Painting by Jumpers

A participatory design product: colour-in wallpaper with your clothes

This is a panoramic wallpaper that has a second adhesive layer which the user can choose to intervene with and dictate the colour of by leaning against or 'dabbing' clothes on it like a paintbrush.

This piece was one of a series of products created for my final degree show at Goldsmiths, centered around the 'PlusYou' brand concept - embedding a participatory co-design process into the objects.




These projects, through encouraging the user to become the end-designer as well as end user, create a heightened sense of ownership, a connection with the material world around us where we are informed of where from or how an object came to be.

The graphic chosen was the very first idea I had and then came back to - a natural process of growth which was ideal for this process. A woodland was chosen over other ideas (repeating chintz patterns were a more obvious choice, but why follow the norm when you can tell a story?) to show that the image could be anything, not just wallpaper but posters, etc. and represent other uses for the process. The user can co-ordinate the paper to their liking as the printed graphic has been made so neutral, and as there are adhesive patches on the full length of the material, even children can reveal previously invisible shapes.