Renown new zealand-based designer David Trubridge launch a new range of designs for « Hemptech » called Traces. These were derived from Davids pencil ‘doodles’ which, right from the start, seemed to have a graphic quality that wanted to be used in some way. Rings Shear and Rings Upholstery are the first collections to be released and are based on drawings done in his sketch book whilst traveling by foot through wild places. David says of this new series:
“Rings, colours and patterns are inspired by landscapes photographed my adventures around the world. The photos are the only trace I have of my time in these places. On the aeroplane coming home, I’d often draw expressive ‘doodles’ as an attempt to create, in a sort of meditative process, something of my feeling for the rhythms and patterns of nature. The land will give you colour combinations that may be unlikely but that always seem to work so well together. The crackled surface of melt pools on an Antarctic glacier; intricate, abstract layers of siltstone along a rocky Otago coastline; shoot-green bursts of life after a winter deluge in the Outback these are the evocative images that inspired Rings.”
The colour selections for these collections are taken directly from these photographs taken by David and resonate with the essence from the place they were taken. They are printed in New Zealand on 100% linen.
The designs of David Trubridge have been featured countless times in publications around the world, from Portugal to Lithuania, Ireland to Taiwan, Iceland to Ukraine, including the influential Italian magazines Abitare, ddn and Interni, plus Time, Wallpaper, I D magazine, and even the Financial Times. His work and writing have appeared in a number of design books and his designs have featured on the cover of two eco-design books. For two years in a row Abitare picked out one of his designs for their preview of the best things to see in the Milan Furniture Fair. In 2006 the French editors of Elle Décor magazine judged his lighting to be the best of the year. And in 2008 another French magazine Express listed him as one of the top 15 designers in the world. In various recent European articles his work has been identified as internationally trendsetting in a new form of “raw sophistication”.
His work has been exhibited in the Pompidou Centre, Paris and at important design shows in Zurich, Gwangju (Korea), Taipei, Singapore, Sydney, Dubai. It has been used in shops as part of displays supporting fashion designers Kate Moss in London’s Top Shop, and Stella McCartney in Printemps Paris, and on the catwalk in Milan fashion week. It can be seen in luxury resorts around the world in such places as the Seychelles, Mauritius, and Fiji. And it is used in bars, restaurants, airports, and company foyers everywhere, even the Swedish Stock Exchange.
In New Zealand he has set up his own manufacturing workshop and an incubator for design graduates. He has designed a number of large scale public sculptures and many masonry houses in the Hawkes Bay area. He was one of the Antarctic Arts Fellows who were selected to go to Antarctica in the austral summer of 2004/5, which has led to a whole new emphasis on sustainable design in his work, and an awareness of both the moral responsibilities and the enormous opportunities for today’s designers.
He is a accomplished speaker and has presented at conferences in Auckland (NZ), Sydney, Adelaide and Perth (Australia), Mexico City, San Francisco, Edinburgh (UK), Dongguan (China) and regularly gives public lectures all around the world. He has run four Vitra Design Museum summer design classes in France and worked with design students in Iceland on a project to do with whaling. He was the international judge at the 2006 Queensland Design Awards.
In September 2006 he was the ‘Wornick Distinguished Visiting Professor’ at California College of the Arts in San Francisco for 2 months. His artwork ‘On Thin Ice’ has been shown at the Natural World Museum/UN exhibition on global warming in Oslo/Brussels/Monaco/Chicago in 2007/8 where it won the award for the best sculpture. In 2007 he was given NZ’s highest design award, the John Britten Award, by the Designer’s Institute on NZ for his contribution to NZ design, which came on top of many New Zealand design awards.
More about HEMPTECH FABRIC : http://www.davidtrubridge.com/Designs/hemptech-fabric/
