A brief foray into digital

Digital textile design job for Kayell

It's the strangest experience, engaging in a design process that has barely any contraints. Especially after spending the last 4 years designing textiles for screen printing, which has limitations out the wazoo. Typically I enjoy those contraints; they provide a framework and a starting point for my creative thinking and a host of challenges to overcome.

But as I seem to be saying repeatedly on this blog of late, I've been looking for ways to push myself creatively and step out of the box that I've built for myself. Hence a little bit of lighting design, some digital art prints. Quite fortuitously however, another opportunity to do so recently fell in my lap. A couple of months ago the very lovely Jeremy from Imagescience called me into his office when I was there to collect some prints. A supplier of his was in need of some digital textile design services; would I be interested or did I know someone who would be?

The timing couldn't have been more perfect. I took the job, excited about the opportunity to push boundaries and experiment more with colour and texture.

Digitally printed 100% linen cushions

Amongst other things, Kayell sell large format fine art printers which are capable of printing directly onto fabric - silk, linen, cotton and a nifty repositional adhesive backed nylon-ish material. Kayell had a trade show to attend in a months time and wanted to showcase the capabilities of the printers in a real world setting. So I took to task designing cushions, lamps, wall hangings and wallpaper, which were all printed by Imagescience, of course. The results were pretty stunning. I was so impressed with the colour saturation and the level of detail.

Digitally printed 100% silk wallhanging, and repositionable wallpaper.

I also had a bit of fun sourcing mid-century furniture from Modern History, to complete the picture. Much nicer than your usual expo hire furniture options.

Silk hangings as a work in progress in the studio - love the translucency

So yeah. Big thanks again to Jeremy for sending this job my way. I learnt a lot from this job and I think it has provided a shift in thinking that has ultimately affected my design process for screen printing too.

xx Lara.