Essay

Dionne Wolff Digital Craft Essay 0854018

As a ‘Lifestyle Designer’ it is of interest to map individuals, cultures or sub-cultures in terms of style. The ‘daily life’ is an important factor that is constantly being questioned. Lifestyle is a term that defines, creates, communicates, influences and preserve identity. Within this I developed my craft in designing surfaces that elaborate on a certain experience that reconnect people. This is made with both digital and analog techniques, namely through textile materials. Surface design to me is an experience that change and enhance the ambience of an environment or object. An experience that evokes certain feelings and memories that give people a connection. I would like my work to evoke the feeling of ‘coming home’. That feeling can differ from person to person. I am half Dutch half Surinamese, but born and raised in the Netherlands. We moved quite a lot when I was younger and this made me realize certain objects in my surroundings would carry a value that made me feel at home. This would give me comfort and safety. Color, tactility, construction and pattern formation are important characteristics of a surface. Surface Design is present across a broad range of design-based subject areas like Fashion, Interior, Product Design and Architecture. My work cannot yet be placed in one of these areas. For the future I hope to design surfaces for all these different areas, because they are all connected with each other in some way. I get a lot of inspiration from architecture, nature, cultures/tribes and traditions. Through my Internship at Sparkel Creative Group, I learned packaging design and branding. I found out that I wanted something more than only flat surface designs, I missed the sensibility and tactility in my work. I have experiences with digital software like Illustrator, Indesign and Photoshop and using the laser cut machine. Also in making digital prints, printed on fabric or screen printing on fabrics. Now I want to explore weaving and knitting techniques to create a more three dimensional effect. During my exchange with Manchester School of Art I followed the course Textiles in Practice. In this course I discovered how to create textures with the embellish machine, to make my work more tangible. I am still developing and exploring my role as a lifestyle designer, and my contribution to the future, but what I do know is that tactility is a term I find very important, especially in the digital world we live in now.

I find it interesting that nowadays people are always ‘on the way’ always in a hurry. That’s why the feeling of ‘coming home’ is an important factor, otherwise people would get lost. People only have time for their cellphone and can’t live without it. They have a bigger connection with their mobile devices than with people in real life. I even catch myself looking at my phone after a few minutes without it, and it makes me wonder if this is effecting my humanity. The question ‘how can material experiences reconnect people with tactility in our digitized lives?’ was asked by Marie Rouillon for her project ‘Daily Haptics Cups’. Originally Marie is a textile designer, but developed in a material designer. She created new tactile experiences in order to reconnect us with everyday routines. This project makes you question sensory ability. The cups look the same but feel different and is responding to contemporary society’s digitization. It aims to re-engage people with tactile, material experiences. Which is something I would like to accomplish with my designs too. This collection encourages the idea that visual information alone is not enough, you have to touch the cups to get full information. This way the user is invited to rethink his tactile habits on a daily basis. The eye has become the number one sense to register. Our senses are being less stimulated over time. I think that it is important that we need to trigger our senses more. Because the interactions that we do have with our digital devices are lacking sensibility, tactility and sensory experiences. Interactivity and a more extended investigation of the senses include touch, sound and smell. Creating surfaces with textiles will evoke the sense not only to look but also to touch. A touch can evoke a certain memory and feeling that people can hold on too.

Daily Haptics Cups by Marie Rouillon

In 2013 at the TextielMuseum in Tilburg, Lidewij Edelkoort explains that Talking Textiles (exhibition) will expand our perception of where textiles can take us: "After a reaction to the increasingly digital landscape of our lives, a craving for tactility and dimension has led designers to reconsider the role of fabrics once more. The near future will see the overwhelming return of textiles in our interiors, covering floors, walls and furniture in an expansive and personal manner. These textiles will speak loud and clear to become the fabrics of life, narrating stories, designing pattern, promoting well-being and reviving the act of weaving.” I find this very interesting and I am curious how textile surfaces will shape our future in Fashion, Interior and Architectural contexts.

Talking Textiles exhibition in Textile Museum

Laduma Ngxokolo is a knitwear designer with his label MaXhosa, and is inspired by the Xhosa, one of the South African dominant ethnic group. His latest collections captures the beauty of being truly African and proud in a modern context that seeks an eternal way of communicating culture through fashion. What I like about his collection is that it has a story. It is dedicated to his mother, who taught him how to hand-machine knit and was a great patron of the Xhosa heritage. So this collection reminds him of home. The people who wear it can probably also relate to this feeling.

My Heritage, My Inheritance by MaXhosa

Another designer that is inspired by her own roots is Nipa Doshi, from the brand Doshi Levien. She created a series of rugs that evoke the sensual and shiny world of tribal folk embroidery of India. Hand crafted embroideries made by Nomadic community of the Rabaris. She had a memory of the embroidery workshop of her aunt. Women sat together on rugs surrounded by jewel like elements that scattered around them as they work. This memory was her biggest inspiration for this collection.

Rabari Collection by Nipa Doshi

Materials change design, you can find inspiration in materials that suggest new functions.  Their context is changed which means the outcome is an innovative reinvention. Textile surfaces encompasses the coloring, patterning, and structuring of fiber and fabric. This involves creative exploration of processes such as dyeing, painting, printing, stitching, embellishing, quilting, weaving, knitting, and felting. Or enhancing a surface’s structure by applying three-dimensional techniques, such as weaving, knitting, embroidery, lace, beading, and embossing. Borre Akkersdijk experiments with the function of materials and gives new meanings to them. For example, on a circular knitting machine he directly knits the fillings of the clothes instead of adding it afterwards. He calls this new technique 3D-knitting. He got this idea from the mattress industry, where this was done before, but never with clothes. He had to adjust the technique because otherwise the fillings would fall out after cutting the fabric, and therefore he had discovered a new technique. This is coherent to my goal for the future, creating new techniques and solutions with material combinations and innovative designs focussing on textile surfaces. Surfaces that invite the user not only to look but also to touch, which will give new meanings to the materials that are used.

First Cycle Collection by Borre Akkersdijk