Unity Peg : Press

USA Living Magazine 2001

"Kitchen Art: Growing up in a household where the dishwasher was a person, not a machine, I got to know dish towels intimately. The chore of drying often fell to me until I was tall enough to reach the sink, and it always seemed less tedious when I could pick a fresh towel out of the cupboard and guess what pattern or picture it might reveal when unfolded. Why would anyone collect such a lowly object? Maybe its because beauty or originality seems all the more affecting when the setting is mundane...

Taking an historical look at dish towels is like taking a tour through the whole of 20th century textile design. In the Depression thirties, designers drew on the downtrodden American publics escapist yearnings and conjure tropical scenes and cheerful flowers. The Pop sixties see the designs become more abstract and colours turn electric with wild combinations. Or maybe its calendars that catch your eye, or harvest themes, or word games or menus, or maps of your home state"

Space September 14 2000

Creative chaos reigns at furniture designer Jane Atfield’s home, says Pamela Buxton. Photographs by James Mitchell.

Take a few steps into furniture designer Jane Atfield’s home and you stumble into the latest in her long line of unexpected work materials — straw. Bales of it piled up in the hall set the scene for the decidedly unpretentious place she shares with artist husband Robert Shepherd and son Noah, above a bookshop on Gray’s Inn Road.
Forget minimalism. Atfield’s family enjoys a cheerfully chaotic living arrangement, with their main room serving as kitchen, play room, office, guest room and dining room all in one. On the top floor of the town house are two bedrooms, while a shed in the tiny garden serves as a studio until Atfield gets around to renting a separate workspace.

Atfield, who has just designed a multi-functional trolley for the Oreka range of children’s furniture wanted the home to be as inclusive as possible for four-year-old Noah. There are toys and drawings everywhere, with Noah’s drawings competing with his father’s paintings for wall space. "We’ve tried to make it child-friendly, very relaxed, probably to the detriment of a civilized interior;’ says Atfield, who is expecting another child next year.

It’s a busy time all round. Though Atfield is best known for reclaimed plastic furniture, she has just diversified into textiles with her husband, and is preparing to show these plus a range of new interior products and furniture at the 100% Design show which runs from October 5-8.

She fell into furniture design ten years ago after taking a year out from architectural training to study furniture, and never going back. Since finishing her MA in furniture design at the Royal College of Art, Atfield has researched unusual materials, starting with felt, then pioneering recycled plastics through her (now wound-down) company, Made of Waste.

Her latest explorations are into straw, rope and bamboo. The straw work developed from an outdoor seating project for Noah’s nursery, using bales wrapped in discarded lorry tarpaulins, and developed into pieces for inside the home as well. With the rope, Atfield is experimenting with horizontal and vertical hanging systems using tension-mounted hooks as hangers. Prototypes hang on the walls of the house, along with tea towels from the couple’s new textile company UP, adorned with washing-up bottles, u-bends and plugholes. "For the first time it’s something I really want to sell, rather than some rarefied thing in a gallery. It’s really good fun. I could design a tea towel a week," says Atfield, who plans to extend the range, currently on sale at SCP and American Retro.

Also in the pipeline is an eagerly anticipated project for Ikea —perhaps the only thing that could persuade the family to move from this home they clearly adore. "If we weren’t here, we’d have to live somewhere very different;’ she says. "Like a wood in Sweden..."

Tea towels by UP will be on show from October 1-14 at Bar italia, 22 Frith Street, London WI.

Telegraph Magazine 7 September 2002

Clean Start

Too much time in the kitchen forced a husband-and-wife team to take a fresh look at household products. By Ali Watkinson. Photograph by Tino Tedaldi

Until the formation of design company Unity Peg two years ago, the drying-up cloth was perhaps the only domestic item that had been spared from reinvention. Recent years have seen radiators reborn as wall-mounted chrome coils, lemon squeezers transformed into space-age sculpture, even lavatory brushes remodelled into futuristic plastic shapes.

The drying-up cloth, meanwhile, has remained a cosy, cottagey norm, favoured by gift shops and tourists alike. But that was before the self-effacing husband-and-wife team, furniture designer Jane Atfield and artist Robert Shepherd, got their hands on it.

Their design company began life after exposure to unprecedented levels of domesticity. The arrival of their two children brought the average tea towel’s visual shortcomings into sharp focus, and created the impetus for a joint project.

‘Tea towels are ubiquitous, something we all use every day, but we couldn’t find any that suited today’s modern interiors: dull, cottagey florals and tourist souvenirs seemed to prevail,’ says Atfield. ‘We had been looking for a business idea with low start-up costs that we could work on from the kitchen table in the evenings when the children were in bed. This offered a new area that we could explore together creatively, too. It’s taken off so well, though, that we now work day shifts as well.’ Other work commitments have had to be put temporarily on hold.

Inspiration for the first series of groovy, eye-catching designs, printed on premium cotton, came from other equally mundane domestic objects such as bottles of cleaning fluids — the bestseller apparently — the kitchen sink, a drainer stacked with dishes and that saviour of lost wedding rings, the U-bond. Every design is drawn by Shepherd from objects in their own central London kitchen that they use every day.

The tea towels sell for around £7.50 and the tablecloths that have followed in their wake for £75. Oven gloves and aprons are next on the agenda, both of which will have a suitably modest price tag. ‘For a designer, being able to produce something cheaply is especially nice because it makes your work more accessible,’ says Atfield.
Subsequent tea towel designs have become more directly personal: they feature the couple’s bookshelf, a memory map’ showing Shepherd’s favourite places in London, and a line from their elder son’s favourite nursery rhyme.

can imagine that in 10 years’ time we will have this huge record of our life as a family, entirely in tea towels,’ says Atfield. ‘I suppose it will be far more practical than a photograph album.’ Unity Pegs 020-7278 6971; www.unitypeg.com

Livingetc September 2002

Flock Option

Competition was fierce at this summers Top Drawer design exhibition, the trade show where shop owners stock up on the best new products. It was nearly impossible for Livingetc, as one of the judges, to select a winner. Dynamic ceramics duo Hub nabbed Best New Product for its Flock range of bone china pieces (above right), influenced by, you guessed it, Seventies flocked wallpaper. Runner-up was Unity Peg (right), with its bold, graphic printed textiles. Catch these fab designs in a shop near you soon. Hub mugs, fl5; platter, £35; bowl, £30 — stockists on 01273 385684. Unity Peg tea towels (right) £7.50; table cloths, £74. Call 020 7278 6971 or visit www.unitypeg.co.uk.

Selvedge
April/May 2005

The London-based company Unity Peg - established in 2000 by husband-and-wife duo, artist Robert Shepherd and furniture designer Jane Atfield - was also prompted by the idea of fusing art and design. 'After having a second child we were looking for a way of working from home on a project that would allow us to collaborate creatively together and explore visual ideas,' explains Jane. 'Tea towels seemed a perfect vehicle for this and ripe for challenge because of their somewhat predictable and prosaic nature. Our designs are characterised by bright colours, bold outlines and graphic imagery depicting everyday things.' Printed on cotton and sold for a fairly modest price, Unity Peg's tea towels have proved a big hit amongst the design cognoscenti but also enjoy wider appeal.

Their first collection, Wash Up, was wryly self-referential. Designs included aerial views and cross-sections of sinks and plugs, a drainer stacked with crockery and a row of plastic detergent bottles. In the Secondary Functions collection, printed patterns double up as toys. One features an image of a rag doll, with instructions for self-assembly. Another depicts a snakes and ladders board. A series called On the Shelf is adorned with stripy vases, stacks of tableware and rows of books. Their latest collection, Still Lives, features line drawings of miscellaneous domestic objects, such as plants, bottles, jugs and fruits. Two tablecloths have also been produced. One depicts a giant image of a bicycle; the other, called Picnic, features birds in silhouette, and can double as an educational tool.

The Times Magazine
Saturday 9 April 2005
Two's a company

Furniture designer Jane Atfield and her husband, artist Robert Shepherd, gave up separate careers after the birth of their second child. "With one child you can carry on much as before, but after Dante was born we decided to move away from accepted patterns of childrearing," says Robert. Now Jane and Robert fit work around Noah, 8, Dante, 4 and baby Beckett's routines.

They started designing cotton tea towels from their London flat in 2001, finding inspiration for the illustrations from their domestic environment. "We tried desk accessories, but the investment proved too expensive. The tea towels were low-risk and ubiquitous, so the area was ripe for commercial exploration," says Jane.

The success of the household items, hand-drawn with kitchen sinks, bottles of cleaning fluid and plant pots, took them by surprise. Unity Peg has fans in Slovenia, Australia and Scandinavia, "where the imagery resonates with their sensibility, I think," says Jane.

Gender has no bearing on the design process for Jane and Robert. We bring individual characteristics to our work, but they're not determined by our sex," says Jane. Both agree that living and working in close quarters "can be tricky", and Jane teaches part-time. "You have to have a bit of another life or you'd go loopy," says Robert. The family head out to the North Downs at weekends; they rent an ex-cabbie's glorified shed in Box Hill. "It's beautiful. The kids can run around in the woods - it's our saviour," says Robert.

With big guns such as Hermes requesting designs for their windows and touring exhibitions with the British Council, Unity Peg is on a roll. A new collection, Still Life, has just been launched and more designs are in the making, with input from the children. "Noah did a fox, which sells really well, and Dante's working on a chicken. Their attention to detail is fantastic," says Jane.

How we live now is about family for Jane and Robert. "We haven't downsized, because we were never far enough up there to downsize," says Robert. "What we were certain about was that we both wanted to be involved in raising our kids - it's our job."

Elle Decoration
January 2005

Want to cut a dash while drying the dishes? The treat yourself to Unity Peg's new 'Still Life' tea towels, decorated with bold images of plants, fruit kitsch kitchen containers. Furniture designer Jane Atfield and her artist husband Robert Shepherd started designing cotton tea towels in 2001, finding inspiration for the illustrations in the kitchen of their Bloomsbury flat. The first series, 'Wash Up', featured prosaic household items, from cheery cleaning-product bottles to sinks and U-bends, while follow-up favourites ranged from bookshelves to crockery, and tablecloths sporting bicycles and birds. The latest range (shown here) is more rustic and trad-with-a twist. 'We mixed old pots with 50s designs and covered them in colour to make them look folksy', explains Robert, who came up with three different patterns: 'Aloe Vera', 'Sunflower' and 'Orchid'. Available in nine neons and neutrals, the images are all drawn with a 'thick, black Patrick Caulfield-inspired outline'. Next up are fabrics and shopping bags. Watch this space...

Blueprint December 2005

Chelsea Craft Fair
Led by furniture designer Jane Atfield and artist Robert Shepherd, Unity Peg showed a new range of textiles in two series: Rainbow and Toys. Rainbow features a pattern called Drips, which was made into bags and tea towels, and uses bold poster-paint colours in designs that are reminiscent of camouflage. The Toys series is based on three drawings by Shepherd of randomly stacked model cars, aeroplanes and animals. With their graphic, black outlines the designs translate brilliantly into fabric for children's shoebags.

Crafts Council Magazine Sep/Oct 2007

New graphic work by designers Jane Atfield and Robert Shepherd, who work as Unity Peg, can now be seen spread over six floors at London's Great Ormond Street Hospital. The two were commissioned by the hospital's Art Trust and Juliet Dean of PACE Projects to make the new Octav Botner Building more appealing to children. The results are a combination of beautiful, quirky and humorous vinyl transfers, themed around the floor names (Ocean, Caterpillar, Kingfisher, Bumblebee, Butterfly, Sky) and include giant weather symbols in the plaster fitting room, shelves of reassuring objects in the consultation room, a lift swarming with swallows, urban foxes stalking the corridors. The idea is to offer the children plenty of distraction, with added educational content.