People of Design: Karina Gill

As part of the first project of the second year we had to do a talk on a designer that had done work in the last five years. The person I picked was Karina Gill as she uses acid etching to make the patterns on her bowls and so wanted to know more about the process. Below is a little info on her.

Karina Gill studied at the Surrey Institute of Art and Design in Farnham where she gained her BA (Hons) in 3 Dimensional Design in metal work. Since completing her degree she has built up her business from her workshop in Dorset where she designs and makes her etched metal bowls and jewellery.

Karina's work has been influenced by colour, texture and repetition. Her organic and geometric forms are hammered and manipulated by hand in silver, steel, copper and brass. The rich colours and textures are created by etching with acid and surface pagination.

She enjoys creating warm decorative items from cold, hard sheet metal and is currently working on a much larger scale, experimenting with sculptural bowls for the garden.

Acid etching is a process that uses a strong acid to cut into another substance. It is used for both industrial and artistic purposes. To etch sheet metal requires the use of some rather strong acids. The best acid to use in sheet metal etching is muriatic acid, also known as hydrochloric acid.

A Flower for your Button Hole

This is one of my last first year projects where the brief was very open. We had to design something that could hold flowers.


Key words that were used to help with the thinking process were: characteristics, situation, location, and orientation. This led me to thinking of having something that was hanging as most things to do with flower pots are on the ground. However it wouldn’t be until the 2/3 week of the sixth week project that I would think about weddings and making something for the situation. So I started designing a small vase that could be worn like a broach but instead of having dry/fake flowers you had real ones that could last a few days after the wedding.


I came up with the shape from twisting paper into a cone and then did the same thing to some thin plastics to which I could get a plaster mould from. I then made them out of slip in ceramics and played around with different patterns.


Now that I look back to the project I see now that I could have done so much more with it. However it is all part of the learning in the end.



How it all looked on the day

Below are some of what other people did for the project that I really liked.

Above: Sue Newell

Above: Matt Lodge

Above: Sarah Arrowsmith

Above: Vicky Richardson

Above: Rebecca Thomas

Above: Tom Tregaskes

Above: Sara Churchill