Students design surface designs with different methods and tools for various purposes and experience the creative process from inspiration to sketches and further to finished surface designs and colourways.

• CAD-designs, fabric collage designs, 3D surface designs, painted designs
• repeats, design and coordination of colourways and surface design and textile collections
• commercial and industrial aspects to surface and textile design, commercial collection design and design process, design management
• following a shared theme in their own design work.
• learning to use basic design tools used for commercial surface design.

This course is an obligatory prerequisite for the PatternLab project.

Course content

A pre-assignment activates the perception process; participants are asked to research and gather personally interesting colors, stories, events etc. During the first weeks of the course students develop visual concepts (mood board and color map) in teams, based on their findings. One theme / colourway concept is selected and all students follow it throughout their individual design process. Creative hands-on sketching sessions with various materials and techniques are organized to support the artistic process, followed by experiments in repeat design, surface design by hand and lessons in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop – programs as surface design tools. The final outcome is six finished surface designs: three hand made designs and three printouts. The creative process is completed with presentations by visiting designers and lectures on surface design, commercial textile collection design, design management, advancements in printing technology and new service systems for printed textiles.