Our Animal Camp fabric is one of our most popular designs, with the contrast of neutral and bright colours paired with the cute woodland animal drawings, it is perfect for both little boys and girls. It is available on all of our furniture, including our headboards, loose-cover chairs and sofas. It fits in perfectly with any bedroom or playroom decor. But how exactly did we come up with this fantastic fabric? Read on to learn the story behind our Animal Camp fabric and the main points of inspiration behind the design.
Kids stories
When designing this fabric, we had to think about what children love. After all, what we design is for them, and if we want them to love what we create, we have to keep them in mind at all times. During our extensive research into what children like, we found that cute woodland animals were still incredibly popular. The Winnie the Pooh books are still well-loved amongst little ones, with film and TV productions dedicated to this lovable yellow bear. And the book ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt‘ is such a classic that even some parents will remember having this book read to them when they were younger. With these in mind, we wanted to create something based around woodland animals like bears, foxes, raccoons and rabbits, and so we looked for a way to bring these creatures to life on our fabric.
Family camping trips
Once we decided that woodland animals were the way forward, we tried to settle on a theme for the fabric. Thinking about woods, we considered what we did during our childhoods and came up with the perfect idea: camping! Summer camping trips with roasted marshmallows, late night stories and days spent exploring were the best, and we wanted to replicate this feeling in our fabric. Kids are explorers by nature, always looking for something to discover, play with or investigate. In forests they’ll be turning over bark, running through trees and searching for furry little animals to point out to their parents. To try to bring this to life, we include small tree designs and even have the rabbits roasting marshmallows over a fire! We want kids who have furniture in this design to be reminded of their own camping holidays and have fun looking over the fabric and pointing out their favourite woodland animals.
Stuffed animals
When it came to designing the fabric and picking a style for the illustrations of the animals, we had to look again at kids for inspiration. Children’s books, TV shows and films are filled with various forms of animation and drawing, so we knew settling on one would be hard. So instead, we turned elsewhere for inspiration and looked at the cuddly, stuffed animals that all kids adore. We can all remember having that special cuddly toy as a child, the one that we were constantly attached to and that we took everywhere with us. Their cute features and furry appearance is what drew us in, so we wanted to replicate this in the design of our animals. In the Animal Camp fabric, the bears, raccoons, foxes and rabbits all have small, cute expressions that make them warm and adorable as well as realistically drawn features to make them appear furry and soft just like a toy!
Coordinating colours
The last thing that needed to be decided on this Animal Camp journey was the colours that we would use. Colour plays a huge role in a child’s life, not only their play but their education. With this motivating us, we wanted to choose colours that would stand out to kids as well as be stylish in their room. We decided that grey would be the perfect background colour for this fabric as it easily blends in with most colours and not only matches bedrooms and playrooms but also looks stylish in living rooms, making the Animal Camp fabric perfect for any room.
As for the animals, we wanted them to stand out against the grey fabric and draw the children’s eye to them. So, we settled on black, orange and blue as these are bright colours that complement the grey and help to create a colourful but stylish appearance to the fabric. By making the other various, smaller designs on the fabric fit in with this colour scheme, it creates an overall appealing look that is ‘gender neutral’ and ideal for boys and girls.
When it came to designing the fabric and picking a style for the illustrations of the animals, we had to look again at kids for inspiration. Children’s books, TV shows and films are filled with various forms of animation and drawing, so we knew settling on one would be hard. So instead, we turned elsewhere for inspiration and looked at the cuddly, stuffed animals that all kids adore. We can all remember having that special cuddly toy as a child, the one that we were constantly attached to and that we took everywhere with us. Their cute features and furry appearance is what drew us in, so we wanted to replicate this in the design of our animals. In the Animal Camp fabric, the bears, raccoons, foxes and rabbits all have small, cute expressions that make them warm and adorable as well as realistically drawn features to make them appear furry and soft just like a toy!