This new scheme from the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) is aimed at building relationships between SMEs (Small to Medium sized Enterprises) and HEIs (Higher Education Institutes) in Scotland.

The project’s aim was to develop a new collection of digital prints on cashmere. The challenge here, was not only for Iona in designing the new prints, but also for the CAT team to prepare and print such an expensive base fabric to receive the digitally applied dyestuffs. The final collection has been showcased at various national and International events.

All images from courtesy of Iona Crawford

In October 2008, CAT began working with Timorous Beasties on a collaboration funded by the UK Technology Strategy Board. In response to the theme: ‘Exploiting Digital Technologies’ the purpose of the BeastiesLAB project was to explore the potential benefits of a digital workflow based on the idea of co-creation. This involved the development of a retail installation that invited customers to create their own cushion by interacting with Timorous Beasties print designs through a playful experience that brought their content to life. With products being digitally printed at CAT only once a customer had purchased the product, this on-demand approach offers greater flexibility and reduced risk for designers whilst providing customers with a unique product (and memorable experience). Aside from these commercial benefits, the focus of the project was to explore the creative opportunities enabled by co-creation.

In order to ensure customers did not feel as though they were ‘using a computer’ the interactive scenes were controlled using a Nintendo Wiimote with colourways being selected using printed swatches with embedded RFID tags. The video below shows the final concept.

BeastiesLAB: Design from TechStyleLAB on Vimeo.