Laura Carwardine
Laura has always been fascinated by how things are made and how things can be joined together. She admires the functional simplicity and natural materials in Scandinavian product design and believes that design can and should play an important role in everyday life. Laura grew up in Calgary, and moved to Toronto to attend Ryerson University where she earned a Bachelor of Interior Design degree in 2011. After graduation, Laura worked as a junior interior designer on commercial projects at a large architectural firm before designing restaurants, lighting, furniture, and feature art installations at a multi-disciplinary design studio. In her own time, Laura has exhibited furniture at the Prototype exhibit and jewelry at the Designboom Mart, both at the Toronto Interior Design Show. She also fabricated a large-scale cross stitch installation by hand for a restaurant in downtown Toronto. At Umbra, Laura is excited to work as a product designer and to help with sourcing and specifying materials and colours for products. Laura finds inspiration by exploring cities and by taking detail photos of interesting patterns, textures, and colours. She loves to learn about new materials and manufacturing techniques and enjoys the process of making things by hand.