USA Work Trip / / ABSPD Alumni Meet Up

On a recent work trip to Boston, I was fortunate enough to meet up with a lovely group of the students & Alumni of 'The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design (the e-course)' (from left to right: Alik, Margaret, me, Hannah & Mary). It is always wonderful to to get to meet the students in person & chat about their experiences & successes during & after the course & I feel so grateful to be part of their journeys. We met at Wagamama & enjoyed a lovely meal together, it was such a fun evening & they were all such a fab group of talented ladies.

Are you having your own ABPSD meet-up? Let us know by leaving a comment or on the ABSPD Facebook page & we will share them with our fantastic community!

You can find out more about my trip to the USA on previous posts including my inspirational trips to the Boston Marina & Boston Aquarium, the Pumpkin Patch & getting to meet my agent Lilla Rogers for the first time!

Alik Arzoumanian is an illustrator & surface pattern designer living in Cambridge, MA, USA. She was trained as an illustrator at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Since graduating in 2004, Alik has mainly been illustrating picture books, until she decided to pursue my love of surface pattern design. Alik just loves making patterns & likes to think of her patterns as being simple, bold, & playful. If you want to know what about Alik visit her blog, website or find her on The MOYO Directory.

Margaret Applin is an artist/designer living in Lowell, Massachusetts. Born & raised in New England, Margaret's art is full of inspiration taken from the natural landscape & the changing seasons. Margaret explores various techniques such as stamp & stencil making, drawing, mono printing, screen printing, or straight digital design to develop the building blocks that define her artwork. Margaret's style is characterised by simple images that are transformed into quirky, casually elegant, fresh & modern design expressions. See more of Margaret's work on her website, blog or on The MOYO Directory.

Hannah Milkins is a lover of all things decorative, swirly and beautiful. Currently she is an aspiring pattern designer & illustrator based out of New York's Capital Region. Since taking the Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design course she has been having fun experimenting, refining her style & building a professional portfolio. She looks forward to continuing her pattern journey as she makes new friends & takes next steps into the wonderful world of design! Find more of Hannah's work on her website or her MOYO Directory profile.

Mary Tanana is a designer who is inspired by many things; art, photography, gardening, landscapes and nature. She’s had a life-long love affair with anything patterned, & after a long & successful career as an award winning jewellery designer, she has once again embraced her first love of surface pattern design. Mary originally studied fashion illustration, & has adapted her fascination with textures & patterns into a unique design style. Her style is influenced by the diverse art & architecture she observed while traveling & living overseas. Follow Mary on her blog or Facebook or take a look at her portfolio.

MOYO Magazine / / Christmas Gift Guide!

We are excited to bring you the downloadable MOYO Festive Gift Guide. Packed full of unique gift ideas from talented designers, we hope this guide gives you ideas for presents to delight this holiday season. From pretty Christmas tree baubles to gorgeous gift wrap, you are sure to find something just perfect for friends and loved ones. The products come from around the world and all the featured designers are members of the MOYO Directory, or alumni of The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design.

This special downloadable version is a gorgeous selection of our favourite products that have been sent in. All of the entries are being featured on the Make it in Design blog here until Tuesday 17th December. Below are just a few of the beautiful pages inside the guide.

To download the gift guide simply go here. If you are on an iPad click here to view the magazine on Issu.com. If you want to download this guide or any of our MOYO magazines, here are some simple guidelines to help you: Downloading MOYO.

Please feel free to share this page and link to the Gift Guide on your blog, in your newsletters and tell all your friends about it. Wishing you all a wonderful festive season, from the Make it in Design team!

ABSPD Module 4 / / Dashwood Studio Live Brief!

We are bursting with excitement about some of the incredible ***LIVE BRIEF'S*** that we have in store for you! Set by a hand-picked selection of ***TRULY AMAZING COMPANIES*** in Module 4 of 'The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design (the e-course)'! Module 4 is an advanced seven week course in which you will learn everything you need to know about building your professional portfolio. The course is crammed with masterclass video tutorials, templates, tons of brilliant inspiration, invaluable content & individual work reviews from either Rachael or another flourishing designer! PLUS you will get six months’ FREE access to the MOYO Directory, where you can create a bespoke profile, upload unlimited portfolios and attract potential clients. This is a rare opportunity to build your commercial portfolio in a structured way, with the support & guidance to boost your confidence & make you raring to go!

WE WILL BE REVEALING EACH WEEK THE COMPANIES THAT WE CONFIRMED. STAY TUNED!

We are thrilled to announce that wonderful textile company 'Dashwood Studio' will be writing a Live Brief! Dashwood Studio specialise in producing beautiful, design-led fabric collections for today's quilt & home-sewing communities. They are passionate about what they do, taking a fresh approach to the design process, seeking & collaborating with the best design talent the UK has to offer! Their team of designers includes three of our talented ABSPD Alumni; Phyllida Coroneo, Wendy Kendall & Bethan Janine!

Many of our graduates are now big players within the design industry & we're proud to say we have really nurtured some amazing talent! You can see more success stories from current students & Alumni in this Facebook album or read some of our lovely testimonials. We are so pleased that the course & our Alumni have received outstanding industry recognition, as we have been going from strength to strength since our intial launch at the end of 2011.

ABSPD / / Module 4 ‘Building your professional portfolio’ is here!

At last it is time to unveil Module 4 of The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design: Building Your Professional Portfolio! This brand new course has been developed in response to popular demand from graduates of Module 3, but is open to anyone who has some experience in surface pattern design and wishes to concentrate on growing their body of commercially-viable work. Module 4 is an intense seven week course, which consists of five weeks of class plus two weeks of design reviews.

Module 4 will run for the first time MARCH 24 - MAY 10 2014. PLACES ARE STRICTLY LIMITED in order to allow individual design reviews for every class participant, so book your place now! Instalment plans are available - see this page for details.

Module 4 includes:

- Weekly LIVE briefs from real companies

- A series of video-based technical masterclasses to hone your professional design skills

- A series of advanced design challenges to help you grow as a designer and build a strong, sellable portfolio

- Insight into the practicalities of managing a growing design studio

- A whole host of downloadable templates

- Opportunity to put questions to Rachael Taylor

- Individual work reviews from a flourishing designer*

- Six months' extended access to class materials once class has finished

PLUS you will get six months' FREE access to the MOYO Directory, where you can create a bespoke profile, upload unlimited portfolios and attract potential clients. *Please note this course includes a review of two designs per student, when submitted in line with the guidelines given in class. The review will either be by Rachael Taylor or another flourishing designer whose opinion we trust and respect. 

This is a rare opportunity to build your commercial portfolio in a structured way, with the support and guidance to boost your confidence and make you raring to go!

Video-based technical masterclasses

This module includes a series of 10+ advanced video-based masterclasses including the following topics: 

- Character design (hand-drawn and graphic) 
- Typography (traditional and contemporary) 
- Using mixed media, textures & collage in pattern design 
- Using photography in pattern design 
- Advanced repeats 
- Advanced mockups 
PLUS You will also get access to a library of textures and media to use. Each video will be supported by a PDF transcript including step-by-step visuals. This is an advanced class and you will need to be proficient in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator to get the most out of this module. Please note we do not offer technical guidance for any other software programmes (including free software).

This is for you if:

- You want to be stretched and challenged as a designer to create new work and expand your design comfort zone 
- You want to strengthen and build your portfolio quickly, with pieces that are commercially viable 
- You want advanced technical guidance for developing sophisticated work
- You want to learn more about putting strong collections together
- You want to work more on developing your signature style
- You want to become part of a supportive community of fellow designers
- You have graduated from Module 3 of The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design (although this is not a pre-requisite if you already have some design experience)

PLACES ARE STRICTLY LIMITED in order to allow individual design reviews for every class participant, so book your place now! Instalment plans are available - see this page for details.

ABSPD Module 3 / / Announcing Oysterbaby Live Brief!

We are so excited to share that Module 3 of The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design: 'Monetising your designs' features a live brief from Oysterbaby, to design patterns for their gorgeous reversible bamboo fibre baby slings!

Oysterbaby is an inspiring young company run by Kate Thorman, who will personally feed back on participants' responses to the brief. 

Module 3 also includes live briefs from other real companies - all will be revealed in class. We have a brilliant track record of course alumni being signed by the companies who provide the live briefs for class, so this is a fantastic opportunity to get your work in front of a real company (& someone may even get a deal from it!) 

What are you waiting for? There is still time to squeeze in to Module 3 here. 

And if that wasn't enough, we also have a live brief for Module 2 students!

If you are at the stage where you need to develop your brand identity, learn more about online & offline marketing, & create your professional identity, then Module 2 is for you. There is still to register for Module 2 if you hurry!

ABPSD Module 2 / / Announcing Create-Ologie Live Brief!

We are beyond thrilled to announce that Module 2 of The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design: 'Creating your professional identity' will feature a live brief from Jo Packham's delicious new site Create-ologie. The brief will be to design fabric to be featured on one of the products in their online catalogue. Jo Packham will personally feedback on the work, & will choose one design to be produced as Spoonflower fabric, & used in a styled photoshoot for the stunning magazine Where Women Create! Fancy having a go? Take this brilliant opportunity & register here.

If you are at the stage where you need to develop your brand identity, learn more about online & offline marketing, & create your professional identity, then Module 2 is for you. There is still time for you to squeeze into Module 2 here.

And we also have an exciting live brief announcement for Module 3! If you feel ready to start monetising your designs, Module 3 is for you. There is still time to sign up so register for Module 3 here!

ABSPD Inspiring Quotations / / Competition Winner!

Happy Friday! Today we are announcing the winner of our ABSPD Inspiring Quotations Competition & showcasing some of the AMAZING designs we received. We get send many emails & words of gratitude from the alumni of The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design (which makes the hard work worthwhile) - & thought it would be fun to ask students to design their words into a visual testimonial. You can see our winner below. We have tried to share a diversity of creative styles but please be sure to check out our testimonial Facebook album to see all of our wonderful entries! We would like to thank everyone for their brilliant designs & kind words, it really means a lot to us. We love the ABSPD community & we are honoured to be a part of it!

We are excited to launch the next round of classes this very Monday, there's still to join if your quick! (*This is the last time we will run the courses until Spring 2014).

Love the #ABSPD team x

And the winner is...

Brandi Powell! 

We thought Brand's design really showed her signature style & we loved the clever composition & the way she used her motifs & typography.

Below you can see a variety of lovely designs that were entered:

Sam Osborne

Anneline Sophia Designs

Faye Brown

Bethan Lumb

Gill Eggleston - Pattern Addict

Joanne Cocker - Jojo Coco Design

Jo Elise Designs

Melanie Pennell - Bee and Haych

Nicola Griffiths - Pikadoodles

Rosie Simmons

Sonia Atwal - Apple Kaur Designs

Ali Benyon Designs

Carolyn Greifeld

Inspiring Quotations / / ASBPD Alumni & Student Competition!

Happy Monday! Today I am sharing with you lovely testimonials from some of the students & Alumni of 'The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design (the e-course)' as well as some of my own motivational quotes. We are also giving the ABSPD community an exciting design challenge (read below for more information).

The Challenge

We are thrilled to announce we are running a mini competition for all e-course students & Alumni! We would love for you to create your very own beautiful typography design! The winning designer will be given a free place on the e-course Module of their choice! (This includes 1, 2, 3 & the brand new Module 4). Below you can find the competition requirements:

• Create an inspirational typographic design in your own style & media (this can be hand-drawn or created with different fonts)
• The quote should include your own testimonial on how you have found a Module or the e-course as a whole, for example: “Maybe this course should come with a health warning as it is so addictive!”
• Please supply a 550 pixels, 'save for web' jpg & send to kelly@rachaeltaylordesigns.co.uk with your full name, website & social media links
• Deadline: Midnight (GMT) Thursday 7th November
• You will also need to share your design on social media. This can be on our Facebook page or tweet to @MakeitinDesign or @SurfacePatternD. Use hashtags #makeitindesign, #surfacepatternecourse or #ABSPD
• The winner will be announced on Friday along with a supporting showcase on the Make It In Design blog & on this blog

Love Rachael x

The above two images are an example of testimonials from past & current students

The above are examples for styling inspiration!

If you have ever dreamt of having your own designs on homewares, stationery, fabric or other products then HURRY & sign up for Module 2: Creating Your Professional Identity or Module 3: Monestising Your Designs, running November 11th! Register now as these modules will not be running again until Spring 2014!