Playford Studio
Member | JENNIFER PLAYFORD
Victoria, BC
Playford Studio is the creative and colourful expression of artist and designer Jennifer Playford. Jennifer’s mission is to create vibrant art and design that makes you feel good and reusable products that replace their disposable alternatives. She is passionate about small ways to enjoy art, by surrounding yourself with objects of beauty and pops of colour, while also making a contribution to sustainable lifestyle choices and repurposing. Jennifer’s bold and bright art is printed on her line of reusable fabric gift wrap and she is inspired by vintage, discarded ceramics, which she repurposes into her mosaic art.
bio
For the past 25 years Jennifer has had a rewarding career as an art director, designer and illustrator in the fields of editorial, publishing, advertising and product design, working with some great clients including LA Times, Delta Airlines, The United Way, The Royal Bank of Canada, Zoomer Magazine, Orca Book Publishers, Food Illustrated UK, Façon Magazine Australia, Mudpuppy/Galison, Klutz Publishing and Running Press.
Having mostly created digitally for years, Jennifer craved working with her hands and has since delved into handcrafted mosaic art. The one-of-a kind nature to this art really appeals to her, as does mixing a traditional art form with a pop art and vintage sensibility. She creates spontaneously, using end of the line Italian glass that changes colour depending on the light and angle in which you view the art, and repurposing vintage ceramics.
In 2007, Jennifer launched a line of fabric wraps called Furochic, inspired by the Japanese furoshiki cloth and wrote a book called Wrapagami, the Art of Fabric Gift Wrap, published by St. Martin’s Griffin/Macmillan, NYC. She is relaunching these zero waste wraps, printed with her original illustrations. Not only are the wraps an easy, quick and unique way to wrap gifts but they can be reused in countless ways including as scarves, fashion accessories, tablecloths, in sewing projects, carry bags, and travel wraps.
Jennifer was born in Toronto and grew up in Europe which has greatly influenced her art and design, as has her family. She attributes her love of colour to her mother, who taught her how to be brave with colour and that any combination can work when you go by your intuition. Her father's sense of adventure and love of travel has provided her with the opportunity to discover and appreciate art and culture from a global perspective. She soaked up fashion, design and hand crafted art forms from her grandmother who made her own knitwear, using fine dress yarns, always wore bold statement pieces of fine jewellery and perfected needlepoint.
She currently creates in her sunroom studio in Victoria, on Vancouver Island and is inspired by her teen children, Ava and Oliver, who are on their own artistic and musical journeys.
