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 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

ABSPD Alumni / / Loni Harris

So many of our ABSPD Alumni have been up to great & exciting things & we love sharing their fantastic news! In the run up to the next series of M2 of the e-course (there is still time to register) we will be sharing some of our alumni successes! Which you can also see more of in our Success Stories Facebook album!

Loni Harris is another fabulous Alumni of e-course & has always had a passion for art & design. With an education in graphic design, Loni has now gone on to pursue her real passion; surface pattern design! Loni describes her work as "fun, quirky", "hand-drawn" &" slightly textured".

Since ABSPD Loni has gone from success to success! She is currently represented by Pink Light Studio, has built a beautiful website, runs an Etsy shop 'Cactus & Olive' selling lovely baby mobiles & other paper goods & has a huge collection of gorgeous patterns with DENY Designs!

Visit Loni on her website or follow her on Pinterest. You can shop her entire DENY Designs collection here.

If you are interested in ‘The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design (the e-course)’ we are thrilled to announce we are running a new series (starting on August 19th 2013) Register here. Also, don’t miss out on our next run of Module 2 ‘Creating Your Professional identity’ which is running 19th August 2013! If you hurry there is still time to register! Brought to you by Rachael Taylor and Beth Kempton.

Rachael on Twitter: @rachtdesign Beth on Twitter: @DoWhatYouLoveXx

You can also read some magic words from some our past students who have gone on to achieve some amazing things!

ABSPD Alumni / / Mel Smith

So many of our ABSPD Alumni have been up to great & exciting things & we love sharing their fantastic news! In the run up to the next series of M2 of the e-course we will be sharing some of our alumni successes! Which you can also see more of in our Success Stories Facebook album!

Mel Smith is another of our very successful alumni! Having spent a few years freelancing & working in  a small greetings card company, Mel is now working on her own projects. Her designs have been sold in John Lewis & several other stores nationwide. She is currently running a Kickstarter project to raise money to create an eco-friendly, patterned notebook collection. She is also attending Top Drawer/Home 2014 where she plans to fully launch her brand 'Mel Smith Designs' with a selection of lampshades, cushions, kitchen textiles as well as her notebooks.

She has also recently launched a licensed collection with Keka Cases & has designed cute wedding stationery for a friend.

We wish Mel good luck with launching at Top Drawer/Home 2014! You can visit her on her website, blog, Facebook or Twitter.

If you are interested in ‘The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design (the e-course)’ we are thrilled to announce we are running a new series (starting on August 19th 2013) Register here. Also, don’t miss out on our next run of Module 2 ‘Creating Your Professional identity’ which is running 19th August 2013! Brought to you by Rachael Taylor and Beth Kempton.

Rachael on Twitter: @rachtdesign Beth on Twitter: @DoWhatYouLoveXx

You can also read some magic words from some our past students who have gone on to achieve some amazing things!

Module 2 Showcase - Part 1

 We are really pleased to showcase these beautiful collections from our very talented Module 2 students of ‘The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design (the e-course)’! (from our Jan 2013 class). For the next week we will be showcasing our fantastic students & the work they have created over the 5 weeks in class. We are always so proud of our students & all their hard work and achievements.

Apologies we scheduled this post as part 1, but we have been experiencing publishing issues!

"Ever Emerald Collection" Deb Dewhirst

"Emerald Copse" by Victoria Price.

Astrid Wallace

"My Garden" by Sue Tomlinson

"Fun Fans" by Kay Supan

"Slip into the deep" by Anne Waters

"Summer Buntings" by Sonia Atwal - (Apple Kaur Designs)

"Emerald Floral" by Sandra Glennie

  If you are interested in ‘The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design (the e-course)’ we are thrilled to announce we are running a new series (starting on August 19th 2013) Register here. Also, don’t miss out on our next run of Module 2 ‘Creating Your Professional identity’ which is running 19th August 2013! Module 1: Designing your way Module 2: Creating your professional identity Module 3: Monetising your designs pattern@dowhatyouloveforlife.com. Brought to you by Rachael Taylor and Beth Kempton.

 Rachael on Twitter: @rachtdesign Beth on Twitter: @DoWhatYouLoveXx

You can also read some magic words from some our past students who have gone on to achieve some amazing things!