This week in Design & Technology Rachael Sleight delivered the presentation “What design practice means to me?”. This involved insights into her career and an explanation of how her own design philosophy was developed; how it influenced her choices and what she wants out of a career in the design world.
Rachael covered a lot of ground; she talked through the different companies she’d worked for and freelance work she continued to do alongside her new leather goods business. She didn’t explicitly put into words the answer to the initial question she posed to us, examples and choices were presented and we were left to make up our own minds. The first thing that struck me was the variety within her career. After leaving Nokia, full of disillusions about the direction the mobile phone industry was taking, the sheer volume of design briefs completed for large retailers such as Habitat and John Lewis was colossal. Then entering design journalism and working with Stylus as an external consultant to produce an expansive volume of articles and research primarily into the future of design. Design journalism, she explained, was something she didn’t want to let go of even with the birth of her new business. Her business, Burnbank, is a bespoke leather handbag production company that specialises in involving the customer in the design process to make only unique bags. With such an appetite for examining and forecasting the future of industries, and with experience of working in fast-paced retail design, I was perplexed that her own business involved working out of a small workshop at home, producing one-off handmade bags. Or is it a perfect progression; a designer stripping back product design to its purest form, using high quality materials to supply customers with a product for their needs, for life.
I found this paradox to not be the only I was left wondering about. A large portion of Rachael’s career was design for retail, yet this woman was clearly an environmentally conscious individual who now strives to deliver quality and has ambitions of Burnbank being a zero waste company. It is clear that any discussion about her design practice increasingly revolved around sustainability issues; something we could’ve talked about all day I imagine. As part of studying design she developed pop-up boots to reduce box sizes and disposable, paper wedding dresses to reduce the waste surrounding traditional wedding gowns. Upon reflection, I find it strange that she then embarked on a career in mass manufacturing consumer goods. Perhaps there is an element of pessimism on my part, especially with the power of hindsight. Do the pressures of building a career in design make it necessary to temporarily sacrifice personal beliefs to gain experience? It is a question I don’t feel qualified to answer but it seems through this experience it moulded Rachael to become a better designer and therefore, better equipped to deal with sustainability issues within the industry.
A final point of note from the presentation was the explanation of how Rachael, an experienced designer, went about starting her own business. Some of the key points covered were; know your current competition (you would hope an obvious one) but also know your future competition. Where is the brand going? And, when it gets there, who will you be competing against in that market place? She outlined the importance of recognising future competitors by being aware of other brands’ motivations and goals. That point stuck with me, for someone with no real business experience, it seems just as crucial as identifying current competitors but often not given the same value. One of her current considerations is whether to incorporate the use of plant based materials to replace the vegetable tan cow leather she currently exclusively uses. The dilemma lies in questions raised over the sustainability of livestock farming versus the durability of some of the alternatives such as cork, fabric backed veneer and materials such as Pinatex. Rachael questions her own use of cow leather but justified to us eloquently. As it is currently a by-product of the meat industry and that it has a far superior lifespan to alternatives; she explained she would rather produce a bag knowing it will last decades, with care, than one that will fall to pieces using newer options. I understand this decision process but it only excites me more to be able to spectate plant based alternatives overtake traditional materials; something I investigated last year which led to the development of Citrea, a new material made entirely of waste citrus peels which I presented as watch straps.
In whole, the presentation was interesting and beneficial in provoking me to question what my own practices are. How can I reflect and judge another designer without my own principles? I think that is at the core of what I was left to ponder and something I don’t want to forget. As designers we should always be questioning what principles we are working to and more importantly why we chose them. Perhaps this blog post is better suited to my “Great Design” feed as aren’t these principles are own criteria of greatness? I look forward with optimism (a rarity) and hope (even rarer) about the chance for myself to continue to develop my own design practices, that I can explain and justify, with the benefit of more experience and understanding of the design world around me.
For more information about Rachael and her work I would recommend visiting her website or Burnbank's instagram at:
All picture credits go to Rachael Sleight at https://portfolio.rachaelsleight.com/
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