any product, you halve its net environmental
impact, which is the only way we’re going to achieve sustainability in terms
of consumption.”

Running to 768 pages, Tools for Living is a dizzyingly comprehensive tome, and
few could have been better qualified to assemble it than the couple, leading
authorities on contemporary design for the past 20 years. “A lot of the
stuff we own ourselves and we use on a daily basis,” Peter says. “And
[many other products] we already had the full story on, from the initial
concept to seeing them evolve to the final product coming out in the
manufacturer’s facility.”

Still, the two years they spent researching the book found them wading into
less familiar territory: spending days getting their heads around the
relative merits of secateurs, for instance. “We had to become a little
OCD,” Peter notes wryly.

Just as interesting as the products themselves was their provenance. “[Take
the] ultimate ice-cream scoop, which is called Zeroll – it’s made in the US
by this ‘mom and pop’ business, which is three generations old, and it’s all
they make. Even if you go to the best gelateria in Rome, that’s what they’re
using.”

Historical import aside, the book serves as a bountiful font of furnishing
inspiration, whatever the depth of your pockets. “Cost was not one of
our criteria,” Peter explains. “If people do some research, they
will find our selections tend towards the highest end of the price range.
But it was important to us to include things that, even though they’re the
best of their kind, are still very [financially] accessible.” So for
every multi-thousand-pound fridge, there’s items such as the Le Parfait
Super jars (see right), which you can buy from your average homeware store
with change from a fiver.

And if Tools for Living is predicated on a second maxim, it’s that no object
is too trivial to forgo caring about. “There’s a potato peeler we
included that you might think is pretty banal, but actually it appears on a
stamp in Switzerland,” says Peter. “As Charlotte says, she uses a
potato peeler practically every day and by god you know when you’ve got a
crap one – it’s a misery. But when you’ve a got a good one, it brings a
little ray of sunshine into your life.”

‘Tools for Living’ is published by Fiell, priced £29.95