TMOD | Scratch it, Rip it, Sew it, Paint it, Open it, Twist it?!
Welcome to Milenka & Georgie, the two Australian ladies behind the inspirational cult label TMOD.
“TMOD output experiential Australian design. Led by multidisciplinary artists Georgie Swift and Milenka Osen, TMOD’s interactive stationery and jewellery stories have transfixed a cult following. After graduation from the college of fine arts (COFA, UNSW), the duo established TMOD as a vehicle to explore design boundaries and challenge expectations of functionality and purpose. Blending materials and processes, TMOD’s manifesto is to design without constraints. Across graphic, fashion and product design they celebrate the unexpected and consider the experience of every design outing. Their animated products trigger emotions, transport feelings and create memories.”
What is the essence and vision of your business TMOD that you strive to bring to your customers?
At the heart of TMOD’s philosophy is ‘design without constraint’, to merge the boundaries and challenge the expectations of functionality and purpose. TMOD strives to bring fun to the everyday and challenge people’s expectations. All TMOD products require the human touch and tactility so at the essence is interaction and creating an experience.
What brings customers to purchase a product by TMOD ?
Customers are generally looking for something out of the ordinary and unique
What is the best thing about owning your own business?
You can manifest anything creative you want as you choose what to design. We can have creative freedom to design within our own values and philosophy. Also, the flexibility is great too. We work hard when we need (which is most of the time), however we can also plan to take time off when we need and also factor our travel and adventure into our work lifestyle. We love to travel so we can factor that into our planning too in terms of overseas trade shows.
New Love scratchie packs of 10 that each have different love quotes revealed beneath the silver.
How much of your style flows into how you live, how you dress, what you read?
We both have a similar style (vintage, bohemian, designer ) which flows through all aspects of our lives. Our houses/studio looks like one of the scenes from our scratchie cards and we are characters from these landscapes that we have created through our TMOD designs.
We know what we love about TMOD but what do you love about Paper Runway?
Paper Runway is the best paper magazine around. It’s inspiring and a delight to read and touch. There aren’t too many magazine that make us excited to get our hands on them, especially in the physical sense as we love the tactility as much as the content itself!
What enlivens your creativity day in, day out?
Living a balanced healthy life, sunshine, a morning swim in the ocean, yoga, surfing, music, a good film, a trip to the markets, making delicious studio lunches, including experimenting with food for our new project the Veggie Patch Van.
Which blogs do you read daily? Your best blog find?
http://thedailysmudge.blogspot.com.au
http://www.seesawdesigns.blogspot.com.au
http://www.designworklife.com
http://mynewroots.blogspot.com.au
http://myloveforyou.typepad.com/my_love_for_you/
http://thedesignfiles.net/
Our pinterest
http://pinterest.com/tmoddesign
What is your favourite paper product?
Yellow Owl Workshop stamps.
What is your relationship to paper?
I’m constantly amazed by paper, the plethora of things which can be created with it.
Paper is such a great material to experiment with both in 2D and 3D and it just keeps surprising.
How different is working on paper to working with any other medium?
What freedoms does it allow and what are its limitations?
We apply our same design process irrespective of our materials as we work across several mediums (bags, jewellery etc) However there are many things to consider with paper, as it is a material that is so soft and fragile, yet can be so strong in many ways. It is flay and brings life to illustration and 2D, yet it can take a form of its own intrinsic beauty too.
What is next for TMOD ?
TMOD has a new product range about to launch. This includes our new chalkboard labels kits which come as a packet of 12 stickers with borders and a stick of chalk and can be used to label just about anything. Jars, folders etc. We also have a new scratchie product: Love scratchie packs of 10 that each have different love quotes revealed beneath the silver. They are perfect for place cards on weddings or as a gift to a loved one. There are also many other Christmas specific interactive stationery designs coming soon including scratchie bonbons with a limited edition of red scratchie ink