Exploring Visual & design Language

One of the hardest parts of creating artefacts inspired by another culture is the fear of accidentally misrepresenting or dishonouring it. Whenever we begin researching a new culture, our first step is always to reach out to cultural holders and practitioners. Sometimes those conversations happen. Quite often, despite our best intentions, they don't.

That leaves an interesting question. - How do you learn enough to create something respectful without simply reproducing what already exists?

Recently, while researching Māori art for our Matariki collection, we realised we had been asking the wrong question. We spent days looking at pendants, carvings, combs and decorative objects, hoping one of them would spark an idea. Instead, we found ourselves asking a completely different question:

What makes this design instantly recognisable before I even identify the symbols?

That single question changed how we approached the entire project.

Rather than collecting motifs, we started looking for a visual language. Like spoken language, every artistic tradition has vocabulary, grammar and rhythm. There are recurring forms, ways of constructing surfaces, relationships between shapes and methods of composition. Those elements work together to create something that feels immediately recognisable, even before you understand what any individual symbol represents.

That was the moment everything clicked.

A koru stopped being "a spiral." Haehae stopped being "lines." Pākati stopped being "little notches." They became part of a larger language that artists had been using for generations.

The exciting part wasn't learning what each pattern meant. It was learning why they worked together.

It also reminded us why we enjoy teaching so much. We often describe our goal as nurturing curiosity into skill. The skill isn't where people begin. They begin by seeing something beautiful and asking, "What's that?"

If someone picks up a bookmark because they like the pattern, that's great. If they turn it over, learn how to pronounce its name, discover what they're looking at, and decide to read a little more about Matariki or Māori carving, then that bookmark has become more than an object. It's become the beginning of someone's curiosity.

We suspect this idea extends well beyond Māori art. Romanian embroidery, Japanese kumiko, Celtic knotwork and Islamic geometry all have their own visual languages. Rather than asking which motifs belong to a culture, perhaps the more interesting question is how that culture constructs beauty in the first place.

For us, that's become the real design challenge. Not copying objects from history, but learning the language they were created in so we can contribute a new sentence of our own.

Design Language Study

These patterns are not just decorative motifs. Each one teaches a different part of Māori visual language: form, surface, rhythm, shadow, structure, or story.

Pattern

Teaches

Examples / Significance

Koru

Organic growth, unfolding form, and movement drawn from nature.

Inspired by the unfurling fern frond. Often used to express new growth, renewal, and continuation through flowing curved forms.

Rauru

Spiral rhythm, repetition, and interlocking movement.

A spiral-based form often seen in carving and painted designs. Useful for studying how repeated curves create visual flow across a surface.

Haehae

Depth, carved linework, and the use of shadow as part of the design.

Parallel grooves used in whakairo. The pattern is not simply drawn; it is cut into the surface so light and shadow become part of the visual language.

Pākati

Texture, notching, surface rhythm, and contrast.

Repeated notched cuts commonly used with haehae. It creates a textured edge that catches light and gives carved surfaces energy and movement.

Unaunahi

Natural repetition, surface fill, and scale-like patterning.

Inspired by fish scales. It shows how repeated natural forms can become structured surface design without becoming rigid geometry.

Pūngāwerewere

Web structure, radial connection, and natural geometry.

Inspired by spider webs. Useful for exploring how Māori design can draw from observed structures in nature rather than purely mathematical grids.

Poutama

Progression, stepped composition, and structured movement.

A stepped pattern often associated with learning, growth, and advancement. It introduces a more geometric side of Māori visual language.

Kōwhaiwhai

Flowing composition, balance, repetition, and movement across space.

Not one single motif, but a painted design tradition often seen on meeting house rafters. It shows how forms can repeat, mirror, and flow through a whole composition.