Maria Larsson for Uniqlo
September 27, 2019To see my Circus pattern produced by Uniqlo for their fall -19 collection is a thrill to say the least. It has been hard keeping it a secret for so long but now when it hit the shelves online and in selected stores, I can finally share the good news!… Read more
Maison & Objet – from a Swedish perspective
March 10, 2018This year started with discoveries of the huge trade shows for design in Paris. I had decided to visit the two most interesting ones in January, Maison et Objet and Playtime Paris. The first one a huge fair for mostly the interior and lifestyle design market and the second for… Read more
formex stockholm 2017 – from lindberg to littlephant
August 29, 2017Formex Stockholm is the largest trade show for interior and design in Scandinavia. With 900 exhibitors and 23000 visitors in a space of 114 000 sqm you can easily get overwhelmed. It was a long time since I visited, in fact I didn’t go since I worked as a ceramist… Read more
beauty will save the world – isabelle arsenault
August 5, 2017ISABELLE ARSENAULT FINALLY, I got my hands on this book that I wanted for so long, by Amy Novesky and one of my favourite illustrators, Isabelle Arsenault, ABOUT another artist I admire hugely – Louise Bourgeois! Great combination to make me love everything about it! Each of these artists… Read more
beauty will save the world – kaffe fassett
March 13, 2017KAFFE FASSETT To describe the influence of this man and the central place he holds in British textile and design history wouldn’t be possible in a single blog post as this one… It’s not an exaggeration to claim that he started a revolution in the world of handicraft… Read more
beauty will save the world – a new year
February 6, 2017One of the things I enjoy the most is to share my sources of inspiration with you! I’ve been featuring one favourite artist a month since I started this blog and I would love to continue doing so because I constantly fall in love with new ones! You can find all… Read more
dot oddity redesigned!
January 27, 2017As you might have noticed there has been a lot of activity going on here in January! Page by page we have redesigned the website to reflect the aesthetics and ideals that influenced Dot Oddity in 2016 and will be more pronounced in 2017. It has been an intense process and planning period, but somehow… Read more
new year new beginnings…
January 14, 2017Half way into the first month of the year already!!! Time is flying and I really have to get serious about my resolutions… Still, January is a month when I try not to stress too much and enjoy the extended New Year period, tuning in with my inner voice to… Read more
beauty will save the world – ingela p arrhenius
November 4, 2016INGELA P ARRHENIUS The amazing artist of this month, is deeply connected with some of my favourites covered earlier on this blog, and I find it so cool to put her work forward as a brilliant example of the perfect, I mean PERFECT, blend of everything I love: 50’s design,… Read more
mon amie – the iconic flower of marianne westman
October 23, 2016This is a pattern loved by generations of Swedes since it was released by Rörstrand in the 50’s! I have so many memories seeing Mon Amie (My Friend) on countless tables of family and friends from my childhood until this day. It’s a reference for everything related to outstanding pattern… Read more
dot oddity 1 year!
September 27, 2016Dot Oddity 1 year today! To be very precise, this is the day where Dot Oddity’s domain name was registered, one year ago. That was such a special day for me. I had been searching names for my dream project for about ten months (at least!), knowing that it had to be a… Read more
beauty will save the world – coralie bickford-smith
September 4, 2016CORALIE BICKFORD-SMITH The other day, this gem landed in my mailbox! It’s just one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever seen since Tove Jansson’s “Who will comfort Toffle” from 1960. From the textile cover to the end paper, the design is thoughtful and well crafted – each spread… Read more
beauty will save the world – melissa castrillón
August 5, 2016MELISSA CASTRILLÓN First Friday of the month and time for a new favourite artist in my series “Beauty will save the world”! Meet Melissa Castrillón! Encountering her work first time was a serious WOW! experience… I was completely speechless and amazed by the exquisite skills and the imagination of… Read more
the art of being yourself
June 11, 2016the idea of fame… The perception of what makes a person a “real” artist is connected with the myth of the “lonely genius”, which emerged when craftsmen first strove to become respected members of an elite. At the dawn of renaissance the concept of the individual began to emerge in Western Europe… Read more
beauty will save the world – clare caulfield
June 4, 2016CLARE CAULFIELD Could it have been this one… or one of Paris… or was it that one of a busy street corner in New York?… I don’t know which one first caught my eye from this fantastic artist, but since then I’m in love with everything Clare Caulfield does! It’s… Read more
four female forerunners of swedish pattern design
May 21, 2016Luckily, there are many strong role models for Swedish female designers and artists. Here are four women that completely changed the road map of Swedish textile design! I encountered their names early on in my art education as their influence on what we consider typically “Swedish” is groundbreaking. Back then,… Read more
beauty will save the world – lotta kühlhorn
May 14, 2016LOTTA KÜHLHORN The artist Lotta Kühlhorn could almost be featured under next week’s subject, pattern pioneers, as well… Since her début in the ’80s, she has worked her consistent colourful retro style into the very hearts of the Swedish people and now holds the place as the Queen of graphic… Read more
to sew or not to sew…
April 23, 2016happy sewing… I will admit one of my greatest defeats up to this day… I’m fairly stubborn when I set my mind on something but there is one area where I feel utterly hopeless. The other week I got a very nice message from another textile designer ending “…Happy sewing!”. I’ve always had… Read more
mah-jong : fashion for rebellion
April 16, 2016rebellious design for an equal world Talking about pattern pioneers this post just had to be written! I couldn’t possibly miss introducing one of the most iconic brands of the Swedish ’70s – MAH-JONG! I love to share this because Mah-jong is not well known abroad although it belongs to the classics of Swedish fashion and… Read more
to make things happen you have to make things
April 8, 2016don’t let your ideas get confiscated One of the greatest obstacles when we want to create something is the transition from the idea we have in our mind into a visible and tangible object outside our head… Somewhere in between, most thoughts get caught in the customs asked if they have anything… Read more
beauty will save the world – golly bard
April 1, 2016HOLLY WARD BIMBA aka GOLLY BARD It’s time for another part in the series “Beauty will save the world” (read about this quote and the man behind it HERE). In these posts I want to share the artwork of some artists that have had a big influence on my desire to reconnect with… Read more
the austrian designer who became the synonym of swedish modern – Josef Frank
March 18, 2016In 1933 the 48 year old architect and designer Josef Frank (1885-1967) fled to Stockholm from Vienna in the dawn of the growing National Socialism. He was of Jewish ancestry and as so many others feared to remain in his native country. Given his wife was born in Finland but raised in Stockholm,… Read more
my creative journey
March 12, 2016Two things were rather obvious when I was a child – my passions for drawing and for writing. Looking back one could have thought that this kid would become an illustrator or a writer – in both cases you didn’t have to move too much (I was not the sporty… Read more
beauty will save the world – manon gauthier
March 4, 2016MANON GAUTHIER Browsing children’s illustration online, I stumbled over the work of Manon Gauthier time and time again. She instantly caught my attention with her compelling and childlike collage style. Yet her subjects are anything but childlike. In her images she captures the important matters of childhood, addressing love, belonging, loneliness, loss, happiness,… Read more
every end is a new beginning
February 26, 2016To create – a painting, a piece of music, a novel; to make art in short – is often more about overcoming obstacles than anything else. From the moment your idea is born you are the guardian sweeping the way for this idea to make its way into the world.… Read more
the man behind the green leaf – Stig Lindberg
February 19, 2016There are few patterns in Scandinavian design history as iconic as the famous stem of green leaves by the Swedish designer Stig Lindberg (1916-1982). As one of the most influential post-war designers in Sweden he worked with ceramic, glass, tableware, textile prints and more during his long and successful career with… Read more
it’s never too late to begin again
February 12, 2016Finding the right road Only a few of us have the road mapped out from early years, and even if we have, not many stick to it through life. A lot of people put their dreams on a back burner for decades when life demands something different from them, before getting the… Read more
beauty will save the world – lucile prache
February 5, 2016LUCILE PRACHE Valentine’s Day is getting close so I thought this image would suit this Friday post! This illustrated recipe showed up by chance on a Google search when browsing pictures of delicious cakes a couple of years ago (I was translating food recipes for a food database at the time and needed to compare… Read more
creativity takes courage
January 29, 2016Since I’ve started this blog and tried to be more present with my work in the online community, using social media and connecting with others, I’m kind of swept of my feet by all the gorgeousness I see every day, the beautiful things people post and share, the creativity that is… Read more
this will make your dots stand out in the crowd
January 22, 2016Finding your own style as an artist is as important as finding your voice being an author. Actually I don’t like the word “style”. Style describes the surface of things, unlike the “voice” that originate from within. You can’t have a deep, inner “style”… What you do want to find is your… Read more
swedish design: 10-gruppen
January 16, 2016When our neighbours in Finland take pride in one of the most famous design houses of the world – Marimekko (previous post HERE) – we love our own take on this type of bold, colourful, graphic textile design in Sweden: 10-gruppen, known as Ten Swedish Designers abroad. They were founded in 1970 by… Read more
pull your brain out before painting roses
January 8, 2016In high school I had an exceptional teacher in art class. She was an eccentric woman in her late middle age with her long hair tied in a bun and floating wide dresses, always black in my recollection. The odd thing is that I remember the name of my professors in… Read more
beauty will save the world – jessica swift
January 1, 2016JESSICA SWIFT Some years ago I started dreaming of creating art and crafts again, but not the way I used to, which was mostly painting and pottery. No, I had discovered a new field – surface pattern design! Actually this was something I also did a lot as a potter, but now I really… Read more
how Rita’s CoffeeShop blog turns your pictures into poems
December 18, 2015Many artists settle down in Berlin because life is quite affordable here compared to many other capitals of Europe. Leaving my full time work in Stockholm to pursue my dream of a creative life, where I could develop my ideas of design and illustration, I found myself in this amazing city with its… Read more
why you shouldn’t like pretty things – and why we do
December 11, 2015Art? Craft? What’s the difference? My professor of design in art school used to say, somewhat jokingly, that a teapot is a craft object until you put a cork in the spout – then it suddenly becomes a piece of art… I always found that very interesting. There are so… Read more
swedish lucia saffron bread
December 9, 2015In medieval times when the Julian calendar was still used in Sweden and Finland, the night of the 13 December was the longest of the year, the winter solstice. This is when the pagan Scandinavian and Germanic peoples celebrated a midwinter holiday called Yule, which is the word we even now use… Read more
beauty will save the world – larissa bertonasco
December 4, 2015LARISSA BERTONASCO A couple of years ago, I happened to see an illustrated cook book, on the shelf of a close friend in Berlin, that immediately blew my mind! I love cook books, that’s a fact. But this encounter gave me a whole new perspective on illustration and the fantastic opportunity the… Read more
get off the beaten track
November 27, 2015The path of the artist is always a path of uncertainty and doubt. It is never clearly visible in front of you, you always have to guess a little and trust that the next step will bring you closer to your goal. You can’t follow the footsteps of somebody else, because… Read more
marimekko – a love story
November 20, 2015I got a lovely little parcel on my birthday earlier this week. The dots is of course a MOST suitable pattern for the founder of this blog, but the flower also reveals a sweet spot of mine called – Marimekko. Marimekko is the synonym of nordic, contemporary design at its best. Founded… Read more
beauty will save the world
November 5, 2015Beauty will save the world. Those are the words of Fyodor Dostoyevsky from one of my favourite novels of all times, “The Idiot” from 1869. The protagonist, Prince Myshkin, who makes this claim in the novel, is a portrait of a “completely beautiful human being” as the author himself… Read more
why a pyjamas makes miracles for your creative flow
November 2, 2015This will totally go against the ruling opinion, but something urges me to voice myself for those of us who do our most creative work in the pyjamas! And I mean literally in the pyjamas, or any other outfit you feel most comfy in, as opposed to dressing up to meet the… Read more
how to cherish your limitations and start a creative blog
October 29, 2015I started to build my blog and portfolio about one month ago. So, as you can tell, I’m as much of a beginner as you can POSSIBLY be! Before I bought my domain name and signed up for a webhotel service I had spent at least a couple of months… Read more
why we love getting behind the scenes
October 23, 2015I love behind-the-scenes, be it the extraordinary writing habits of my favourite author, which brand of ink my favourite illustrator uses or, of course, the making-of my favourite movies. We are all fascinated by the process that leads up to the finished result. And why is that? I think there are… Read more
two questions you should ask yourself as an artist
October 19, 2015What do you love? What makes you want to play? Take a minute to think about that. Maybe ask yourself what makes you stop and watch something as for the very first time? When do you see the colours more vivid, notice the details crisper, and being more mindful about the… Read more
how to start rowing a boat before finding a pair of oars
October 9, 2015There’s a famous traditional song that everyone learn already as a child in Sweden. The lyrics go like this: “Who can sail without the wind? Who can row without oars? Who can leave behind a friend, without just one tear to pour? I can sail without the wind, I can… Read more
dot oddity is here!
September 29, 2015I am happy and thrilled beyond everything I expected to announce the opening of this website and to write this very first blogpost! You, yes, YOU! are an important part of this creative adventure, because as much as I do this due to my love for drawing, making patterns, photographing, handlettering and writing,… Read more