Designing for touch: why texture matters as much as color
Designing for touch: why texture matters as much as color
August has a particular feeling to it. The heat sits heavy in the afternoon, and by early evening there's that first hint — just a whisper, really — that something is beginning to shift. I find myself reaching for things that feel good in my hands during this time of year. A linen scarf that isn't quite warm enough for fall but feels like a small promise. A bag with a woven strap that has just enough roughness to it that you know it's real.
That reaching — I think that's what got me thinking seriously about texture in the first place.
We talk about color constantly, and I get it. Color is the first thing you see. It's what catches you from across a room or stops your scroll. But texture is what makes you stay. It's what your hand goes to when you pick something up off a table, what your fingers read before your eyes have finished deciding. I noticed this years ago at a market when I watched person after person walk past a beautiful bright yellow bag and stop, every single time, at a natural linen one sitting right beside it. The linen wasn't louder. It was just asking to be touched.
When I'm working on a piece — whether it's a table runner or a handbag — I spend a lot of time with the material before I do anything else. I hold it. I run it between my fingers. I think about what it will feel like after a few months of real use, whether the surface will soften or stay crisp, whether the weave will hold its character. Color is part of the decision, of course, but it's almost secondary to me now. I've passed on beautiful colors because the fabric felt like it was trying too hard. And I've built entire pieces around a fabric that was, honestly, quite plain, because the weight of it in my hand felt exactly right.
There's something grounding about that kind of attention. I believe we're made to notice the physical world — to be present in it, not just looking at it from a distance. When a piece of cloth has real texture to it, it keeps pulling you back into the moment. A smooth, uniform surface asks nothing of you. A nubby weave, a slight ridge, a raised pattern — those things ask you to slow down for a second. I don't think that's a small thing.
This time of year I tend toward natural fibers with some weight and irregularity to them. Cotton that has a slight slub. Linen blends that breathe but still have substance. The kind of materials that feel like they were made by someone paying attention — because they usually were. I'm not interested in perfect. I'm interested in honest.
For table runners especially, I think about how the piece will feel under someone's hand at dinner, when they're reaching across the table to pass something or just resting their arm there mid-conversation. That moment of contact matters. It's small, and most people won't think about it consciously, but it contributes to whether a room feels like a place you want to be.
Same with a scarf or a bag. You're going to carry that bag every day. You're going to put it down on chairs and counters and car seats and pick it up again a hundred times. The texture of the strap, the give of the body, the way the closure feels under your thumb — all of that is part of the experience of it. If it only looked good, it would stop mattering to you pretty quickly.
I started ArtInScienceDesigns because I wanted to make things that held up to that kind of daily contact. Things that got better as they were used. If you're curious what I mean, the shop is a good place to start — I try to describe the feel of things as honestly as I can, not just how they photograph.
But I'd also just invite you to notice, the next time you're moving through your own home or getting dressed in the morning, what you reach for first. Not what looks best. What feels right in your hands. That instinct knows something worth listening to.
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