The 2015 Textile Design Competition

P&B and Pattern Observer

I am so excited to announce that we have partnered up with P&B Textiles to host our first annual Textile Design Competition! One lucky winner will receive a licensing contract with P&B Textiles and a one year membership to Pattern Observer’s Textile Design Lab. We will also be awarding ten Semi-Finalist Winners a one year membership to The Textile Design Lab and additional runner-up prizes from our sponsors.

I encourage you to read all the rules and design guidelines on the competition website, but here are a few highlights:

  • Designers are asked to create a textile design collection, consisting of a main pattern and a coordinating pattern, based upon one of the supplied creative briefs.
  • Collections must be received by March 1, 2015.
  • Ten Semi-Finalists will be chosen based upon the marketability and creativity of their collection and notified via email on 03/13/15. Their work will be featured on the Pattern Observer blog, alongside judge feedback and comments.
  • Entrants must be legal residents of the fifty United States and the District of Columbia who are at least eighteen years old at the time of entry.

This community played an important role in the development of this competition so THANK YOU for being a part of this event! We listened to what you love, and don’t love, about design competitions and have crafted an event that everyone can benefit from through judge feedback and designer exposure.

One request that we were unable to fulfill was to allow designers from around the world to participate. As stated in this article by Natasha Shabani, “Internet contests, which are technically accessible worldwide, must comply with the laws of not only the 50 U.S. states but also each country in which someone could access the promotion.” This was a deeply disappointing discovery and I hope that those of you affected can understand how this would have been impossible for our small staff. If you want to read more about this topic I’ll post a few links below.

My hope is that everyone is able to benefit from this competition by reviewing the creative briefs developed by the P&B Textiles design team and reading their feedback on both the Semi-Finalists and Finalists collection. I look forward to sharing these award winning collections with you all on March 13, 2015!

You can read more about running online competitions here, here and here. Working with our lawyer was an eye-opening experience and we recommend consulting with a lawyer before running contests of your own!

  1. Hi!

    I want to let you know that I clicked link for the rules and guidelines for the design competition and all I got was a blank page. I’m using Safari so want to see if it’s an issue on your end or a problem with my browser.

    Thanks!

  2. So Just to be clear,
    its 1 main pattern, then 1 coordinating pattern and if I make it to the semi finals another coordinating pattern to add for a total of 3 prints right?

    Thank you for this opportunity.

  3. For the design submissions you require an 11×17 72dpi jpeg. For the Holliday category, P&B’s “More Merriment” main image is 24″ wide x perhaps 48″ high, which is slightly different proportions than 11×17 (22×34 if doubled). Should an original design submission for this category still follow the 11×17 proportions?
    Thanks so much in advance for your advice. I’m incredibly excited about the contest and appreciate the work that has gone into collaborating with P&B to offer this fantastic opportunity.

    1. Hi Brenda! You are welcome to create the artwork in whatever size you wish, but please crop to a 11×17 72dpi jpeg when submitting. We just wanted all the artwork to be the exact same size for the judges review. Does this help? We are thrilled that you are participating and please let us know if you have any other questions. Thank you!!!

    1. Hmm..this is a great question. I would identify this on your artwork with a small arrow and a short description, such as “gold metallic”. If you feel that this takes away from the beauty of the artwork you could include two versions in your zip file, one with the label and one without. Does this make sense? Thanks for asking!!

  4. Hi!
    For the floral option, does the coordinate ALSO need to be a floral? Or does it simply need to coordinate somehow with the main floral design? Thanks!

  5. Hi Michele!
    I’m excited to enter this competition! Thanks so much for allowing us an opportunity! I have a question regarding the color restriction of 18 colors. What is the printing process that you will be using so I know how best to approach the challenge? Should we prepare color separations for our files? Thanks for letting me know!

    1. Hi Jacqueline, this will be wet-printed, you are welcome to index your file if in Photoshop, or leave the file in layers as long as it has no more than 18 colors. Does this help?

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