Josefine Brodd is the Swedish textile designer, and recent graduate, who was the runner up for Think’s textile competition. We interviewed her on her design inspiration and plans for the future.
What was the main source of inspiration behind your textile design?
As is the case with a lot of my designs, DRAKE was influenced by my native home Sweden. The brief was to interpret the word Dragon, so I used DRAKE the Swedish name for Dragon as my starting point.
The inspiration itself came from the book “Bröderna Lejonhjärta” The brothers Lionheart written by one of my favorite childhood authors Astrid Lindgren.
Ilon Wiklander the illustrator of the book did an amazing job portraying the evil dragon ‘Katla’ in her images.
When I read the brief it reminded of reading the book and seeing those illustrations, so straight away I knew I wanted to do my own interpretation of the evil dragon.
How were the ideas behind the print developed?
I designed my print with different layers, to represent the scales on Katla’s skin and what that might look like up close.
Over the past year I have been really interested in developing different ink & watercolour techniques, so this print was originally hand drawn using different inks and water paints. I wanted to give my dragon a more beautiful side not just the dark scary one that most people have in in mind. The watrcolours allowed me to use more subdued and softer tones, before the being put into the computer for print.
What are your thoughts on the direct-to-fabric digital print technology that Think Positive offers?
Their digital print technology was amazing and it was really enjoyable working with the team, they were able to give a lot of good advice!
The quality of their base-cloths and finished prints were great. For me I was really glad that the design and colours came out so true.
What does it mean to you to be one of the winners of Think Positive’s debut student textile design competition with Ultimo TAFE?
It’s a big honor and having my work recognized by people within the industry is great. It feels like some of the late nights were worth it.
Think Positive offers us a great opportunity. They have really been so easy to work with and very supportive of new textile designers.
What are your plans for the future?
Coming up I have the chance to collaborate with a couple of different designers and brands, which is really exciting.
Other than that I am looking forward to continue developing my own brand to see where that takes me, be it creating prints for fashion or interiors. At the moment it’s quite nice being open to everything.
And where to next…?
I can’t wait to go home to Stockholm to visit family and friends. It will be nice to have a white Christmas again. Even after 6 years I still find the hot Christmas strange.
Going home is also great source of inspiration for me. I am able to get some new ideas and I always try to bring something different back with me to Australia that I can use for inspiration in new designs.
