Carole Coates’ book on Catalina Island Pottery & Tile features this great early 1930s advertising piece from the Catalina Island Pottery. The center page outlines a highly romanticized narrative around the origins of the clay on the island: “Little did the island Indians dream that close at hand on beautiful Catalina…were finer clays than those to which their brothers of the mainland had access…Just recently it was discovered that the island clay lends itself admirably to the production of a very high grade of pottery and tile and immediately when samples were made up, it was also discovered that the thousands of people who visited the Island each year welcomed the pottery and tile as affording an opportunity to take away a very attractive souvenir of the beautiful Magic Isle.”

When I first started working in vector design, I built skills by replicating existing designs. This was one of the first pieces that I started working with was this advertisement as it has some really nice stylized pottery and typographic elements. Using Adobe Illustrator, I drew out the various parts of the advertising piece and reworked them into a set of designs that can be printed on any number of items. This particular design is available in my Society6 shop. I also created a repeating pattern design that could be printed on fabric. I use Spoonflower for fabric printing and have created a few tablecloths for Catalina collector friends. I also created a set of print/poster versions of the design – I can print up to 12″ x 16″ at home, but it’s easier to send them out to print at Shutterfly or one of the other print services.