From design to fabric: colourful behind the screens! (Back cover)

Do you love inspiring textile heritage, full of colour and swirling motifs? Then this project is for you!

This project aims to take a closer look at a subcollection of design drawings for woven interior textiles. This subcollection contains 890 design drawings and some 5,000 card drawings. Prior to weaving, a design drawing is first created. This is then further converted into a more technical card drawing tailored to the type of loom and the exact number of threads. A punch card is then ‘cut’ and this allows the loom to mechanically read the drawing and weave it out into textiles. It's a fascinating process in which different players work together: designers and design agencies, cardmakers, card makers, weavers and entrepreneurs. Sometimes they also literally put their stamp on the designs or other documents, or made notes that reveal something about their methods. It is traces like these, both on the front and back of the drawings, that we want to find and record. They give us insight into the network of players involved and which technical, artistic, business facets helped shape the textiles. 

Look with us and help us shed light on these colourful design drawings.