Designtex 5×5, A Crypton® Collection:
A new collection highlights art, design, technology, and a connection to a special organization
In celebration of Crypton’s 25th anniversary and their foundational partnership with Designtex, the two innovators have teamed up once again to introduce a special collection that pays homage to art, design, technology, performance and two pioneering leaders in the contract textile industry. Designtex 5×5, A Crypton Collection features five contemporary artists from around the world, whose work is translated into five patterns in five colorways each, digitally printed onto Crypton-backed upholstery textiles to celebrate 25 years of innovative, intelligent fabric solutions.
Designtex commissioned the five artists—each with a distinct vision, unique approach and process, and amazing use of color—and expanded their works into five colorways each to complete the collection. The 25 colorways are then digitally printed onto Crytpon-backed upholstery textiles at Designtex’s state-of-the-art digital printing facility in Portland, Maine using a cutting edge digital printing process that insures a clarity of image and striking color. The featured artists include: Arturo Guerrero (Line Variations), Elizabeth Atterbury (Social Dance), Ellie Malin (Five Cities), Kapitza (CrissCross), and Phillip David Stearns (BitDrift).
While the visual impact of this collection is outstanding, the inspiration behind the collection adds even more. 5×5 is a celebration of these two companies and the women behind them—Susan Lyons, President of Designtex and Randy Rubin, Co-founder of Crypton—two innovative veterans in the industry, who share a rich and successful history. Under their leadership, both Crypton and Designtex have had a tremendous impact on contract textiles and contract design as a whole. This collection is a celebration of that relationship and all that it encompasses: their shared commitment to design, to the needs of the industry, to innovation and performance—exhibited through a collection, and a medium, that perfectly reflects their partnership.
“As a design director, it was challenging and exciting to work on the initial collaboration with Crypton 25 years ago,” says Susan Lyons, President of Designtex. “Through the inherent performance capabilities of Crypton married with the technological advancements of our digital printing facility, we were able to develop a collection that is both visually and (durably) superior. Combine that with five incredibly talented artists and the result is better than we could have imagined.”
The initial collection of high-performance Crypton textiles that was introduced 25 years ago was cutting edge and paved the way for the performance fabric category, allowing decorative fabrics to be placed in high-use applications, which was a true breakthrough for the contract textiles industry. In that spirit, this new collection offers a boundless look towards the future, utilizing Designtex’s technical breakthroughs in print technology, with limitless scale and colors, with awe-inspiring results.
“It is a privilege to be able to work with Susan Lyons and Designtex again on such a special project,” says Randy Rubin, Co-founder of Crypton. “The first collection that we introduced will always have a special meaning to me and to the industry. This new collection takes art, design, and performance to a whole other level and we are so excited to see how the design community embraces and utilizes the capabilities for future projects in all of the various markets.”
Last, but certainly not least, the Designtex 5×5, A Crypton Collection pays homage to the amazing power that art and design have on a space, a mood, and even the healing process. To emphasize that power, Designtex and Crypton are partnering with RxArt, a non-profit organization whose mission is to help children heal through the extraordinary power of visual art. A portion of the proceeds will benefit this worthwhile cause.
For more information about Designtex and its initiatives and product offerings, please visit www.designtex.com.
#Designtex5x5
Designtex 5×5, A Crypton® Collection:
BitDrift 3958
Phillip David Stearns studied physics and audio engineering before reorienting his attention to artistic endeavors and particularly, textile weavings, an analog counterpart to computational logic. Circuit- bending, tinkering, sound design, and hacking are among the artist’s multidisciplinary toolkit that bridges digital and physical making.
Created through parametric computation and cellular automata, BitDrift is sourced from sections of a photograph whose pixels have been algorithmically sorted and shuffled to generate a wholly unique composition that vacillates between order and entropy.
CrissCross 3959
Taking an aesthetic approach to problem-solving, sisters Petra and Nicole Kapitza both worked independently as graphic designers before founding their collaborative studio focused on explorations into the optics of geometry and color. Their acclaimed books on pattern art have led to commissions from a wide swath of clientele across fashion apparel, packaging, advertising, lifestyle goods, and textiles. Informed by a wide range of references, from abstraction to natural forms, the studio’s distinct, vibrant aesthetic makes use of a wide color spectrum in CrissCross, featuring a syncopated, striped pattern in five brilliant colorways: Gravel, Blossom, Meadow, Sky, and Earth.
Five Cities 3960
A trained printmaker, Australian artist Ellie Malin applies a bold, colorful eye to geometric landscapes rendered in a range of textural mediums, from relief woodblock prints and paintings to large-scale installations. Five Cities for Designtex combines tonal planes and overlaid cutout shapes that together form a playful, abstract composition with a layered and dimensional depth.
Line Variations 3961
A self-taught painter born in Madrid, Arturo Guerrero creates multilayered compositions that evoke complex imagery and wideranging references, from ancient landscapes to modern technology, through abstracted forms and the expressive tenor of his signature thick brushstrokes. Originally trained as an architect, Guerrero’s works often evolve through iteration, forming tectonic planes of oil and watercolor. His design for Designtex, Line Variations, features warm overlapping fields of earth tones and cool indigo blue.
Social Dance 3962
Organic forms and serendipitous collage play into the work of artist Elizabeth Atterbury, whose multimedia read as nuanced ruminations into representation, memory, and language. A native of Southern Florida, Atterbury studied studio photography and writing concurrently, later developing her conceptual approach to include pictorial sculpture, collage, and printmaking. Her collaboration with Designtex, Social Dance, grew out of a series of monoprints with Wingate Studio, from which she has reconfigured plates of abstract colorforms to create a wholly new composition.
About Designtex
Designtex is the leading company in the development, design and manufacturing of applied materials for the built environment. For over fifty years, Designtex has been providing innovative materials to customers around the world. Throughout each step of product development and manufacturing, Designtex strives to ensure their textiles, wallcoverings and digitally imaged materials have a reduced environmental impact.
Designtex is a Steelcase company, headquartered in New York City, with national and international locations. For more information, please call 800.221.1540 or visit designtex.com.
About Crypton
Crypton® is an intelligent, engineered fabric system offering permanent stain and odor resistance plus an integrated moisture barrier. Introduced in 1993, it is the benchmark for beautiful, high-performance textile solutions.