Designers

Designs and how they develop

Inspiration for our designs come from many different sources: traditional Italian ceramics, Florence and its incredible artistic history with all the beautiful patterns developed for the Medici family, Umbria, Deruta, Sicily with its moorish influences … the list is long!

Our chief designer here at Rampini Ceramics is Eve (Dolly) Hope. She is an enthusiastic walker and cyclist and part of the reason that she enjoys these pursuits is because through them she is in contact with nature. Just watching the roadsides and hedgerows as they change from winter to spring and follow through to summer and fall, is an inspiration in itself. There are so many flowers and plants growing here. In the spring in particular there are orchids, yellow and white daisies, thistles, linseed flowers, wild leeks and herbs like thyme and fennel. Getting off the road and tracks and immersing herself in the Chianti countryside enriches the experience even more, as there is an abundance of nature to be seen in vineyards, olive groves and fields full of Poppies (Papaveri) and Linseed Flowers (Fiori di lino), which, for example have inspired Eve's modern take on those flowers.

Dolly is also a keen vegetable grower and calling her garden a vegetable patch would be a vast underestimation of what is a wonderful, large array of zucchini, tomatoes, egg plants, peppers, garlic and many different herbs. Dolly is an observer, she watches things grow and follows them from flower to fruit.

A new series of designs she has been working on is in fact inspired by the wonderful vegetables abundantly available and highly esteemed by many Italians: Carciofi (Artichokes), Ortolana (Garden Vegetables), Peperoncini con aglio (Chilli Peppers with Garlic) and Carciofi, peperoncini e melograni (Artichokes, Chilli Peppers and Pomegrenates). Strangely this is a novum in Italian ceramics design - flowers, fruit, olives, grapes, lemons all figure very prominently, but vegetables are unheard of!

Sometimes our customers have inspired Dolly to create new patterns and colour combinations by requesting a piece or a dinner service to be made to their personal specifications. Customers ask us to create new things, Dolly studies the possibilities, tries them out and sometimes this has resulted in brand new designs being born. That is why some of our patterns are named after customers, for example Uva Monique and Becky. The collaboration and discovery of designing in this way is a great stimulus for all of us at Rampini Ceramics.

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The factors that inspire her are many and it is her fine tuned artistic sense of what is beautiful and what will ultimately look good on a piece of ceramic ware that make Dolly an absolute treasure when it comes to designing Rampinis patterns.

For further information and to order contact@rampiniceramics.com.
Due to the characteristics of monitors the colours in images may vary from the original ceramics pieces.
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