We design as well as produce our towels in our Berlin studio workshop. We developed a unique knitting technique which allows us to design knitted towels and knit them on-demand in our workshop.
Although we don’t follow a particular design aesthetic, our designs are influenced by both traditional and modern textile design, especially those in Europe and Japan — this is where our small design team from. More importantly, we see craft and technology as the biggest drivers of our design. Our design space is in the same room as our production workshop. Advances in craft and knitting techniques gives us insights into new designs, and vice-versa.
Our knitting technique drives our design process and aesthetic
We use two spools of yarn for each towel, limiting each design to two colors. Unlike designs for print or digital devices, our unique knitted terrycloth pattern has a relatively 'low resolution'. These limitations drives the aesthetic of each design pattern.
So how does our design process look like?
Usually, we start with a sketch for an idea. If a design idea works as a simple pen or pencil sketch, usually it can be translated into a workable textile design for our towels. For us: simpler is better.
We then bring the sketch into our image editing software. Here we can make refinements and prepare a file that can be read by our industrial knitting machine. At this stage, we end our design process and begin the first stages of preparation for manufacturing. We’ll make numerous prototypes to ensure the towel design can be knitted without defects. More on that in a future post!
Our goal is to bring our users closer to the design and manufacturing process
We think of our customers as co-designers — by choosing towels with various colors and patterns, it’s up to them to design their living spaces. Our aim is to give our customers more possibilities to create and personalize their own towels by giving them customization options. We are just at the beginning of this journey. In the future, we see many opportunities to give our users new ways to put their signature on our towels.