Wrapping up our annual Textile Design Lab’s Summer of Creativity is always bitter-sweet. Of course, immersing yourself in the creative process and exploring new artistic techniques is artistically satisfying. But as the experience ends, it’s equally exciting to switch gears and devote time to growing your business and improving skills such as creating repeats and preparing files for textile production.
Within the Textile Design Lab community this Fall, we are thrilled to explore the experience of being a freelance textile and surface pattern designer in today’s marketplace. We’ll be doing this by:
- Improving our pattern repeat skills through our Ultimate Guide to Repeats course. Creating professional repeats is an important skill for a freelance designer, and this course covers it all!
- Learning from four guest experts: Paula Pappenheim, Misha Zadeh, Shawn Fink, and Sandra Bowers, on business development, marketing, and how they are growing their design businesses in today’s marketplace.
- Exploring marketing and trend board development tutorials together as a community
- Setting goals and preparing for 2023
Here’s our schedule of courses and events for the fall season:
Ultimate Guide to Repeats: September 12 – October 21, 2022
Looking for a more creative way to learn repeats? This is the course for you. After understanding why repeats are so crucial to our industry in Lessons One, Two, and Three, you will begin to explore various repeat techniques through Lessons Four through Eight.
Starting in Lesson Four, you’ll receive a trend-driven design brief focused on a particular pattern style. You are then encouraged to create a pattern concept and put it into repeat using the technique covered in that week’s lesson. This course structure will provide real-world experience, using different repeat techniques while creating new artwork for your professional portfolio.
This group-study includes access to WGSN for the first 290 participants and a guest expert presentation by Paula Pappenheim. Learn more about the Ultimate Guide to Repeats.
Selling Your Work Month: October 3 – 28, 2022
This month we are coming together to explore various methods of selling your work in the textile design industry. We’ll explore our newly updated group-study, How to Sell Your Artwork, and welcome two guest experts to the Textile Design Lab: Misha Zadeh and Sandra Bowers.
Trend Board Exploration: Nov 7 – 18, 2022
A two-week group-study, including access to WGSN, highlighting our library of trend research tutorials within the Textile Design Lab. Through this group-study we will take a deep dive into WSGN and look at other methods and resources for researching trends in various markets. Designers will create their own trend boards based on provided briefs.
This group-study includes access to WGSN for the first 290 participants.
Goals and Business Development: Nov 28 – Dec 16, 2022
In addition to our annual Goals Setting Group-Study, we’ve invited business coach Shawn Fink to provide a workshop on “Move Beyond a Side Hustle: Start Building Your Business Empire.” Please join us for this month of inspiration, motivation, and preparation for the new year!
Join Us
For those of you who are already a Textile Design Lab member, please keep an eye on our weekly member newsletter for information on how to register for these events.
We invite you to join us here if you are not yet a member! For a limited time, you can use code Fall2022 to receive $10 off the first month of your Textile Design Lab membership. This offer expires on September 28, 2022.
