Special meterial in London design festival

During the London design festival, I am very appreciated one design was called: MIND THE CORK. It was founded in 2013 by designer Jenny Espirito Santo. This brand design materials all comes from the cork. Her inspiration came from the natural value of materials and the sense of history and heritage they embody.

During the London design festival, I am very appreciated one design was called: MIND THE CORK. It was founded in 2013 by designer Jenny Espirito Santo. This brand design materials all comes from the cork. Her inspiration came from the natural value of materials and the sense of history and heritage they embody. Thus, designer selects to use cork to be main material.

The cork fabric attracted me. Lots of people were unfamiliar with cork fabric, the same as me. At the beginning when I walked past and thought it was a cork bark print on fabric, because many artists use this way to express the illusion. For example, during London design festival, in Tent London, there was an artist HAYKA use printed technology haystack bed linen. It seems to let people feeling of sleeping in straw. But the different with MIND THE COCK, it quite shocked me when I touched the materials, because they feel like somewhere in between leather and suede. It is not like the usual cock fabric.

The tactility were so soft, I cannot image it is the cork. In our imagination and common sense, the surface of cock was not smoothly, even sometimes feel a little rough. This contrast is very attracted me, because it subverts the traditional concepts.

In addition to being natural, lightweight and impermeable, it is also biodegradable, renewable and recyclable. This material inspired me and provides a reference to me. I think choose natural material in my MA project is not only reflected humanistic concern in my work, but also reflected the natural care.

For me, my MA study project was researched the Tactility, so I very interested in the materials about different tactility. My younger sister is a visually impaired person. I wanted to design a product for this kind people. My research is about how to apply the hybrid materials to the design of household containers to create an innovative product, with wood, bamboo, ceramic as the main materials and supplemented by embroidery craft.

My inspiration comes from a Lithuanian textile artist was called Severija Incirauskaite- Kriauneviciene, She embroiders with cross-stitch on metal surfaces. In general, the embroidery pattern is seen in the fabric. But Severija Incirauskaite- Kriauneviciene use metal instead of fabric. Different textures of materials combined with each other. It creates a new tactile experience when we touch it. The same as MIND THE CORK.

During my BA period, I am very interested in touching convex and concave. I want to have a deeper study in touching felling and combine different materials and supplemented by embroidery technology in my MA project. These examples are use embroidery into different materials at the meantime show us different touching felling

In my view, different meterials can cause different feeling during touching when we doing practices. Thus, in my MA project, I want to use wood/bamboo/metal instead of traditional texile and use other material replace of needlework. The final pieces will be series containers. One part of my study is to indicate the embroidery craft is not only showed by textile and needlework, it could be much possible. The other part is to combine different materials advantages together to produce a unique creative product.

Finally, I research more about MIND THE CORK information and go through to continue understand this designer, I found that her original works were not so perfect like nowly , her work started from the most primitive cork production. But she insist on developing and studying , and finally create this fabric, I deeply appreciate the importance of perseverance .

#Londondesignfestival