About Frithaland
Frithaland is the brainchild of artist and illustrator, Fritha Lewin. Having studied for her MA in Illustration at London's Central St Martins, Fritha wanted to create her own fashion and interiors brand using the illustration and designs she created during her MA.
Fritha's work is heavily influenced by British gardens, antique shops, old toy museums, video games and Disney. Although Fritha is Scottish born and bred, Fritha has traveled and worked in many countries including Japan, Germany, Georgia in the USA, Morocco and Palestine/Israel. Her grandmother was born in China to the Chief Commissioner of Customs in Hong Kong and her mother was born in North Africa. Her aunt and cousins live near near San Francisco. Travel is in the family's blood and this is evident in Fritha's work.
The name Frithaland came about as a bit of a joke. While she was studying for her MA, Fritha lived in a big colourful community of artists near Highgate. An old housemate, Anita, who was from Ibiza, came into her studio one day and saw all the models and little sets she was building and said, "it looks like Frithaland in here!" and the name stuck.
Fritha is influenced by by various events in her childhood and youth. She lived in a hippy commune as a toddler and her mother made patchwork, she lived in Leith later as a young child and was influenced by the Sari shops run by the local Sikh community. Fritha played a lot of music especially jazz in the Edinburgh Festival and in various bands and orchestras as a teenager. She went to study 3D digital animation for a time in Glasgow and lived with some PlayStation game designers. In Hoxton, Fritha was influenced by the Dutch Wax prints and the Bangladeshi fabrics around Brick Lane and East London.
Fritha's biggest influence was her grandmother's large house and vast wild garden in the Scottish Borders and her collection of antiques from her travels. "I spent countless afternoons creating little worlds in my Grandmother's living room from my toys and the strange wonderful ornaments of my Grandmother's."
We hope you like the colourful, luxurious, kaleidoscopic world of Frithaland!
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Fritha has worked with brands such as Charlotte Tillbury, Jo Malone, Burberry, Lacoste, Google and many others as a graphic designer since 2007. Notably she has created large scale graphics for Google's DeepMind Christmas party whose theme was the Cosmic Circus. Her graphics were a mix of dreamy, Liberty London-style, intricate kaleidoscopic textile designs mixed with 3D polygon spaceships. A live circus performed at the event along with Hot Chip. She is currently working with Domestika on a course to teach her graphic design style which uses the ubiquitous office software, PowerPoint in a whole new way.