Craft cuts: Designers embrace a mashed-up aesthetic

Showcased at Time, the Inventory design collective exhibition, Chen Chen and Kai Williams’s carpets are a study of materials, processes and forms. The duo used their 2011 work, Cold Cuts – a series of coasters made from different materials that were wrapped around a piece of wood, set in resin and then sliced up – as their starting point.

For the collaboration with Tai Ping, the design duo replicated the visual design of the coasters and focused on the high-low mix of materials found in handmade rugs to create four circular designs.

‘A lot of designers are focusing on the handmade, using simple techniques,’ says Inventory founder Jessica Acosta-Rubio. ‘Designers are referencing the Arts & Crafts movement [of the early 1900s] and reacting to the Industrial Age by going back to basics.’

This fusion of materials and processes was first highlighted by LS:N Global in our 2010 Mix Mash design direction.