Breaking into china

The strong tradition of pottery in this country means shoppers have endless amounts of styles and shapes to choose from. But it is surprisingly difficult to find contemporary-looking, home-produced china. So the choice for anyone looking for interesting tableware has been either handmade pottery or mass produced, usually imported, china or porcelain.

Two years ago, designer Liz Byrne saw this gap in the market and set about figuring out how to fill it. Now her range of highly colourful and very contemporary china tableware is on sale in DesignYard in Temple Bar and since last month in all Aer Rianta duty-free shops.

"I don't even have a background in ceramics," says Byrne, who in fact trained in fabric design in Scotland. Strictly speaking, she hasn't needed any ceramic training because the outstanding feature of her product is the unusual patterns on her cups, saucers and plates. Byrne buys in plain, white ware and then decorates them with one of four patterns, which are hand-applied rather like elaborate transfers. The china is then fired so that the pattern stays on and is waterproof. "When you put it like that, you can see that it's not that different from being a fabric designer," says Byrne. "Only, in this case the china is the blank canvas."

It is a process widely used by design companies in the UK but Byrne knows of nobody else here doing it. The handmade element in the manufacturing process means her prices are similar to other designer china - a cup-and-saucer set retails for £16 while a teapot sells for £47.

Her patterns are inspired by South American motifs and are designed so that they work either as a set or mixed together - the cup and saucer from the Rio range, for example, work with the plates from the similarly cheerful Chico range.

She got the idea for decorating plain white ware while she was working for a charity in Belfast. As a fund-raiser they bought in plain plates, decorated them and then sold them on. "Looking back, they were fairly amateur looking," she says, "but it did make me think that it could be done if I could get the right training."

Her first step in setting up her business, which trades under the name L'Atelier, was to do what so many successful craftworkers have done - namely, get a place on the excellent business course for craftworkers run by the Crafts Council in Kilkenny. From there, she moved to the Crafts Council's new initiative, the Darcy McGee Craft Centre in Carlingord, Co Louth, where she now works.

That such a contemporary approach to design is being so supported by the Crafts Council gives an indication of the growing awareness of the necessity for craft workers to investigate the possibility of contemporary design and equally importantly its commercial appeal.

Now that her four ranges have been completed and are commercially available, the next step for Byrne is to try to find a manufacturer in Ireland to take over the manufacturing process. "Buying in plain white ware is fine for a while, but it is restrictive in that you can only have a certain shape cup or plate or whatever," she says. The idea is to work with a manufacturer who can mass-produce the range and also develop different shapes. Although L'Atelier ceramics have been available for less than a year, Byrne already has plans to diversify into complementary products such as tablecloths and napkins. "Once I find a company to work with on the manufacturing side, I can get away from the business end of things and get back to design," she says, "which is really where I started."

L'Atelier Ceramic Workshop is at 042-73015