New Designers – One Year On Highlights

At New Designers 2017 we escaped the heat in the wonderfully air conditioned One Year On.  One Year On preview the newest design businesses and here we selected our highlights.

Carman Machado, Carman Machado Textiles.

After completing her MA in Textile Design at Chelsea College of Art & Design Carman applied for a studio at Cockpit Arts, this enabled her to continue weaving on the looms at Cockpit Arts as well as to access their excellent business support.  From this point on Carman refined her collection and exhibited at the London Design Festival where she met Rupert Lees, the pair collaborated on a beautiful chair designed specifically to showcase Carman’s textiles.

Carman’s textiles are created using coast netting which she finds in the UK and in Puerto rico, Carmen wanted to create a textile which was delicate and beautiful but also robust and weather proof.

Contact Carmen Machado Textiles.

 Tim Evershed, Brooke Studio

After profiling Tim’s work last month we were pleased to be able to speak with him in person at One Year On.  Tim graduated and immediately found work at a boat builder near his home in West Sussex.  Realising that this was not the direction he wished his career to take he decided to retrain at Robertson House Studio for three months, followed by 2 years part time at Chichester College, this allowed time to build his business, Brooke Studio, and use the college course as a springboard to launching his products and brand.

Brooke Studio’s contemporary writing desk re-imagines a traditional desk, re-positioning the leather writing surface to be suitable for use as a mouse mat or note taking surface for use alongside a laptop.  Tim is also exhibiting his beautiful leather shaker boxes which are very tactile, made using leather and cedar which gives a floral scent rather than the traditional steam bent ash.  Tim’s furniture collection is also shaker inspired with elegant simplicity, with an emphasis on natural materials including River Rush and wood, as well as natural finishing such as ebonising.

Contact Brooke Studio.

David Winter & Natasha Kurth, Winter & Kurth.

David and Natasha’s collaborated on their final MA work at Manchester School of Art which was a graphite drawing, large marquetry disk and their marquetry graphite side table. The side table combined the original graphite drawing and the disk into a single object, with the beautiful top in tonal black marquerty and precision tuned graphite legs which draw their life path (inspired by Japanese Wabi Sabi and a publication titled In Praise of Shadows which discusses the concept of light and shadow in Western & Eastern cultures).

After graduation Manchester Art Gallery purchased  the table for their permanent collection and exhibited it in their Modern Japanese Design exhibition, the example exhibited at One Year One is a replica which is joined by two colourful friends.  Natasha and David wanted to expand the colours available and have added Cherry, Ruby and Orange which also have a larger scaled pattern.  The duo worked with a local crayon manufacturer to cast solid crayon legs which draw onto the surface they stand on in the same way as the original graphite design.  This was inspired by the quote:

‘The box of twelve crayons we are given to draw with when we are small children shapes our perception of for better or for worse.’  Kenya Hara

This is a key concept for Natasha and David, looking at our perception of colour from childhood to adulthood, the table tops are very sophisticated and the way the tones are randomised creates multiple tones in one piece through the use one single vaneer.  The crayon legs show the naivety and vulnerability of our interaction with colour from a very early age.  The two aspect of the piece come together to complete the concept, high end craft in collaboration with manufacturing.

Through exhibiting including the Ruthin Craft Centre in Wales and Craft Central Talent the pair had an opportunity to observe how the viewer interacted with their pieces, this informed the installation Marquetry in Motion disk which has a concave surface to beautifully reflect the light, the increased scale of the pattern aides the impact of the piece.  Installations are a direction that Natasha and David would like to explore further. In collaboration with interior designers.

As well as these pieces Winter & Kurth also exhibited their stunning interactive Drop Collective, a series of mirrors which reference traditional Japanese polished bronze mirrors.  This brand new collection will be formally launched at Design Junction as part of the London Design Festival between September 21^st-24^th 2017.  Read more about this collection on Winter & Kurth’s website here.

What were your New Designers and One Year On highlights?  Please let us know on Twitter @DesignInsider1 or leave a comment below.