Fakeha Naeem Textile Designer

Reversible Cotton Sheets Our family travels. We enjoy taking road trips on a holiday or a long weekend, for specific reasons , family get togathers and sometimes for no reason at all but just to make memories. As a mom of three young girls there is just so much to pack for, during the travel.  One of the essentials is their blankets / throws for each that they would use for their naps in the car while on the road. These throws can just become bulky or too hot for summer road trips. So this year I took on a small project of making my own reversible cotton sheet cum blanket perfect for travel, not too bulky when folded. I used two yards each and used complimentory colors to create them. Here are the two I was able to complete thankfully during my now 11 month old's naps. Hope you like it. I used single straight stitching but went over each side of the blanket twice to strengthen the stitching. For the first sheet I chose a chevron print back and front but just in differen...

Freelancing logo designs for private companies and customers has its pros and cons. Startup companies are in their initial stages where they are working towards which color pallete to adher too and which format to look in to. It is also challenging as a designer to work with clients who are just starting out with their businesses but also gratifying when you see a happy client the 'aha' moment when they see their final logo ready for production. A year or so back I had a customer who approached me for their small new project and was looking for a logo design and a "tag" line to add to their design theme. Here are a few designs that I came up with.

On one of my free lance projects I was asked by a client to make some Logo designs and cards for their new venture. Their project was related to stitching sensors which would conduct heat in a minimum to give a warm feel to the fabric when worn in winter. It was interesting project to work for although just in its initial stage. These are the designs I came up with for them.

Upholestry fabric tend to have some very interesting prints that one cannot resist the urge to not buy. Thats true for me, its not like I need the fabric for new curtains or re-upholster my sofas its just that some designs are just so unique that one gets drawn to them. Well, atleast I do, so I ended up buying a yardages of a few of my favorite prints out of the lot I was looking through in the shop. I kept them in my studio for a few months, looking through them now and then to get inspiration to put them in use, then it hit me, Pouches and bags of course! standard travel size products. The best thing about the upholestry fabrics is that they are thick, washable, not easily torn or damaged, the weave thickness cushions the items placed inside to prevent damage, perfect to put jewelry or make up in. Here are some of the pouches and zipper bags that I came up with.  

Clamp dying is perhaps as ancient a technique as indigo dying and batik work would be. Clamp essentially is a technique where you fold a piece of cloth in as many folds as you want and then tie/sandwich the cloth between clamps of your choice.These Clamps could be sticks, wooden blocks, coins etc anything really, let your imagination run wild. How you fold the fabric, which,in this case is silk scarves, deduces the final dyed pattern on the silk after dying. You can fold the scarf in to a small /large square, rectangle, triangle or just random bunched up form tied with a thread (jute, or any yarn) between two clamps tightly and then immerse it in to a prepared dye bath. Silk can be both hot and cold dyed, depending on the dyes you are using. I did cold dyeing. Anyways, if you have done clamp dying as many a times I have, you would want to explore options of clamps (I always try to find things that are available at home) it just makes things more easy and the...

In my last post I had worked made a stylized animal print in various repeats. To further the same design, I decided to make its color ways to explain the effect just a few colors to a design can do and the impact it has on the entire design, to an extent that it may as well change the consumers and the product range itself. It may elevate a design or make it look completely common. Ice always been told that a color can make or break a design, and I have grown to be a firm believer in that. Here are the worked color ways of the previous design in straight, mirror and half drop repeat format. Half Drop repeat: Mirror repeat:          Straight repeat: 

Designing for kids or creating prints catering to that particular area has always been a challenge for me. Doodling or complicated damask, pen and  inks are my comfort zone. I actually do not have to think on those subjects, but to create a format or motif for kids takes me months to come up with. I still have not  figured out why so, but I would like to blame  it on the "designers have their own niche syndrome"  which brings me back to my post as to why I decided to indulge in the area that forces me to "brain storm" at the first place. As a mother, when I sit with my girls to draw with them, sometimes they would ask me "mamma make me drawing of a dog or cat etc. and like all parents I oblige, the drawings are rarely accurate (we all aren't natural Da Vinci's here) but the caricatures or flat two dimensional images made my kids happy, they would color it , keep it, collect it. What intrigued me the most was that the children recogniz...