Heartlands Hospital - Journey into Space!

Our intrepid explorers James, Lois and Reg continue their adventures from the PAU Ward and now journey into SPACE! This scheme of enhancements follows their story as they graduate from Space Academy, build a rocket and explore the stars. The designs follow them around the galaxy as the meet new friends, take part in a space race and play football on the moon!

Concepts to completion

We get a lot of questions about our process and how an enhancements scheme comes together so we thought we would do a post showing some of the stages. Initially (after some meetings and discussions!) we come up with a theme, colour scheme and style that will suit the environment and the people who will be using the space. We produce sketches both simple pencil and photoshop. 

As well as our own ideas we use art workshops and ideas sheets to generate ideas from the people who will be using the space. For our recent scheme in the Children's Community Department at Derby Hospital we asked patients to design their own character and create their own house.

As well as the staff's ideas and input the children's designs feed directly into the scheme.

There has to be a certain amount of flexibility when the original designs are painted onto the walls as spaces change and notice boards that weren't there before appear! But by having a strong story and concept initially we are able to work round any obstacles and hopefully produce the most engaging, interactive and decorative end result possible for the space.

Bringing the community together in a new scheme of enhancements

Just before Christmas we had the pleasure of designing and painting a scheme of enhancements for a new department within Derby Royal Hospital. The Children's Community Department will see patients who need regular visits to the hospital so it was therefore important the imagery was packed full of enough detail so that the children would find something new each time they visited.

Taking inspiration from the departments name we decided on the theme of community and created neighbourhoods based both in reality and fairytale. The style of painting is colourful and engaging and designed to spark the children's imaginations and make their hospital visits less daunting. The style uses rollered out blocks of bright colours contrasted with pockets of detail and pattern, each telling a story.

 The more abstract building shapes and the decorative nature of the paintings again in contrast with more figurative elements ensure that the scheme will appeal to the wide age range the Community Department will see when it opens it's doors this month.

To see some more pictures of the scheme click here.

Merry Christmas from Firecatcher!

This years Christmas card took inspiration from the 12 days of Christmas poem. We decided to imagine the chaos that would ensue if the poem was interpreted as a school play. The main card has all 12 days represented within one illustration, with 12 separate 'days' as additional illustrations.

Woodland Wonders at Good Hope Hospital

We recently created a lovely scheme of enhancements for a Special Care Baby Unit in Birmingham. The brief was to create an environment that was warm, welcoming and felt like a home from home for new parents and their babies. The chosen scheme used a pastel palette in combination with delicate illustrations and pretty patterns to create a contemporary nursery look.

- Moodboard with proposed colour schemes and initial ideas -

Taking inspiration from questionnaire feedback, we used ‘Nature’ as a theme, creating ‘woodland walks’ and bringing an element of the outside inside through floor to ceiling 'hand drawn trees'. We split four main corridors into seasons, creating foliage and wildlife for each one; Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter.

 - Woodland Walk -

- Concept drawing -

Flying down the main corridor, the Good News birds carry tidings of joy!

Throughout the ward we created a series of frame walls. We told stories through these clusters of frames; including the tale of the birth of three fox cubs and the woodland celebrations that followed! 

 - They arrived in the middle of the night under the light of the full moon -

- The two sleepy but exultant foxes smiled at their new arrivals -

- The Woodland Orchestra play in celebration! -

A frame wall created for nurses to stick thank you letters from parents and photographs of new babies. 

The Woodland theme was continued into the cot ward, creating a peaceful sleeping environment.

Bletchley Park

A couple of weeks ago we were invited to the re-opening of the Post Office at Bletchley Park. We've designed a few of the first day covers sold in the Post Office, all Bletchley themed. We were delighted to attend, the weather was glorious and the Post Office looked great! Lovely to see our covers in situ too!

The Royal Philatelist cutting the ribbon!

Beautiful lake complete with swan!

 First day covers for sale in the Post Office.

The Great British Fashion covers as designed by us! Read more about these here.