Team Thursday designed this colourful curtain measuring 9.5 metres wide and 3.9 metres high for a home in Rotterdam. With the help of the TextielLab’s product developer, the graphic design was translated into a woven jacquard fabric.
Team Thursday developed a layered graphic design that gives the impression of a space filled with columns and pillars. The somewhat hidden typography reads: Was it a cat I saw? This palindrome (a text that is the same forwards as backwards) refers to the movement of the curtain that slides from left to right and right to left. The curtain was woven with a special combination of yarns. The most prominent of these is white polyester bast, which produces a beautiful line structure.
The curtain was produced in the TextielLab in six development days over a period of six months, together with product developer Judith Peskens. As weaving was new to Team Thursday’s graphic designers, the challenge was converting their ideas and sketches into patterns for the loom. As a result, the first design sketch was very different from the final result. After a day of experimenting in the TextielLab, the designers went back to their own studio to adjust their design. On the fifth development day, a large test piece was woven to enable the team to assess the scale and drape of the fabric properly. Several more adjustments were made to the weaves and layers in the design before the final curtain was woven on the wide loom (three sections of 3.5 metres).
Initially, the designers wanted to work with more plastic-like yarns, but the tests were not very successful. In the end, one yarn with a stiffer and more artificial feel was chosen: white polyester bast. This was woven 'flat' in the larger areas and 'bulging' in the lines that run through the design. The makers saw this bulging effect occurring accidentally during the tests and liked it so much that they deliberately incorporated it in the final fabric. The curtain was then finished in the TextielLab’s assembly atelier.
Graphic designers Loes van Esch and Simone Trum have collaborated as Team Thursday since 2010. They design visual identities, books and spatial objects, with a special interest in typography, a curiosity for materials and the potential performativity of an object. The duo looks for patterns in the world around them and then explore ways to transform these into designs. In addition, they regularly teach typography at ArtEZ in Arnhem and irregularly host exhibitions and events in their Rotterdam studio TTHQ. This project was their first outing in textile design.
The curtain was installed in December 2021 in a home in Rotterdam.
