We met up with Hidden Art Cornwall member, Jethro Macey, who has just been announced as a winner in the prestigious Elle Decoration Design Awards.
Jethro’s Lace Embossed Concrete Tiles beat off competition from Timorous Beasties for Brintons Carpets, Committee for The Rug Company and Barnaby Barford for Thorsten Van Elten, to win Best Flooring Product 2007.
You were up against really tough competition from well established companies and designers, how did it feel when you were announced as the winner?
It was incredible! This award has completed an amazing year for me and my business and the recognition from Elle Decoration has assured me that I am moving in the right direction. It also shows that working on small scale production runs doesn’t exclude you from a market usually dominated by large manufacturers and distributors.
Your tiles were the product of a digital research project and competition, Repeat and Variation, how important was the project for you?
The Repeat and Variation brief enabled me to learn new CAD skills, which can be costly to learn when you are no longer in education. These skills have really influenced my design work and I have been increasingly intrigued by pattern and texture since completing the project.
Do you manufacture the tiles yourself?
Up until recently they have all been handmade to order but I am now in discussions with a manufacturer about selling my tile design.
600 cast polypropylene versions of my Lace Embossed Tiles are also part of an exclusive exhibition in Belgium next year. Kantlijnen/Facing Lace, is a four-month celebration of the most contemporary interpretations of lace in art, fashion and design and opens in November 2008.
So what’s next?
I am hopefully working with some other companies in 2008, designing a new product and doing some freelance trend work. It’s great because it will give me the freedom to research and design new stuff, something I haven’t been able to do for ages.
I will also be launching two new products under my own name in Milan in April, one being a piece of furniture - an area I have never explored before. I’ll be exhibiting at Salone Satellite with Small Factories, a design collective my friends and I established last year.
I have also licensed a product, which is being launched worldwide in the New Year. It is really exciting, and details will be on my new website very soon!
Repeat and Variation was run by Hidden Art Cornwall in collaboration with Autonomatic, the Digital Research Cluster at University College Falmouth. The aim of the project was to encourage designer-makers to think about the ways digital technology could extend their practice, help to develop new products or reassess existing ways of working.
