Lana Hughes is a Graphic designer turned Textile Artist based in London. She started out working as a Graphic Designer, and although she has always been one, during the lockdown of 2020 she started working with textiles too. Lana designs and creates lettering, and works on all kinds of projects ranging from branding design, to large scale typographic rugs and embroidered artworks.
She studied a BA in Graphic Design at the University for the Creative Arts in Surrey, graduating in 2010. Upon graduating, Lana moved to London and started self employed life right away; “It was a bit of a terrifying time, being a broke graduate in London by myself. But, I made it work by working lots of jobs I didn’t particularly enjoy, ranging from waitressing at a Nando’s, then in a fancy oyster bar… and a short time working at an agency editing the Tesco’s website. I didn’t really need the motivation to get away from these jobs, but it definitely confirmed for me I wanted to be self employed.” Lana worked hard, painted murals in the streets, and made sure she was getting involved in projects as much as she could. Fast forward 11 years, she now works full time in her studio in North London with her dog Sumo.
Currently, Lana is exploring creating works using textiles, with a focus on rug tufting lettering, operating under a side brand name of Moonlight Motel. She describes; “I’ve always been drawn to (obsessed with) typography and signage, so pretty much everything I do revolves around that, and finding new ways to create letter based artworks”. She begins each piece by either hand drawing and designing her own lettering, or finding typefaces she loves, which can either become a printed artwork or a textile based piece. Either way, they all start out digitally, and she then uses a template to produce at a large scale, or obsessively sits and edits digitally using Procreate for iPad, or Adobe Illustrator. “It’s quite varied which I really love, as I can become itchy to change things up a bit in my practice, so this kind of variation keeps me happy,” says the designer.
Her studio is home to a Chainstitch Embroidery Machine for embroidering her jackets and garments, a projector and a Tufting Gun for all of her rugs, and a whole bunch of shelves full of embroidery threads, tufting yarns, and all the tools you can imagine to keep the show on the road. Lana comments; “My embroidery machine takes a fair bit of maintenance, which I had to learn how to do, it was like learning to be a mechanic on top of everything I’ve given myself to do!”
The inspiration for her works comes from a wide range of sources, including vintage signage in places like Palm Springs, Vegas, and Tokyo, badly made signs people paint themselves on gates and shops, and even the pretty mundane stuff like drain covers. Lana states; “I enjoy walking around checking out patterns and shadows in architecture, which I find helpful when it comes to drawing type. At the moment I’ve become really into looking at vintage clothing labels and tags, they’re designed so beautifully!”
She concludes; “I hope to continue to develop upon what I’ve been teaching myself this past year, and work on some really detailed rug tufted typographic pieces. I’ve been thinking a lot about making some footstools, which I hope to rug tuft and upholster. All lettering based of course…”
www.thisislana.com
@thisislana_
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