MIID Alumni Collaboration: Gorgeous Summertime Goodies!

Here at Make it in Design, we absolutely love hearing about the creative ventures of our alumni. Even more, we are always thrilled to hear of any fun projects and collaborations that happen between the students – after all, what’s better than combining talents to create beautiful things?!

Today we are excited to share on a recent alumni collaboration between the talented and skilled Claire Barnard and Zoe Chapman. Using Claire’s award-winning fabric, Zoe constructed some gorgeous summer goodies. Below, Claire has shared on creating her winning design, getting it printed, on her super fun product collaboration with Zoe!


The Design

Website Mediterrean MIID Alumni Collaboration: Gorgeous Summertime Goodies!

Above is Claire’s fabulous summer design that eventually got turned into fabric. On her blog, Claire shared on how her fun in the sun inspired a fabulous bit of design work:

…I started sketching some holiday symbols. Sunshade, bikinis, birds, and cocktails – all inspired by the Nautical theme in Make it in Design’s Summer School brief.

Back in the UK, those sketches turned into coloured up illustrations and a sunny pattern. When I noticed that Fashion Formula – a fabric printing company for designers – were running their weekly design contest with a ‘Mediterranean Seaside’ theme, I had the perfect pattern. Submitted… I was totally overwhelmed when over 50 likes took my design to the winning place!

Way to go Claire! We were so excited to hear that our Summer School design brief inspired her to create such a fun, seasonal surface pattern design. Claire is also a graduate of Modules 1, 2, and 3 and we are so pleased to be part of her surface pattern design journey. Here’s a peek at some recent work (a beautiful card collection) that Claire shared on her Instagram:

CBMISSYCARDS MIID Alumni Collaboration: Gorgeous Summertime Goodies!


The Collaboration

Following her well-deserved win from Fashion Formula, Claire decided she wanted to get her pattern printed on fabric. On her follow up blog post, Claire shared a bit more on that process and how she came to collaborate with fellow Make it in Design alumni Zoe Chapman:

My winning design was printed onto 3 meters of cotton fabric. It covered our lounge rug and nearly covers a double bed. So I was quite daunted by what to do with it. And whilst I can sew a little bit, I’ve not practiced enough to make actual products, so I decided to ask someone who knows what they’re doing to help.

I dropped lovely Zoe Chapman, from Ollie and Roo, and a fellow Make It In Design student, a message after following her on Instagram for a while and admiring her business on Etsy. I liked her style and choice of fabrics and being a student of MIID too, I knew she’d understand why I was so excited with my own fabric!

She agreed to a little collaboration to make me a couple of small bags – little did I know when I opened the package last week, she’d made me all of these:

CLAIREZOECOLLAB e1497358360266 MIID Alumni Collaboration: Gorgeous Summertime Goodies!

When Claire shared her post with team MIID, we were absolutely thrilled with how fabulous this collaboration turned out! Commenting on Zoe’s creations and working together, Claire said:

[Zoe] has a great eye for detail and has been lovely to work with…she is [also] starting her venture into surface pattern design – I’m excited to follow what she does next and to chat to someone who is at a similar stage in their design career. It’s also so nice to meet a fellow creative, who totally gets what you do, why you’re doing it and how many late nights you pull doing what you love!

We are so excited that Zoe and Claire had such a great time collaborating! As Claire mentioned above, Zoe is also an alumni and is continually sharing her wonderful surface pattern work on her Instagram page, so be sure follow her! Here’s a peek at a few more products from Zoe’s Etsy shop Ollie & Roo along with a recent surface pattern design!

OllieandRoo e1497358313834 MIID Alumni Collaboration: Gorgeous Summertime Goodies!

ZoeChapman MIID Alumni Collaboration: Gorgeous Summertime Goodies!

We were so thrilled to see such absolutely gorgeous work! Following up on their collaboration and seeing her designs on real products, Claire said:

I’m over the moon to see my fabric design on real life, useful products. It’s such proud and big achievement for me. It reminds me how far I’ve come and what I’ve learnt in the past 12 or so months. My design is available to buy on fabric and giftware at Fashion Formula!


Be sure to follow both Claire and Zoe for lots of uplifting design work! If you’ve been inspired by today’s post and are hoping to join Make it in Design, check out our upcoming Summer School design events or our acclaimed design school commencing in September 2017!


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