Accessibility Links: Skip to main navigation. Skip to main content. Skip to sidebar features. Skip to legal information. Back to homepage.

Alternative Flooring ‘Tartan With a Twist’ Design Competition

Alternative Flooring ran a competition for this year’s Wool Month with Glasgow School of Art. The brief was to rethink traditional tartan and make it relevant for today and exciting for domestic flooring at home.

The exciting project celebrates British design along with British made using British wool, and will support the wool industry to champion wool as a wonder fibre and sustainable textile for the home. The winning design will be produced as a carpet sample and offered to order as a limited edition design carpet as part of Wool Month.

Technical and commercial limitations were set as part of the brief to consider that the carpet would be woven on standard creels at the Wilton Carpet Factory and the existing 12 colour palette would need to be used. Submissions were request on mood boards showing concept inspiration and influences, the final designs and room visualisations, with a carpet design fitting a maximum repeat of 69cm x 69cm.

The winner selected, Glasgow School of Art student Sophie Anne Campbell, the judges were Elaine Bremner, lecturer and subject leader of Woven Textiles at The Glasgow School of Art; Louise Gray, fashion designer and former student at GSA; Lorna Haigh the Creative and Marketing Director and Willie Wood, Business Development Manager for Scotland at Alternative Flooring.

“Exuberant is a word that springs to mind with Sophie’s tartan. A bold, beautiful and Quirky design made in British Wool. It really epitomises what Alternative stands for, full on texture, pattern and colour …We really can’t wait to take this to market”. Lorna Haigh, Creative & Marketing Director Alternative Flooring

“I am delighted that Alternative Flooring selected Woven Textiles students at Glasgow school of Art to collaborate on this project. It gave Weave students a fantastic opportunity to work on a live industry brief and to design within the commercial boundaries set by Alternative Flooring while also challenging their perception of carpet design and traditional tartan. The positive feedback, on the quality of entries, from Alternative Flooring was fantastic to hear and the publicity for those who undertook the project will be very much appreciated, particularly considering the conditions and constraints that students have been working under this year during the pandemic”. Elaine Bremner Lecturer and Subject Leader of Woven Textiles at The Glasgow School of Art

“My design process is influenced by photography I have gathered around Glasgow when acting like a tourist walking down Great Western Road. Using composition within photography to capture any grid like pattern. I like to keep a hand drawn flare within my design process and that helps me to identify the quality of line. I wanted to design quite busy tartans, using a range of 6 colours from the first colour palette sourced. I also wanted the tartan to have a slight retro essence with the use of rectangle alongside some of the dark ruby. Overall I have designed three tartans that work cohesively or individually and can be repeated”. Sophie Anne Campbell

Upcoming Events

No Upcoming events