Green designers Contexture Design have set their sights on naptime, creating a stylish hanging mobile for babies, hip parents and anyone who appreciates good design in their nest.
"As The Crow Flies," depicts a family of crows returning to a rookery, or communal nesting place. Employing eye-catching colours, shapes and moving parts, the mobiles are handmade from recycled travel maps and paper, wire and thread.
While pop culture and mythology have often associated crows with dark themes, Contexture co-founder Nathan Lee says crows create a surprisingly emotional family portrait.
"Crows are very family oriented animals," says Lee. "They mate for life, live in family groups, and even though their offspring may travel the country and live in other cities, they often return to visit."
"That said, crows do look pretty bad ass," Lee adds. "We wanted to create something for people looking for alternatives to the super-cute, Disney-type of children's product - that's why we rendered the crows realistically."
The mobiles are constructed from recycled black paper (30 per cent post-consumer waste, the highest percentage available) and outdated roadmaps salvaged from travel companies' recycling bins. Seven two-sided hanging pieces are laser-cut to depict 14 crows and a large hand-folded tree. Babies are known to see contrast best, so the crows are rendered in black while the flipside reveals the colourful travel maps.
Inspiration for the mobile comes from the daily flights of crows over Contexture's design studio in Vancouver, BC, says Contexture partner Trevor Coghill. "Every evening, in cities all over North America, you can see hundreds of crows flying home," he says. "We used maps from across the continent to reflect the universality of this phenomenon and the distances these birds travel."
"As The Crow Flies" are available online for $49 with free shipping for any online sales. The mobiles have been designed to fit in recycled envelopes for shipping, reducing the need for further packaging and related environmental impacts.
To see the mobile online, visit www.contexture.ca/asthecrowflies. To download print quality images, visit www.contexture.ca/media. See below for product and company backgrounders.
Nathan Lee
Contexture Design
604-729-2444
Contexture is an award winning Vancouver-based multidisciplinary design firm comprised of workshop (product design and fabrication), studio (graphic art and design) and fieldwork (landscape design and illustration) departments.
The firm's two designers, Nathan Lee and Trevor Coghill, are graduates of UBC's Landscape Architecture program. Their work emphasizes simple, elegant and sustainable design, and is often inspired by reclaimed materials with historical, cultural or environmental significance.
Contexture products include "Bentwood," a line of wooden accessories featuring the "Coffee Cuff," made from reclaimed architectural veneers, "45" iPod cases made from recycled vinyl records and cassette tapes, and a line of wildlife-themed hanging mobiles including "As the Crow Files" and "Redfish", both made from found maps.
Contexture has been featured in New York Times Style Magazine and Globe and Mail, and has appeared on CBC television and radio. They have participated in design-related events such as the West Xprssd exhibit of emerging Western Canadian designers, and were awarded Best in Category in Industrial Design at the 2008 Design Exchange Awards for their mobile, "As the Crow Flies". Their work has been shown at the Museum of Vancouver and in a an exhibit called CUT/COPY, part of the Toronto International Design Festival hosted by the Institute for Contemporary Culture at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.
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