Location: San Francisco, California, and Providence, Rhode Island.
Duration: Three years.
Staff: We are partners, Heidi Meredith and Renée Walker, who do all the design as well as handling the business side of things.
Education: We met in graduate school, pursuing MFAs in design from California College of the Arts.
Influences: Wiener Secession, the Ulm School of Design, lost and forgotten buildings, Yves Saint Laurent’s eclectic style, daily rituals and patterns in urban life. Systems in nature, narratives of place, designer/artists like Sister Corita and Alvin Lustig and Paul Klee’s notebooks. Hands-on processes like printmaking, weaving and mixed-media techniques. Decorative elements found in textiles across cultures.
Work environment: We currently collaborate across the country via Google Hangouts (Meredith is in San Francisco, Walker in Providence) from offices shared with other inspiring designers, mountains of books and lots of coffee.
Technique: We begin each project by sketching, talking and researching. We seek out ways to create that get us away from the computer. Sometimes the most surprising things come from doing something simple with a tactile object. We create logical systems for putting it all together, and sometimes we break those systems. In the end, we have a story behind everything we make.
Imagery that moves, drips or explodes is the mark of London illustrator Sean Freeman of There Is.