CREATING A STRESS FREE AND EFFORTLESS HOME ENVIRONMENT WITH FAY CLAYBROOK
What transforms a space into a home, how do we enhance our way of living through design and how can the home environment play a significant role in providing inspiration for designers?
Creating for the home environment or creations which have been influenced by the home have evolved and shifted over the years as the residents needs and trends have changed, and even more so from a year of lockdowns.
ND recently caught up with ND 2020 Alumni and industrial and technology designer, Fay Claybrook to discover what their predictions are for the future of home design.
Why do you have an attraction to designing for the home environment?
Everyday life revolves around the home.
Expenses are used to create the comfort desired by individuals, couples and families. I think it’s important to make life stress free at home as it’s your place to unwind for the day. With intuitive design everyday task such as cooking, cleaning and sleeping can be enhanced for the better. Furthermore, this can improve your mental and physical well-being by having full rest at home and restoring for the days ahead. Now, more than ever, health is at the forefront of people’s minds and rightly so, we need to look after ourselves and others around us. This starts with making our home life and tasks as effortless as possible.
Have you noticed any new influences to your design or creation process from a year like no other? Has spending more time in our home environments changed your approach at all?
I think when designing something repetition is key.
From multiple uses of an object you begin to see annoyances and problems that may not of occurred first time. Especially during lockdown, there was only a certain amount of activities to keep everyone entertained and repeating these more than usual, the annoyances became more apparent. This new routine allowed me to really see the need of everyday objects to survive and treat our needs.
A new habit I have maintained is to carry a little book for when I have ideas, to jot them down. I can then develop and draw these concepts out for new product ideas when I have time.
What are your predictions on our home environments and designing for living spaces for the future?
I hope to see sustainability more present in the home environment. There’s been movements with fast fashion and with big brands redesign packaging, hopefully this can be seen more in smart devices at prices available to the everyday consumer. I think the focus may be more aligned with clean homes as well. The air we breath, items we touch, bacteria on our food. It’s important to have knowledge to protect ourselves and prevent further diseases.
Advice on anyone struggling to work from home or for breaking through a creative block?
Creativity comes in all forms. Exploring different mediums and learning from those art forms has helped me stay creative during lockdown.
Experimenting, failing and learning I find motivating. I’ve been developing my graphics and hyper realism drawing throughout lockdown as a different output to let myself think differently and translate this into my design work. I think it’s also important to leave the house, even if it’s just for a ten minute walk, to be able to rethink. I tend to find when I’ve took my mind off of things and take a step back, I know how to break through the creative block.
For the next wave of emerging designers can you share your experience and feelings towards designing during lockdown?
It’s been very difficult for everyone. It has given me more time to reflect and improve my skills, it may of been isolating at times but these are temporary struggles and lead us to perspectives we never would of been able to understand, let alone design for.
Find more design from Fay Brook here: @fayclaybrookdesign
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on the effects these changes which have formed within society. We have been fascinated have been considering what impact this has had on designers who harness nature has their biggest influence.
We caught up with jewellery designer and Class of ND19 alumni, Florence to find some answers to our questions. The
In 2019 she founded her company, Object Cor ltd, inspired by nature and motivated by tactility. In 2020, Florence intrigued our selection panel and was chosen to be a OYI exhibitor as they were fascinated with this designer’s passion to capture the mundane interactions of the everyday and create a collection which is influenced by the sensory inputs which arise from spending time within nature.
within the nostalgic elements of the outside world, creating a collection which holds the joys and brings a mindful presence to designing with the tactility of nature in mind.