ART DAY - INSIDE RUG DESIGN AT CREATIVE MATTERS
Art Day is not only intrinsic to the Creative Matters process of design, but has also generated a searchable archive of over 2,500 original designs primed for custom contemporary floor and wallcoverings. As a result of these days set aside to engage in the practice of pure artistic creation, we now have at our fingertips this terrific resource. Our professional interiors clients need only outline their interests and then - through a sophisticated tagging system - we can quickly assemble a PDF of relevant concepts.
The 2,500 designs emerged from themed workshops in beach, wildflower, industrial and musical settings where we freely created imagery. On a scheduled follow-up day, we generated concepts from the imagery. Some of those concepts were immediately selected for current projects and the others were scanned and tagged for the Art Day Archive.
In 2015, we curated over 100 of the designs in inspired. - a look book for interiors professionals to keep at their desks. Themed sections - Organic, Vibrant, Geometric, Fusion, Watercolour - make it easy to flip through.
The Art Day tradition began a few years after rug design became a digital process at Creative Matters. The team decided they missed their creative roots and they wanted to explore other media. Creative Director Ana Cunningham said that the Crystals Art Day has probably generated the most successful designs.
In addition to building this terrific archive for custom projects, the Art Day designs are also used for our Collection rugs. "In the Crystals session we explored a series of mediums to convey Canadian landscapes in the abstract form and this became the Arctic Collection," said Ana.
Orchestra is the Art Day-derived design that has been most successful in custom projects. Initial imagery was created by Art Director Leah Phillips at the watercolour Art Day. Leah then developed the concept in Photoshop and Illustrator, and the design joined the XXV Collection. Since then, many clients have requested custom versions of the design for residential and corporate applications in various colour and fibre combinations.
Drift is another design that traces its roots clearly back to an Art Day, in this case a glass making workshop with Toronto artisan Gregor Herman where our team was able to explore three-dimensional form. Below you can see how one photo of a glass sculpture was overlayed with another photo. Colour, texture and blur layers were then added in Photoshop. Although the designer initially envisaged the design in raspberry tones, Drift - Aqua joined the XXV Collection and the Drift - Wheat colourway was added for 2016.
Ali McMurter is the Senior Designer currently responsible for organizing Creative Matters Art Days. She is scheduling shadow play, sandcasting with glass, batik and experimenting-with-water-patterns workshop themes for 2016.
Please contact us if you are an interiors professional who would like to participate in one of our Art Days, browse the Art Day Archive or receive a copy of our inspired. look book.