Officeinsight Article – Two Years In: Teknion Textiles
Here is a great article from officeinsight, written by Bob Beck. It’s an interview with Suzanne Tick of Teknion Textiles and it gives some great perspective on all that goes into the Teknion line of products.
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by Bob Beck
Now we’re coming up on two years-in, so to catch up on progress made and impediments found, I recently I caught up with Ms. Tick to see how the first two years look in the rearview mirror and to learn about the road ahead for Teknion Textiles.
OI: I want to start by congratulating you on an impressive start to building what is virtually a whole new textile company.
ST: Thank you. It has been a very busy and productive time. Since the beginning of 2013 we’ve launched 6 collec- tions comprising 55 fabrics and three chrome-free leathers.
ST: Well, it isn’t easy building a brand from the ground up. It has been two years and a lot has been accomplished but there is still a great deal to be done. The fabrics them- selves have been very well received. People seem to really like them, but I think our biggest challenge is getting the market to understand that these are not just textiles for use on Teknion products – that we intend Teknion Textiles to be a standalone textile supplier with all that implies. But it is slow going. Maybe an article in officeinsight would help get that word out!
OI: I’m interested in understanding how Teknion Textiles is organized.
Teknion Textiles is a division of Teknion. It has it’s own operations staff and customer service group and it is represented in the marketplace by Teknion sales people and dealers.
ST: I have my own company, Suzanne Tick, Inc. and starting with Knoll Textiles over twenty years ago I have generally worked in the same way. I say “I” but it is actually “we” – I have an interdisciplinary staff of eight people, and we work as an outside design consultancy and sometimes I also take on the role of design director. It’s how I started with Knoll and then I transitioned to doing only the contributing designer role. At Tandus I’m retained as an outside consultant. For the start-up of Teknion Textiles I am the Creative Director and a consultant to Teknion. I also consult with them on some furniture issues and finishes, but I’m the Creative Director for the textile division.
OI: How do you balance the work?
ST: I think the way I have my team organized here is really indicative of how I manage my business. As I said, I have eight people working on all these projects. The way we balance the work is that in addition to myself, we have three people working on the carpet side and three working on the textile side and then two individuals help me do the strategic marketing plans and they play on both sides, so we make sure that we have cross discipline teams work- ing on both product types. That way when we’re looking at textile patterns and working up new patterns, sometimes we look at one and say, “gosh, this could be a better carpet pattern,” and vice-versa if I’m working with the carpet team we may think this would make a beautiful textile. At Teknion Textiles we’re both the design and the marketing team. So we develop the textile designs, work with the mills to develop the actual goods and work with Teknion to develop the marketing strategies and plans as well.
ST: Yes, the whole thing taken together is a lot of balanc- ing: between companies, between product types, between design and marketing, but what’s been really helpful for me is balancing commerce with art – creating my art pieces. My loom is my muse. It seems like every time I jump on the loom it’s like, “Oh my god, this could be great for this or this could be great for that,” even though what’s on the loom is really meant as a piece of art. So the creativity starts from the art pieces and then commercial concepts grow from the art and then it’s balancing vertical and hori- zontal planes or it may be the combination of hard and soft or matte and shiny or any of the dualities that occur. Our best textiles grow out of this balancing.
OI: Can you give us an example of how that is expressed in a commercial product line?
ST: Yes, in fact that’s a perfect lead-in because at NeoCon, Teknion Textiles will introduce five new textile lines in a collection called Textured Edge. There are upholstery, panel, and wall fabrics that pay homage to the act of creating art. Whether it’s painting, drawing, drafting, or sculpting, the process of artistic expression involves materials and tools that help ideas take shape. Early sketches and line studies come to life through the artist’s hand. Texture, both visual and physical, renders the surface with life and stimulates the senses. Layers of color, light, and shadow help define form. The Textured Edge collection highlights these elements of artistic expression in seven new textiles: two larger scale graphic upholsteries, and five wall and panel fabrics that explore texture in all its forms.
ST: Line Language is an upholstery fabric that is reminiscent of the act of drawing and painting. The sophisticated palette of three colors is based on rich art materials such as sumi ink, charcoal, and graphite, creating a luxurious textile in look and feel. This linear pattern has a vertical movement of color gradation from both light to dark and thick to thin. Like paint applied with a palette knife, the line work of the pattern shows natural variation as if created by hand, result- ing in a strong graphic that can be upholstered in either di- rection. Line Language is exceptionally durable and bleach cleanable with 40% post consumer recycled content.
Subdivide harks back to the Bauhaus, where architectural drawings and plans were drafted with the guiding principles and foundation of modernism. The large pattern of blocks is created through strong graphic lines that vary in intensity and provide a framework for bold color-accents to appear. The fabric’s smooth texture and crisp ground allow for the pattern to be the prominent feature. Subdivide is intended for upholstery and is highly durable at 100,000 Double Rubs.
Artopia is a free form pattern that sweeps across the fabric with expressive movement and bold gesture in a full horizontal repeat. Inspired by the Color Field art of the 1950’s, dry brush painting, and contemporary visual artists such as Christopher Wool, Artopia speaks to the act of marking the canvas with broad strokes. The graphic is comprised of duotone dots with a subtle tonal contrast, creating a positive-negative image. Similar to photocopy art and other mechanical print processes, the pattern is both additive and subtractive, revealing a beautiful composition of replication and distortion. The color palette of solids in- corporates a spectrum of neutrals and bright accent colors for use in vertical applications such as panel, wrapped wall, and demountable wall systems.
In the same way that light and shadow inform minimalist sculpture, Lustrado celebrates materiality and reflectivity. This lustrous wall and panel fabric features a shiny flat tape yarn that twists to reveal two color tones. The weave structure is softened by these twisting yarns, resulting in an organic grid with dimensional texture that shifts across the width. Made with 75% recycled content, Lustrado’s neutral color palette encompasses light and deep tones in both warms and cools, yet remains technical looking due to the material of the tape yarn.
Bandeau, Presse and Boucle Grid are a group of textural solids created from weave structures developed in our studio. These three companion panel and wall fabrics comprise a texture scale study that is colored to work together. Bandeau has a subtle ribbed allover surface using a fine Boucle yarn. Presse has a raised pattern created from a fine boucle yarn and a thicker twist yarn. Boucle Grid uses two scales of boucle yarns – chunky and fine – to impart its deep texture. All three fabrics are 100% recycled polyester and convey a sense of textural relief, similar to embossing paper or stamping metal where interest comes from the juxtaposition of light and shadow.
OI: Thanks Suzanne, and continued great balancing!
With the NeoCon launch of the Textured Edge Collection adding to the body of work already completed, it’s obvious that Teknion Textiles is off to a great start. Given the “get- things-done” entrepreneurial spirit of Teknion combined with the strategic long view taken by CEO David Feldberg and the talent of Suzanne Tick it seems certain there is an up-and-coming textile company in the industry. So designers take heed… this is a full-on COM supplier, as well as a great source of fabrics for application to Teknion products.