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Interiors Company Is Hung Up On Glenn’s Designs

A final year degree student at Cleveland College of Art & Design has won an interior design competition, which he entered as part of his course, and will now see his wallpaper designs go into production and sold online to the public.

Glenn Todd, 22, from Normanby in Middlesbrough is currently studying for his BA (Hons) Textiles & Surface Design at the specialist art and design college. As part of a live project with online interiors company, Feathr.com, he submitted four designs for wallpaper and three of his designs have been chosen and will go into production and go on sale through Feathr.com’s online shop to the public.

Feathr.com is community of artists creating original wallpaper, where designers submit their own creations. Customers are then encouraged to vote for their favourite designs, which then go on sale, with artists earning royalties and clients receiving design direct from independent artists.

The artisan company’s mission is to ‘more art, less decoration’. With a concise brief from Feathr.com to ‘design wallpaper that’s art’, Glenn explains where his inspiration came from.

“My designs developed from my second year interiors project, which was based around natural ornamentation. Nature has always been a great inspiration to me and my work. The essence of nature has always given me a feeling of liberation.

“I also liked the concept of bringing the outdoors indoors, surrounding the home with a celebration of natural ornamentation. I focused mainly on crystals and the process of crystallisation but also featured the tropical rainforest.

“Although there appears to be a diverse contrast within these designs, the common link is the beauty of nature. “

Glenn competed with 300 other artists and 1000 wallpaper designs, and over 47,000 voters chose the 100 best designs. These wallpaper designs will soon be on sale, with Feathr.com planning to open its online shop in March 2015.

Glenn was over the moon to hear the results. He said: “I was in lesson when I received the e-mail, which I thought was going to be a short update on the selection process or even an e-mail to say that sadly my designs had not been chosen!

“After ten minutes or so my curiosity got the best of me, I opened up the e-mail and I couldn’t believe what I was reading. Not one but three of my designs had been chosen to be put into production. It’s absolutely flattering that people think my designs are of great commercial value and the idea that people will be able to decorate their own homes with my work is a dream come true. I am elated with the news and I hope that this could be the start of something great!”

Tom Puukko, founder of Feathr.com, said: ““We want to change what people think when they think wallpaper. We want to lift wallpaper out of the decoration ghetto to bring it closer to art. Art changes culture. Decoration matches the carpet.”

“Glenn’s work really stood out the moment we saw it. He has real craft and his work cleverly subverts the traditions of wallpaper design.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Kathryn Clapham .