Narrative Threads Blog
Scroll through our Narrative Threads blog to enjoy behind-the-scenes insight on special projects for leading interior designers and architects.
Scroll through our Narrative Threads blog to enjoy behind-the-scenes insight on special projects for leading interior designers and architects.
As President of Creative Matters I am often asked to choose some highlights from the closing year. This time however, I find myself most excited by the major initiatives we took in 2019 to move our business into the new decade.
Following on the success of our two previous look books, we’re excited to announce that Inspired 3 is now available in hard copy (request one here) or for online viewing. Unlike the brochures for our collection rugs, each of our look books contains almost 200 images of original designs that can be used as a jumping off point for custom rug or wallcovering creations.
Rug designer may not sound like a career path that involves a wide variety of international travel but at Creative Matters it surely does. As in many jobs there are trade shows to attend, but what really racks up the passport stamps are the trips we make to supervise production of our rugs.
In 2018 we were delighted to participate in a project that required 97 handknotted rugs. Until this year, we have assigned handknotted rugs to our trusted fair trade suppliers in Nepal and India. In 2018 however, we had the good fortune to work with a slightly different style of handknotting and create an incredible opportunity for Afghan women.
In November we celebrated 30 years since our President Carol Sebert founded Creative Matters. To honour the occasion the whole team flew from Toronto to New York for three days staying at a big house in the country and taking the train into the city each morning.
As Creative Matters will celebrate its 30th anniversary in November, our management team took the opportunity to look back at our designs - and the process of designing - through the years.
Fair trade is a critical issue for our floorcoverings that are woven by hand. This includes our collection rugs, as well as custom projects that may be handwoven in Nepal, India or Afghanistan.
While most of our studio work consists of handknotted, handtufted or machine made floorcoverings, Senior Designer Sandra Ciganic-McKinney has been heading up a project developing a new type of area rug that is essentially a handtufted, zero pile rug with a screen printed field.
Clients who order handknotted rugs from us will notice the word STEP incorporated into our label on the back of the rug. This is our promise to you and your promise to your client that the rug was produced with the highest possible standards of fair trade.
Following the incredible success of our first look book, we are delighted to announce the arrival of our second, inspired 2. Unlike our collection books that feature floorcoverings that have been fully-designed and produced as handknotted rugs, our look books present a large collection of carpet and wallcovering designs at a much earlier stage in their development.