With changing
employment patterns and the continuing development of design, manufacture
and presentation technology there will be a future demand for designers
with flexibility and transferable skills across the main areas of
textile design - for range building, co-ordination and cost consistency.
Designers will not only need to be conversant with CAD/CAM but also
creatively aware ofits advantages and limitations.
In their multi-disciplinary
approach the team has pioneered this frontier. The distinct creative
flexibilities unique to both individual disciplines and computers
were merged, played out in layer after layer of digital experiments
and hand-made trial pieces. Their creators’ tactile and aesthetic
responses led them to see more possibilities, to build new links between
design processes, the efficiencies of computers and the freedoms and
rigours inherent in different forms of production.
A particularly
challenging aspect of this exploration of the boundaries between printing,
knitting and weaving has been the development of the translation of
ideas across the disciplines through the computer. The shared vision
was an acknowledgement of the importance of the tactile and surface
qualities of fabric and cloth structure rather than the typically
smooth rendition of computer graphics applied to a flat surface. Chosen
inspirational sources were appropriate for and about textiles rather
than digitised imagery. Whilst conventional techniques and materials
formed an essential part of the exploratory process the experimentation
took place in the lacuna between the traditional and the technological.
The results you
see are not always resolved or finished pieces nor allied to any particular
commercial or end use but an expression of that journey into the landscape
of light, shade, density, fluidity and texture - the pleasures of
fabric.
T3 Ph2
( Textiles Techniques and Technology - Phase Two )
As a result of
their enthusiasm for their discoveries during the T3 project the team
proposed that it would be useful to measure the current awareness
and assimilation of the digital revolution within the textile design
community, especially amongst freelance designers and studios in the
U.K. but also for some comparability with practitioners worldwide.
A preliminary
excursion down this route led to the realisation that a far greater
communication between all parties was desirable and to this end further
research was proposed .
Phase Two ( Ph2
) two of the research project was undertaken over one year (1977)
as a survey into the current practices and interest in CAD/CAM in
the textile design industry
( esp U.K.) with
a view to the feasibility of producing software to aid the communication
and transfer of designs and discussion between textile designers,
agents and manufacturing companies.
This phase was
led by Sue Jenkyn Jones and assisted by research fellow Ben Parish.
