Creativity, Yarn… and 400 Screws! A New Look for Walton Institute’s e-Textile Lab

A clever and colourful new wall sign has been added to Walton Institute’s Smart Material and e-Textile Innovation Laboratory. The ‘e-Textile’ sign was devised and created by Walton Institute UX/UI design intern Kevin Power and is made from 400 screws, 10 lengths of multi-coloured yarn and a MDF baseboard spray-painted in white. The sign sits in the centre of a larger wall decal, designed to look like a cross-stitched circuit diagram, which was printed by local Waterford business SwiftPrint. 

In the Smart Material and e-Textile Innovation Laboratory, technology is applied to fabric and clothing to create innovative smart garments, for example, biometric textile materials and fabrics embedded with sensors. With this is mind, Kevin’s brief was twofold: create a bright, colourful and eye-catching sign, and incorporate into it the work of the Smart Material and e-Textile Innovation Laboratory. 

“In the researching phase of the design I came across Ana Martins, a Portuguese artist and graphic embroiderer who creates works of art with nails and thread,” says Kevin. “After seeing her work I was inspired and thought a similar medium would work well for the Smart Material and e-Textile Innovation Laboratory. It’s visual and textural, and really engages the senses. Once I decided on the medium a design representing the work being done in the e-Textile Lab took shape pretty quickly.”

Kevin created the plaque design in Adobe Illustrator and from there marked the spray-painted baseboard with pilot holes. Next came the screws. “I highly underestimated the number of screws,” says Kevin. “I had about 100 and they were gone by the second letter, so I counted and found I was short by about three hundred!” Extra screws obtained and put securely in place, Kevin then carefully wound each one with yarn to create the textured letters. 

Kevin says: “I’m so happy with how the sign turned out and delighted to have something I created on display here in Walton Institute. Doing this reminded me of my time in secondary school where I created murals around the school. Putting my designs on the walls around me seems to be a habit of mine!”

Click to learn more about Walton Institute’s Smart Material and e-Textile Innovation Laboratory.