Traditional Home magazine has announced a first-of-its-kind “Design Incubation” program, which aims to celebrate the talents of today’s young design students and tomorrow’s premier designers. Students from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) will create fabric designs as part of the program, and textile company Fabricut will then produce the winner’s design.
“This year’s program is the first of a long-term initiative that will be expanded in 2014 as Traditional Home celebrates its 25th anniversary,” said Beth Brenner, publisher of Traditional Home. “The students’ fresh approach to design, coupled with their unbridled excitement and enthusiasm, will influence the textile world—and the world of interiors—in the years ahead.”
During the RISD Spring 2013 semester, students enrolled in five textiles classes have been challenged with a unique assignment: Imagine a home in which they would like to live and then design a collection of residential fabrics inspired by their chosen home.
The focus for this project has been placed upon generating fresh, new ideas in a field that is rooted in tradition. It is intended to invite personal context and open up the potential for individual expression as students generate ideas with real-world parameters in mind. The winning designs will be judged in part on how well they address the question: How can your inspiration home be a place of tradition while representing new visions for interior textiles?
Fabricut Textiles
The judges, from Traditional Home, Fabricut and RISD, will recognize excellence in five textiles classes: Design for Print, CAD, Jacquard for Pattern, Dobby and Knitted Fabrics.
“This Design Incubation program is an amazing opportunity for our students to be exposed to the challenges that established companies face when developing new textile designs for production,” said Brooks Hagan, assistant professor and acting department head, textile department, Rhode Island School of Design.
On May 16, each student will present his/her finished board and concept to the judges, the panel will select one winning collection/design from each class, and winning students will be notified.
“This is a unique opportunity for Traditional Home to provide these young designers with a national platform to gain exposure for their immense talent and share their winning designs with our readers across the country,” said Ann Maine, Traditional Home editor-in-chief.
“Working with RISD and Traditional Home gives Fabricut the opportunity to educate design students about the process that goes into the design and production of a textile collection and enables the students to gain real-world experience while still in the classroom,” said Nina Butkin, Vice President of Design, Fabricut. “Fabricut is also thrilled to provide a springboard to help these talented students jumpstart their careers right out of school. Nothing is more exciting than that.”
The winning collections and designs will be adapted by Fabricut for production and added to textile collections of three brands in the Fabricut family—Fabricut, Stroheim and Vervain—for release to the market in 2014. This initiative, led by Butkin, a 1989 alumna of the RISD textile program, will see a portion of the proceeds from the sales of these designs donated to RISD to support future students and the textile department.
Traditional Home, Fabricut and RISD will cover this project in detail through their respective digital and social media channels. In addition, Traditional Home will run an editorial story on the project in late 2013.
The Design Incubation program is an outgrowth of Traditional Home’s commitment to cultivating young art and design talents and challenging them to develop innovative, new approaches rooted in the tenets of traditional design.
