Project Overview

An online portal that allows retail and industry customers to tailor the Ink & Spindle range - a collection of locally hand printed, ethical & bespoke interior textiles.

Organisation

Ink & Spindle

Team

Lara Cameron & Tegan Rose - Client
Tom Fitzgerald - www.guvnor.co - Design and Project Management
Dominic Whittle - www.weekends.ws - Development

Project Brief

As a small Kensington based studio we print our entire range by hand on a 10m table. We use water based inks and sustainable basecloths, and design for longevity rather than trends. Due to the small scale nature of our business our range is highly customisable. Clients looking for particular finishes to suit a specific interior project can commission us to print one of our designs in a unique colourway.

The challenge to date has been allowing clients to visualise a custom colourway prior to printing. Each ink, design and basecloth has unique properties that affect the output. We needed to develop a solution that could "bridge the imagination gap" and allow clients direct involvement with the customisation process.

Project Need

With our new customisation system we have engaged technology that has never been used for this purpose before. The ability to render - on screen and in real time - the results of a clients selection of design, ink colour and basecloth is truly novel. The traditional approach within our industry is to produce what is known as a "strike-off" - a short length of meterage in the chosen colours on the chosen cloth. This is of course a highly time consuming and potentially wasteful process if the outcome is not as desired.

One of the greatest benefits of what we have developed is allowing our interior industry customers the ability to show *their* clients potential new colourways and work together with these clients to develop colourways on the spot. The technology works on all devices and essentially functions as a portable swatch book.

Design Challenge

Our biggest challenged were technology and timing. Our developer had to try a number of options in terms of the development platform in order to achieve the desired outcome. As a result our timelines blew out by several months.

Sustainability

Sustainability is at the heart of all of our practices. We print onto organic and sustainable basecloths. We use water based, solvent free inks and treat our waste water before it goes down the drain. We design for longevity rather than trends, so that our fabrics are not discarded with the next season. We use recycled and biodegradable packaging and carbon offset all our emissions.