Laura Spring x Local Heroes Travel Pouch

Textile designer and maker Laura Spring was commissioned to design a travel themed product that would highlight her trademark love for colour, print, pattern and process. The result is the Arrow Travel Pouch, a screen printed cotton cosmetics bag with a hand-stamped leather zip puller and waterproof lining. Laura’s design is a stylish way to carry your favourite travel essentials from place to place with ease.

“This commission allowed me revisit a pouch I designed a couple of years ago. Whilst recently traveling through security at an airport with a wristlet pouch in my bag I realised it was the perfect size to carry the clear plastic bag of liquid and gels that so many of us use at the airport. For this exhibition I have taken the wristlet back to it’s original form and added a waterproof lining and hand-stamped leather pullers.”

Accessories are at the heart of Laura’s successful business which has seen her collaborate with artists, designers and companies including Laura Aldridge, Ciara Phillips, House of Voltaire, Heal’s, Lush Cosmetics, Belle & Sebastian, The National Trust for Scotland, and Not Another Bill. “The arrow print, initially designed as a print in my weather series, seemed like a playful fit for an airport consumer with everyone rushing in many directions.”

Working with local manufacturers is important to Laura – originally from Staffordshire – and the business she is building, with all products made within the UK and the majority made within a 20 mile radius of her Glasgow studio. Bold patterns mixed with bright colours transformed into beautifully crafted products underpin Laura’s work. Inspiration changes from collection to collection but past work has centred around the relationship between motif and function and most recently, nature’s camouflage.

Materials: screen printed cotton duck, hand stamped leather puller, navy 4oz nylon waterproof lining

Local Heroes, an exhibition of Scottish design

Edinburgh Airport, 1—31 August 2016

Local Heroes is a cultural programme developed for Scotland’s Year of Innovation, Architecture and Design 2016 to promote Scotland’s designers and makers nationally and internationally.

We asked some of the country’s leading designers to reimagine the souvenir and produce a unique travel-themed design object. The resulting collection celebrates a new movement in Scottish design that embraces colour, pattern, and the use of innovative techniques and materials.

Join us at Edinburgh Airport Plaza, and visit us online at localheroes.design – where you can check opening times, sign-up to our events programme, read interviews, and watch short films featuring the designers.