Laura-Jane Atkinson is a Manchester based designer-maker specialising in handmade interior accessories that re-appropriate the context of often under-celebrated materials with the aim to highlight overlooked qualities. Her design process is rooted in design by making, allowing the personality of materials to drive the nature of sampling.
The studio produces commissioned and batch manufactured statement products, that blend traditional craftsmanship with material innovation; ‘jewellery for the home’.
The LIO Single Stem Vase, LIN Pendant, and PIEN Batch Stem Vase form the studios first product range, LINO Lab. All the products are driven by the potential of the under-celebrated qualities of Linoleum flooring, one of the most environmentally clean surface materials, yet largely replaced by vinyl flooring which is quicker, cheaper, brighter.
The product range disrupts familiar associations of Linoleum as a flooring product by re-appropriating it to craft – a context that is deeply rooted in its production but rarely noted in its mass-manufactured setting. By transforming this industrialised product into something intimately social, the products celebrate Linoleum’s malleable personality.
LINO Lab calls on you to unlearn Linoleum – betray the familiar, shake it off, speculate with a hammer.
You can see more of Laura’s work on her website and Instagram.