About

  • What

  • Ploterre explores the natural world using data and communicates this journey through design.

    Each piece of work starts with a curiosity. What colours fly into our green spaces more than any other? How does wave height change by month, year after year? Can you predict tree ring growth from weather data?

    Using existing observations alongside personal field notes, Ploterre sets out to answer these questions using a variety of information. After a long journey of research, insights are unearthed and stories are ready to be shared through the art of design. 

  • These designs evolve as the journey progresses and are shaped by discoveries that are found along the way.  

    The observations themselves ultimately create the marks on the page or the stitches in a blanket. By creating a series of uniquely developed formulas, ploterre links nature to numbers and data to design.

    This journey and its creations endeavour to tread as lightly as possible. The final pieces are made locally in small batches using traditional, human powered processes and local, natural materials.

  • Who

  • Ploterre was founded by Rebecca J Kaye in Edinburgh at the end of 2019.

    Originally from Wales, her professional journey took a scenic route.

    After studying mathematics at the University of Manchester, she moved to Edinburgh to pursue further studies first in design and then latterly in visual communications.

  • During this time she also worked as a data based researcher by day and a designer maker by night.

    ploterre was established to bring these skills together alongside a life long passion for the natural world.

    It's said that it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill. 20 years later and I'm still learning.

  • Why

  • Using numbers to plot nature is quite literally plotting the earth. or plotting terre.

    This reason also leads to the bigger question of why. There is a huge amount of information that lives hidden within spreadsheets. I want to bring this information to life. And in doing so, to gain a deeper understanding of our natural world.

  • David Attenbourgh is famous for coining the sentiment that people only protect what they love and you can only love what you know and understand.

    Dedicating my time to observing the natural world has made me see and appreciate things in a new light. I hope that through this work I am able to illuminate something new for you too.