In 2015, The Invisible Party, Studio Bertjan Pot and W Hotel joined forces to design bedspreads for the rooms of the W Hotel in Amsterdam. For the design they used ‘Font of the loom’, a woven font Pot had previously developed in the TextielLab. The font was incorporated in the bedspreads, allowing guests to read all about the city while snuggled under the covers.
In 2015, the five-star W Hotel Amsterdam opened its doors in the heart of the Dutch capital. Set in the city’s former Telephone Exchange dating from 1903, the high-end hotel is known for its hip take on design. Design studio The Invisible Party developed custom textiles for the rooms and suites. Incorporated in the ‘Icon Throw’ bedspreads is the woven font Pot previously developed in the TextielLab. Pot was inspired by the technical capabilities of the TextielLab's computer-controlled loom to develop the font, which was first used in a tablecloth and six matching napkins in 2011 for the label ‘by TextielMuseum’.
Pot is interested in researching the laws of techniques and uses these to devise inventive applications. He noticed that the Dornier loom in the TextielLab is often used simply to transpose images. However, the weaving technique offers technically specific design possibilities because the position of a binding on the yarn can be precisely determined.
To demonstrate this, Pot designed a very small font for the pattern of a tablecloth that only becomes visible in the binding of a blue weft on a white warp. This means that a letter is not perceived as an image but is built up from the weave. While developing the bedspreads, it was a challenge to align the texts so that the columns would all be woven in a straight line.
The Invisible Party is an Amsterdam-based branding and interior design agency. It was founded by Vivian van Schagen (1978) who graduated from Design Academy Eindhoven and has over 15 years of experience in the field of brand design. Clients include other W Hotels in Europe and Asia, The Student Hotel in Maastricht, Marina Bay Sands, Hema, Nike and De Bijenkorf.
Pot (1975) graduated from the Design Academy Eindhoven in 1998. In 2002, he founded Studio Bertjan Pot. Material research is the starting point of all his projects. The outcome is usually an interior product that displays his fascination for techniques, structures, patterns and colours. Pot’s work can be found in the collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, MoMa in New York, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam and the TextielMuseum. His designs have won multiple awards, including the ‘Dutch Design Prize’ in 2007 and the ‘Interior Innovation Prize’ in 2012.
