Design development of Lizzy Stageman’s incredible art pieces into contract furnishing textiles and wall covering had many challenges, and rewards!
The Materialised Design Team develop our own textile and wall covering design collections, called Hot Off The Press, as well as work with guest designers on collaborations. We chatted with Chloe Evans and Brigitte Marlot to get an insight into the design development involved.
How did you set about with design development for this project?
“All her art was professionally photographed, scanned, and sent to us,” says Chloe Evans, Head of Design. “We then double-check the quality to make sure it’s suitable for printing.”
How did you get the designs to repeat?
“I worked on the Marrunga Yubaa,” says Chloe. “It’s a design that just looked like it was made to be a repeat! However, it proved a little more difficult than expected. As it’s an organic linear pattern any slight deviation that didn’t make sense became very noticeable to the eye. It was important to keep the movement of the rain seamless.”
“Repeating the design of Galimbang Rain was relatively straightforward” explains Leading Textile Designer, Brigitte. “I simply ensured to maintain the artistic rhythm, such as the width of brushstrokes, colour continuity, and occasional shifts in alignment to seamlessly blend the edges into each other.”
“However, Marrunga Yubaa Against The Elements was a little more challenging as it was all about the beautiful background with the spaced-out raindrops coming in diagonally.” says Brigitte. “I chose to create the repeat in a half-drop tile pattern to achieve a more dynamic overall effect. Then it was a matter of copying and blending sections of the artwork, making as minimal changes as possible to preserve the integrity of the original piece.”
Did you use Lizzy’s existing colour palettes or develop your own for commercial projects?
“We took care to maintain the original colourways across all of Lizzy’s designs,” explains Chloe. “Her palette was already fresh and vibrant, so we carried the cool blues and greens along with the warm pinks and oranges throughout the additional colourways, to tie them all together. Historically these colours work well for commercial spaces.”
“Changing the colours of someone’s art is always intimidating,” says Brigitte, “but I trust we did justice to Lizzy’s work by using the refined colour palette we found in her body of work.”
What was it like to work with Lizzy Stageman?
“A dream!” exclaims Chloe. “Honestly, Lizzy is one of the most beautiful people you will ever meet. Every encounter we had, either in person, Zoom, by phone or by email I was instantly captivated and calmed by her.”
“Learning about Lizzy’s art, history and life philosophy has been extremely inspirational. She has reminded me to embrace the present moment, treasure what we have now and how I got there. Amidst the chaos of the world, it’s easy to just get caught up in the stress and only look at the negatives.”
If you chose one of these designs for your home, which one and how would you apply it (as fabric, wall covering or acoustic art?)
“I would opt for Against The Elements in its original colourway,” says Brigitte, “even after spending so much time on the repeat process! This painting captures the sensation of rain in nature so beautifully that you can almost smell and feel it! It’s incredibly calming so I would love it as a wall covering, printed on Silk Road wall vinyl substrate.”
And as for Chloe, “For everyone who knows me, they know I am obsessed with anything teal, and that was no different for the Marrunga Yubaa Sweet Rain Original. I had it as my desktop screensaver after my very first meeting with Lizzy about the collaboration and was super excited to work on this for the collection. I’d use this print either as a bedhead or runner, printed on Palermo.”
The ‘Finding My Place’ collection is available now as commercial-grade textiles, wall covering, wall murals and acoustic art.
About the Author: Catherine McGowan
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