Challenge

Instyle approached Skeehan to design various patterns for their acoustic treatments. One goal was to design a print that would reference the collaboration of the two companies. We also needed to create a product that understood the A+D sector while complementing the interior and products surrounding it. Flexibility was very important, exploring a clean language that had the opportunity to scale.

Solution

As our studio our designs are often informed by the materials and processes we use. For our patterns we drew on distinctive, repeatable patterns found in the Australian landscape and in our furniture collections.

With our TWIST pattern, we were interested in the fact that this advanced manufacturing process had a primitive quality to it. It was reminiscent of traditional carving techniques. We were drawn to patterns made by water, particularly surrounding streams or gullies. There was an interesting contrast here, between fluidity and predictability, where the imprint of moving water on the landscape was suggestive of the carving processes that we were originally inspired by.

LOOP began as a series of investigative drawings of our furniture products and our process: looking at the feedback channel in our design process and defining features in our furniture products. The notion of a continuous line and overlapping sections became very apparent, we tried to visualise this in a series of 2D layered drawings that could translate into a repeatable pattern.

Services

Product design
Design thinking
Ideation & concept generation