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Rent. Move. Repeat.

Martha Ashby

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Martha is a London based textile designer specialising in print from East Sussex. With a practice rooted in screen printing, surface design and material exploration her work combines traditional print methods with contemporary design thinking. Inspired by the everyday, Martha's designs aim to capture and celebrate the simplicity and wonder in routine - viewing textiles as a tool for change, transforming not just space, but the rituals and rhythms of daily life.

Martha is a London based textile designer specialising in print from East Sussex. With a practice...

Rent. Move. Repeat.

For many young people in London, this cycle defines home life - short contracts, constant change, and blank white walls that don’t feel like your own.

This project reimagines wallpaper as a flexible, renter-friendly system: foldable, modular, and made to move with you. Inspired in concept and print design by the homes I’ve lived in over the years studying in London, each piece captures fragments of spaces, moods, and memories. The wallpapers are printed double sided with digital and screen print, which when folded reveal a large variety of design combinations which can adapt depending on personal taste and physical space.

The wallpapers and corresponding double-sided blinds can sit as stand alone pieces or be combined to build a larger scene. They fold down to sketchbook size, making them easy to carry, store, and reshape.

Designed to transform with your space and your style, they offer a creative way to personalise any room without damage or commitment. So even if your address changes every year, your sense of home can stay with you.

Final work

Two photos showing folding wallpaper design, wallpaper printed in both sublimation and screen print and shows abstracted imagery of things in the home
Wallpaper length screen printed in purple featuring floral fabric print set against a white background with a red flowering plant in front of it
Two images showing folding wallpaper, screen and digitally printed in greens and blues. Second is a close up of wallpaper and corresponding blind.

Research and process

Four gouache paintings showing scenes of the home, a close up of a light switch, a red curtain, a hallway and a skirting board.

Research

I gathered my initial research through photography and painting - documenting my space as it was in the moment and looking back to memories of past bedrooms and flats. Working in enhanced colour, I celebrate the beauty in these seemingly mundane everyday scenes.

Four images showing my process, paper folding of photography, screen printed shadow from cut paper stencil, and two double sided blind mock ups.

Process

I worked with paper a lot in this project, starting by simply printing my photography double sided on the university printers and folding and combining the imagery and observing the surprising combinations, proportions and designs that came from this. I worked double sided throughout the project to keep engaging with this idea of spontaneity when two pieces interact.

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Rent. Move. Repeat.

Rent. Move. Repeat. For many young people in London, this cycle defines home life - short contracts, constant change, and blank white walls that don’t feel like your own.</spa...

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