Recently design droplets editor Raph Goldsworthy had a chance to talk with Melbourne based, emerging soft toy and curios designer/maker, Brittany Veitch about her inspirations, the challenges of being an independent designer and the development of her bespoke brand The Vibrant City.
Known internationally for her quirky and macabre toys, and describing herself as “a toy maker with a fondness of bespoke design and a predilection for cribbage and sleepwalking”. Brittany is “the youngest of three, born and raised in Melbourne”, Australia where she “grew up listening to a mix of the Beach Boys and Beethoven, amidst a wild menagerie of pets from dogs to a deer”.
1. Hi Brittany, Welcome to design droplets. Can you please give us a quick run down on yourself.
The youngest of three, born and raised in Melbourne I grew up listening to a mix of the Beach Boys and Beethoven amidst a wild menagerie of pets from dogs to a deer.
I am a toy maker with a fondness of bespoke design and a predilection for cribbage and sleepwalking. I studied Furniture Technology and Industrial Design at RMIT University, and it was there that I began experimenting with animation, video, puppeteering and making toys. After graduating I focused on developing my brand The Vibrant City, under which I make hand-sewn toys and curios.
2. You are trained in Furniture Technology and Industrial Design, but have spent the last few years working on toys through your brand The Vibrant City. How has your training in Furniture Technology and Industrial Design influenced your toy making?
After spending many years in workshops and modelling labs I am comfortable working with tools and machines, and a broad range of materials. So, if I happen to be cutting a log round for a faux taxidermy mount, I know which specie of timber to use and how best to finish it.
However, it is my Industrial Design Degree that has had the greatest influence on how I practice my craft. In fact I taught myself how to sew for a 2nd year project. As an independent designer I often fall back on what I was taught at Uni. When I have a flash of inspiration, I use mind maps and group brainstorming sessions to develop the concept. And I’ve become meticulous at documenting my work. I like to make taxonomies of my projects and spend quite a lot of time on reflective analysis. Then there is blogging, which is another thing I picked up as a 2nd student.
From the Woods, a combination of the cute and the macabre, is a collection of hand sewn toys disfigured by gruesome wounds.
3. Your toys are beautifully macabre and quirky. Can you talk a bit about your inspirations?
I suppose I have quite a wry sense of humour and I like to present people with things that are a little off kilter. I am in complete awe of many artists, particularly Hiraki Sawa and his breathtaking video works and Dutch painter Rien Poortvliet’s scenes of forests and wildlife. I want to make my mark on the world and aspire to make a lasting body of work.
My favourite points of inspiration come from dreams, which can be so vivid that I wake up with an instant compulsion to sketch or to start sewing in the middle of the night. Reading William Gibson has on lead to this on numerous occasions.
Often I’m working on several projects at one time, circling through them as motivation wanes. I can switch between bird watching fairy wrens at my family’s farm and making a profusion of embroidered bird brooches or felted bird heads, to illustrations of robots spouting French slang. Throw in a day or two of halter training Alpacas, or cataloguing wounds for my From the Woods toys, and there is a diversity of projects, all of them interesting and providing a source of vitality for new ideas or improvements.
4. Through your toy making you have exhibited at design markets in Melbourne. Apart from selling products, what are the benefits for designers attending these?
For me, one of the most important factors in participating in events like markets is it allows the public to see your work and it gives you a chance to meet and greet people and develop networking skills. You get instant feedback regarding how people see your work; it might be through chatting with prospective customers and getting an insight to why they like it, what drew them to it, who they are buying for, or even watching body language of passers-by. By interacting with people you have an opportunity to put a face to your buyer and this helps you to evaluate the target market and where your product is going. As a bonus you get to meet other designers and artists and see plenty of amazing objects.
5. You also utilize the internet to get yourself and your work known. You have work on your own site and on etsy.com. What have you found to be the pros and cons of utilizing the internet to promote yourself?
I sell mostly online and to international customers. On my website I archive everything I have made as well as projects I am currently working on. With my ETSY store buyers can scan through my current listing and previous sales to get an idea about what I make and the types of fabrics I use. It’s a way of creating dialogue for those who are unable to see my work firsthand in Melbourne. I have to ensure I always have high quality product photos and include precise details of size and materials.
I’ve tried to maximise my web exposure and gain recognition by participating with online communities. I’m a part of Beinart International Surreal Art Collective, which is an online gallery for lowbrow, esoteric, outsider genres, through which I get a lot of visiting traffic. And that is another good thing about using the Internet. I can track website statistics to see what country people are viewing it from, sites linking to mine.
Malurus Cyaneus, Hand-sewn nuno felt male superb fairy wren, mounted on pine.
6. In terms of your design work, what has been the biggest challenge for you since starting your toy range?
…Cracking the Melbourne marketplace…
I started off with a big bang. My first sale was to Finnish musician Ville Valo of the band HIM. With momentum from my initial success, I put my efforts into getting my ETSY store up and running and adding to my website. The majority of my sales have been to international buyers, with not much Australian interest. I soon decided I might as well try to get my toys stocked in a local shop in Melbourne. After a certain amount of knock backs and a slow period of selling online it was hard to be steadfast with conviction that what I was doing was worthwhile. So I struggled with how to remain upbeat and confident of my work. Rejection certainly has helped me refine my sales pitch and put together neat promo kits. So now I am back to approaching stores to become stockists of a range of my toys.
7. Do you consider your work to be art or design? Can you also talk about where you believe design and art begin and end?
At Uni my projects were never quite design nor were they art, rather they fell somewhere in between and I spent a lot of my honours year trying to identify and pin down what this in between is. I like the idea of being trans disciplinary practitioner producing work that spans art, craft and design. Essentially I’m a toy maker with a design background. I think my work affiliates more with art, things are hand-made, hand-sewn but the design side comes into it through exhibition planning, pattern making and product development.
8. Do you have any new projects or toys that you are working on and can tell us about?
I’m collaborating with two other artists, Katie Jacobs who is a ceramicist and Rohani Osman a knit and crochet artist, for an upcoming exhibition, New Holland (Veni Vidi Vici) in October at C3 contemporary art space at the Abbotsford Convent. The exhibition questions the idea of patriotism and environmentalism by displaying Australian native flora and fauna as a lavish Christmas feast. I have a folder filled with recipes, references of Australian history and have been deliberating on how to turn my list of animals into recognisable tasty treats. Most recently I have been experimenting with making my own dyes from plant specimens collected from around my family’s farm. It will be interesting to see how things turn out. I will say that I’m dead keen on making a life size dugong head and pygmy possum tails as napkin rings.
Fingers Crossed, brooch, a hand-sewn grisly good luck offering.
9. What is your favorite material to work in? and why?
Felt made from Alpaca fleece.
I purchase carded alpaca fleece from a local processor, but originally I started out using fleece from my family’s Alpacas stud. After shearing I set aside fleece from Vladimir, one of my favourite alpacas. I made a washing bag from a laundry curtain to wash the fleece in, then I hand carded the fleece with dog combs in place of flick carders. This was ridiculously time consuming, so now I do this only for very special projects and commissions.
Alpaca felt is wonderfully soft to work with and I enjoy the hand felting process. I like that my toys are made from fabric that I’ve hand felted, it adds to their story creates something that distinguishes them from mass produced toys. Solid sheets are great for larger heavier works, but for more delicate pieces I use a traditional felting technique called Nuno, where you felt onto silk chiffon. You end up with a base fabric that has an incredible quality of lightness to it.
10. What is the most rewarding thing about creating your toys?
It’s pretty cheesy, but it’s great when someone tells you your work is good. When I send things to overseas customers I’m a tad afraid that it might not meet their expectations and they haven’t had a chance to touch the fabrics and see it in person. So when I hear back from them that they adore it or that it takes pride and place on their bookcase, it’s a real boost. I sold a toy to a girl in the US, she liked it so much that she made a sketch inspired by it, and got it tattooed. I was chuffed that I had inspired someone else artistically.
Til Death Do Us Part, (1 of 2) female fairy wren head, hand nuno felted using alpaca fleece and silk fibers.
11.Do you have any suggestions for books or websites (design or non-design) that design droplets readers should be reading?
A couple of years ago a friend put me on to Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, it’s the kind of comic that after reading I wondered how I did not know about it earlier.
Books: Watchmen, DMZ, and William Gibson.
Web: www.passiveaggressivenotes.com, photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com, xkcd.com, cakewrecks.blogspot.com
12. Brittany, thank you very much for taking the time to talk with us here at design droplets. In closing, do you have any last thoughts or advice you would like to share?
As an emerging designer, I’m not much of an authority, but I try to keep the following things in mind:
Be confident in your work. Not everything goes to plan, but if you stick with it, you’ll get there. Don’t be afraid to show your work to others
Get involved. Apply for competitions, join collectives, go to exhibitions, and participate in the art and design community.
Network. Meet other designers and artists and talk with them, hand out your business card, put your name out there.
You can check out Brittany’s fantastic work on her website or you can see it in person at Craft Victoria’s Craft Hatch Incubator Market in Melbourne this coming April. You can also purchase Brittany’s amazing creations via her Etsy Store.
