We are living in a material world
“Living in a material world
And I am a material girl
You know that we are living in a material world
And I am a material girl” — Madonna
Materials are fascinating. Recently I have been studying advances in materials technology at university. There we have learnt about composites like kevlar and carbon-fibre, and new advances in metals. But many new materials are being developed from all sorts of unexpected sources.
As a designer materials are everything. Your products are what they’re made of. So it was really interesting to hear from Rachel Sleight recently, a designer who has worked with companies such as Conran and Habitat. Part of the reason she is fascinated by materials is from when her design work has taken her to factories and she has had to explore the options available. One of the things she does now is research into materials, and produces regular reports for Stylus.
An interesting material Rachel has worked with is paper. She designed a disposable paper wedding dress. It’s an interesting concept, after all you only wear a wedding dress once! I’m not sure I’d want a paper wedding dress at my wedding but I like the idea.
But over the last seven years Rachel has worked for Stylus. They look at trends in society Everything she sources as a case study can’t be older than 3 months. It’s a constantly evolving landscape, and she writes reports each month.
Being mindful about materials is so important. From materials you can get an insight into so much that will shape your products. There is so much that will guide you on where to go with your designs.
Ariane Prin is a product designer in London. All of her projects use materials chosen for being local to the use.
“I analyse the place or the area I am working in, the people that lives and works there, their culture, their needs, and I use their waste as raw materials for specific products production for this community”
She uses leftover materials and waste to create new products. Above are some really interesting homewares made from metal dust mixed with plaster. It was through experimenting that she discovered the potential. She took waste metal dust and put it with plaster to see what various colours and textures she could get. It was only after she came back a week later to find rust speckles she knew she was onto something.
Something of Prin’s I like as an art school student are these pencils she has made. They are from a project called ‘From Here For Here’, and use waste materials from studios and workshops at RCA where she studied:
I am really inspired by how much experimentation went into Prin’s work. When Rachel Sleight came to speak to us she encouraged us to be aware of new materials on the horizon. But Prin inspires us to go one step further. Make the new materials on the horizon! Be on the look out for opportunities and ideas. Be tinkering and experimenting.
Another really interesting new material Rachel pointed us towards is this ‘Remake paper’ by Favini. I did a project with James Cropper Plc. a few years ago (they’re a paper company in England), so this really interested me!
It uses leather residues to give it a really luxurious finish. It is 100% recyclable and compostable.
Precious Waste is a project that uses waste plastic bags and weaves them into longer lasting bags. One of my favourite things about the project is the name of its designer: Michelle Baggerman. Besides that it is again a wonderful example of a designer seeing an opportunity and creating a material themselves. Then simply using the original material to make an ordinary product like a bag is innovative.
Some other really intesting materials Rachel told us about are Piñatex – a new leather using pineapple husks, and Solidwool which uses a coarse wool carpets used to be made of. As carpets have moved to using synthetics the wool has been up for grabs and Solidwool have been revitalising that industry.
A final interesting example of using all materials available to us is The Complete Nose to Tail eating by Fergus Henderson, Justin Piers Gellatly. Besides having wonderful cover art (as seen below) it provides loads of recipies to use every bit of a pig. I also like the look of Hog, by Richard Turner from Pitt Cue. They’re great not only because they are encouraging use of otherwise wasted food, but they let you eat adventurously for cheap.
As Madonna says, we are living in a material world. There are many sources of untapped material potential around us. We just need to use it. Designers shouldn’t just sit back waiting for scientists* to come up with new materials. We can make some ourselves.
*Scientists are great too. And they make super great materials that offer lots more than just a novelty factor. Also I think materials in a science lab offer more hope for the environment than trendy sustainable materials made from leftovers of pies in the sky. Science often gets a bad press for this which is undeserved. We absolutely should still be keeping our ears pricked and using the latest scientific advances in technology.
