UNIVERSITY NEWS LAST UPDATED : 02 JULY 2018
BA (Hons) Textile Design student, Tasha Warren, has won a significant prize at the prestigious New Designers show in London for her ColourFlora collection, winning a two week work placement and £1,000.
Based at the Business Design Centre in London, New Designers is a two-week celebration of visionary design where recent graduates from UK leading universities and design schools reveal their work to industry professionals and design lovers.
Inspired by the abstract beauty of florals, Tasha’s ColourFlora collection aims to transform interiors into bright and cheerful spaces using collaged shapes and colour. Tasha hand creates her colourful collages which are then transformed into digital designs before she screen prints or hand paints using fluorescent pigments.
Tasha won the W’innovate and Wilko Award securing a work placement at W’innovate, a development company established as part of the Wilko Group with the aim of providing pattern and print design services, and offering postgraduate training opportunities to junior designers.
When selecting their award winner, W’innovate and Wilko looked for an understanding of emerging trends, confident use of colour, understanding of putting designs into workable repeats and consideration for use in real-life products, use of mix media, and a passion for interiors.
Tasha’s practical work was heavily influenced by her dissertation where she researched the impact colour has on mental health. Textiles tutor, Kate Farley, selected Tasha to exhibit at New Designers based on her technical and research projects, as well as her development throughout the course. Kate commented;
“Tasha has been faithful to her style and pushed the design language of pattern and composition in this final project so it is fantastic to see the significant industry interest in this collection. The essence of wellbeing is capturing a particular vibe in design thinking at the moment and the reward at New Designers is acknowledgement of how commercial these designs are.”
New Designers recognise emerging design talent and forward thinking individuals, and rewards award winners with support and opportunities to develop their design careers.
Tasha expressed "It has been such an incredible experience and more than I could have ever hoped for, I’m so excited for the future and what this experience could lead to."
Find out about the Textile Design course and follow the course Instagrampage @textilesbcu.