'Bright Sparks'

Bright Sparks

As part of my assignment I have to research other PD opportunities available in my area. I recently found out about 'Bright Sparks', and have registered for the event.
Bright Sparks is a creative event presented by Murray Arts and is held on Monday 20th of August at various venues around Gateway Village, Gateway Island, Wodonga. It is a day of inspiration, education and skills development for people who work, or aspire to work in the creative industries.

There will be a range of people who are making their living in the creative industries, who will share their stories on how they've done it, and give advice to anyone that needs it.
You can find out about great creative projects happening all over the country, and learn about how other creative people manage their businesses.

If you are in the area, and interested in talking to graphic designers, publishers, writers, photographers, film makers, fashion designers, visual or performing artists, musicians, jewellery, furniture, industrial and textile designers then come along for the day.

There will also be a number of workshops to attend:

*The Art of Visual Merchandising
*'The Pitch' - Developing
*Building your Creative Business Value Proposition
*Product Pitch: creative ideas for enterprise
*What’s App with that? Apps workshop
*Brand Me: Branding Workshop

'Ink & Spindles' Philosophy

'Ink & Spindle's designs are largely inspired by their hometown Melbourne and Australia’s native flora and fauna. Instead of following current design, or fashion trends, they try to develop textiles that will fit in your life for many years to come.

Locally made table lamps

 When it comes to finished product they prefer to collaborate with fellow local creatives. 'Ink & Spindle's textiles can be found around Melbourne & Australia made in to bags, lampshades, homewares and more due to the skills of a range of talented people.


Tegan and Lara feel it is very important to raise awareness and provide a sustainable alternative to the mass produced textiles that dominate the marketplace. Their ethical and environmental concerns effect all of their decision making and also how the studio functions. The studio is a bright, friendly and welcoming creative environment. Many friends and neighbours come through the doors to discuss collaborations, creativity, business ups and downs and life in general.

Pendant light

Prior to 'Ink & Spindle', Lara had worked for many years as a web and graphic designer. Feeling somewhat frustrated and limited by the digital medium, she began to experiment with surface design and textiles, receiving a lot of feedback and support via her blog Kirin Notebook. From there, the progression to starting 'Ink & Spindle' was a natural one, and so much more fulfilling.

Lara Cameron & Tegan Rose

Tegan studied Fine Arts for 5 years before completing a postgrad in Education and becoming a secondary school teacher. During her second year teaching, Ink & Spindle came to life, and although she felt teaching was the best job in the world, it was emotionally and creatively exhausting. Tegan found leaving teaching (or more specifically, her students) really difficult, but has found running 'Ink & Spindle' to be rewarding on so many levels.

Fabric Range

While 'Ink & Spindle' mostly use Australian floral designs, they have several different designs available.
Their most popular designs are

Grevillea                                                                                              Ginkgo

Mustard & Greylead on Unbleached

Black & Greylead on Hemp/Yak

  

                                                                                                                    

  Watercolour Stripe                                                            Kangaroo Paw

Red Orange and Snow on Unbleached

Toffee & Almond on Cream

                                                            

                                                    

The Flowering Gum                                                                                   Trams & Bicycles

Black & Greylead on Hemp/Yak

Black on Charcoal

Blockprint                                                                                       Rooftops

Persimmon on Cream

Deep Red on Cream

Wrens                                                                                                    Birch                           

Inky Blue on Unbleached

Robins Egg on Cream

Each design has at least two colourways. Each unit purchased is equal to 25cm in length. However if you purchase a single quantity it will be cut to the more practical size of 50cm x 70cm (unless otherwise specified).

All About Grevillea

'Ink & Spindles' booth at Design, Made, Trade

The Grevillea design was created by Tegan when she picked the stems of the flower from her front garden, on the way to work one morning. Both of the colours in this design are printed from a single screen; the second colour is printed with the screen rotated 180 degrees and offset by half a repeat.

Greylead & Mustard

Greylead & Mustard

Basecloth: 250gsm unbleached organic cotton/hemp

Useage: Soft furnishings, curtains/blinds, lighting, craft, medium/lightweight upholstery

Dimensions: The fabric is available as meterage at approx 150cm wide.(Horizontal repeat- 1325mm
Vertical repeat- 700mm)

                                                                            


                                                                                  Portello & Mist

Portello & Mist

Basecloth: 250gsm Linen in Oatmeal 

Useage: Soft furnishings, curtains/blinds, lighting, craft, medium/lightweight upholstery

Dimensions: The fabric is available as meterage at approx 150cm wide.(Horizontal repeat- 1325mm
Vertical repeat- 700mm)





Most of 'Ink & Spindle' marketing is done on their website, they also have a blog and a facebook page, where they let their fans and the general public know about the latest designs or what is happening at the studio. Tegan and Lara also exhibit at trade shows such as Design Made Trade.

Sustainabilty

“Sustainability is at the heart of what we do, in every sense of the word”

 ‘Ink & Spindle’ have always known they did not want to follow the ‘cheap and easy’ route. Instead, they have chosen to forge a more ethical path within the usually toxic, textile industry. Below is a list of the practises they currently employ to minimise their impact on the Earth:

*Promote and use organic, sustainable and fair trade base cloths
*design for longevity, not conforming to short term trends
*use water based, solvent free inks
*minimise water wastage by using high pressure to clean screens
*have a water-board certified separation system to prevent foreign particles from entering waterways
*use recycled paper, card and envelopes, and reuse boxes and packaging materials where possible
*use biodegradable cello for packaging, as opposed to plastic
*offset their carbon emissions through support of Carbon Neutral

Carbon Neutral

Design Process

In today’s class we discussed how companies have a design process.  These are generally different from company to company, depending on their style, ethos and area of design.  By going through my notes, from talking to Tegan Rose, and visiting the website, I have learnt ‘Ink & Spindle’s design process.





Hand printing the fabric

*Discuss possible designs over the print table
*Sketch designs
*Refine and finalise the designs
*Scan onto computer and make repeats
*Print colour sample onto fabric

(While the designs are all hand drawn they also use computer programs such as Photoshop and Illustrator to create their pattern repeats, which are 50cm to 70cm squares)

To create the final products the screens are exposed and the designs are hand printed by Lara and Tegan. Their designs are simple and only require two colour separations. They use overprinting, screen flips and displacement to create beautiful results from only a single screen. The fabric is then heat set to seal in the ink, packaged and sold. The fabrics are made into unique pieces by local furniture manufactures.

Locally manufactured lampshades

Experiencing the Trade Fair

Last Saturday, the 21^st of July, I went to the Furnitex and DECORATION + DESIGN Trade Fair at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre. Being a student, it was a great experience to be able to walk around the different booths and see the upcoming products. There was a noticeable difference between the three areas. Furnitex was mostly for established businesses and Design Made Trade was more of a boutique event for upcoming Australian designers. DECORATION + DESIGN showed the latest decoration trends.

There were some amazing booths

Ink & Spindle

'Ink & Spindle' is a boutique textile studio located in Kensington, Melbourne. Lara Cameron & Tegan Rose design and screen print all their textiles by hand in an ethical and sustainable manner. Their designs are largely inspired by nature, particularly Australia’s native flora and fauna. These products are made using water based, solvent free inks, and are printed onto lovely organic cotton and hemp blend fabrics.

The Wall Sticker Company

The Wall Sticker Company design gorgeous wall stickers and are the best available on the market. These stickers won't damage your walls, peel up at the edges, fall off or fade. They'll go up, stay up and look amazing for years to come. They are also more wearable then other fabric wallpapers; when they get moved around a lot by little fingers, you are able to wash them down.

Print Paper Cloth

Print Paper Cloth create truly unique surface printed designs. Their designs range from abstract and organic, floral and geometric and illustrative and stylised. All images are hand drawn and are printed on either paper or fabric.

Silk Road Hand Made Rugs

Silk Road Hand Made Rugs is a family-owned company dedicated to decorating with Persian and Oriental handmade rugs. Situated in the heart of Melbourne’s interior design precinct, their Prahran retail and trade showroom features hundreds of highly individual rugs handcrafted in Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan, India and Nepal.

Tactile Textiles

Tactile Textiles use surface design, digital printing and heat setting to explore techniques in different mediums. They make various products, such as cushions, screens, lampshades and room dividers.

Vyntage Vogue

Vyntage Vogue is an Australian-based and a regionally-owned business committed to designing and manufacturing quality modern vintage furnishings . They have a fabulous range of mix and match chairs and ottomans, all with removable covers.

While it was very large and almost overwhelming, I would definitely recommend that design students attend next year.

Furnitex and Decoration + Design

As part of a TAFE assignment I am required to find a wallpaper or fabric that I am inspired by, and create my own version. To do this I went down to Melbourne for the Furnitex and DECORATION + DESIGN Trade Fair last Saturday. There were some fantastic pieces on display, as well as some very talented designers. At Design Made Trade I talked to Tegan Rose from 'Ink & Spindle' about some of their unique fabric prints.

Grevillea in greylead & mustard

'Ink & Spindle' is a boutique textile studio located in Kensington, Melbourne. Owned by designers Lara Cameron & Tegan Rose. They design and screen print all their textiles by hand in an ethical and sustainable manner. Their designs are largely inspired by nature, particularly Australia’s native flora and fauna. The products are made using water based, solvent free inks, and are printed onto lovely organic cotton and hemp blend fabrics. There was one design I was really inspired by, 'Grevillea'. I will be using this design as inspiration for my own fabric print collection.