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“A Nest is something you build yourself. You build it out of found objects, life experiences, dreams, hopes, inspiration. You gather it all together and make it your own.”

Nest is run by a group of female designers to raise awareness of female talent and foster young designers throughout the world. Nest cleverly use the colloquial references to women as ‘birds’ or ‘chicks’ to create a place to meet, be inspired and inspire other girls in the industry. Nest features and profiles designers and artists, and invites them to submit work for show on the site. The group also provides a way for design students or graduates (‘fledgling chicks’) to present their work.

Nest has been around since 2004 and is run by Astred Hicks, along with the help of three other ‘passionate, driven women’. Astred says the genesis of the group came from a lack of females to aspire to in the industry. “I was just starting in the design industry and really wanted strong female role models to look up to but I just couldn’t find them. It’s not that I doubted their existence; it’s just there was nothing on the web that promoted them. I found myself going to conferences and being amazed that 70% of the audience was female yet most of the speakers were male. When I mentioned this to organisers their usual response was that they didn’t know of many ‘famous’ female designers. That cemented my resolve to create a place that promoted and nurtured female designers and brought attention to the immense amount of talent that’s out there.” Nest has run a number of projects exploring design by mixing style and elements with provided inspiration. Planned projects in the future include ‘Hook-me-up’; a designer is picked at random to partner up and have a creative volley; and ‘Snapshots’; a photography project where a word is set and the designer is to capture that word/feeling/thought in one frame. Astred says, “On the whole the design community has been really accepting and supportive. The response from girls has been unbelievable; their excitement and strength knocks me out every time.” This year, Nest plans to collaborate with Kaotic Kraft Kuties, a Melbourne & Sydney-based all-girl ‘stitch’n’bitch’ group founded by pop artist Gemma Jones. Collaborations include online craft projects and a travelling exhibition of female artists who cross the line between art and craft.