Textiles student showcases her talent at New Designers
Wed, 02 Jul 2014 09:56:00 BST
Samantha Williamson, a Textile Crafts graduate was delighted to showcase her work at the New Designers 2014 exhibition, London, in June. The event brought together the next generation of design leaders on an exhibition which this year welcomed 17,719 visitors from employers, buyers and manufacturers to private collectors, design enthusiasts and MPs. Thousands of university students and graduates try to exhibit every year and Samantha was chosen to exhibit after being shortlisted by her University tutors. Samantha told us “I was very lucky to exhibit at the show and to get the chance to expose my work to the public. Showcasing at New Designers has shown me who my market is, and has given me the boost of confidence I needed to continue on with my business”.
Samantha who specialises in Digital and Hand Embroidery has also featured her work on the Design Juices blog. She said “I contacted the Design Juices blog after following them on Twitter, to say that I would like to be featured on the blog, and they were more than happy to have my work featured, which is very exciting”
Samantha’s project is called “Hand Crafted By Code” and it is an interior collection of soft furnishings and upholstery, embroidered by machine and hand finished using a range of natural embroidery yarns.
“I feel embroidery can be seen as a very traditional, old fashioned craft, so I have created a range of designs which are completely unique, contemporary, something nobody will have seen before. I want embroidery to become exciting and updated. I bring a contemporary, unusual and exciting new concept to the market in the form of mid to high end products that are guaranteed to add a bounce of life to the standard every day interior”.
This project involved spending a lot of time designing within Photoshop, testing materials, threads and fabric dyeing techniques, but most of Samantha’s time was spent on the digital Amaya embroidery machine, teaching herself how to use it properly and efficiently in order to get all of her designs made in time for the degree show.
Samantha told us ‘I love using colour and testing new palettes for my designs. I came up with a set of instructions off the top of my head, which I gave to a group of random people, and they individually drew what came to them while reading the instructions. As a result, I was left with a collection of drawings, each of them slightly different because they were hand drawn. I then put the same instructions into a computer, which drew an entirely different design from the instructions. This left me with a handcrafted interpretation and a digital version of the design.”
Samantha’s plans for the future are to gain valuable experience by working in various different fields within design, before deciding to make the move and build up her own business. Currently, she is working with a soft furnishing designer in East London, learning about running a freelance business, from the production to the marketing and showcasing at exhibitions. She says “My biggest goal is to set up my own freelance business, making soft furnishing and up cycling old furniture.”
