Student Winners

Aamina Desai (BA Hons Textiles Design, University of Central Lancashire) was the talented student winner of The Bradford Textile Society's annual Design Competition 2022, sponsored by Alternative Flooring and British Wool. Aamina's winning design was the beautiful Quirky Curiosity Aamina. 

The competition brief was to create a design that celebrated the richness of British wool as a patterned floor covering. Aamina had been avidly exploring the uses of surface pattern in various spaces and really enjoyed exploring how the right floor covering can completely transform the image of an entire space. Being able to visualize her designs on screen made her consider how exciting it would be to bring them to life and this competition allowed her that opportunity. 

Winning the award did wonders for Aamina's confidence. Being in her small university bubble, she wasn’t sure if the designs, patterns, and imagery that excited her would be appreciated in the same way by others in the wider world. With such established companies valuing her work and allowing her to bring it to an industrial level, she now feels encouraged and excited at the possibilities ahead.

Aamina is a doodler by nature. She loves colour and shape and is endlessly fascinated by bold patterns and intricate details around her.

As a student, she is still open to the possibilities of design and has been exploring all the ways she can bring a part of herself into the world through her work. She really enjoyed the flexibility of surface pattern and its ability to bring her designs to life, but she's always keen to explore different methods of creating.

Thanks to her South Asian heritage, Aamina is surrounded by a variety of cultural influences that naturally inject themselves into her work. For Quirky Curiosity, she was initially inspired by traditional Persian and Moroccan rugs. On researching the meaning and symbolism behind their main motifs, she decided to create similar imagery for her own design based on the shapes around her, including floral henna motifs and detailed embroidery on traditional Indian clothing and accessories.

Aamina wanted a chance to bring a bold and rich interpretation and appreciation of culture into the home.

Sophie Anne Campbell was the worthy winner of our Glasgow School of Art & Alternative Flooring Design a Tartan Carpet Competition.

The Glasgow School of Art and Alternative Flooring joined forces in a competition to  celebrate British design, British made, young talent and to support the wool industry. The brief was to design a tartan carpet as an extrapolation from the traditional tartan to the contemporary. The design had to embrace the Alternative Flooring brand – to inspire people to express their personality in their homes where different feels good. We are glad to tell you that this wonderful winning design will be part of Alternative’s new Quirky Tartan collection launching spring 2022.

Sophie had just graduated from The Glasgow School of Art and loved developing her interest in textiles. She came from a creative and musical family and her interest in making and exploring different materials has always been encouraged. As a child she was always creating scrapbooks and filling sketchbooks with drawings.  

Sophie's inspiration... Being a Campbell and coming from the highlands tartan is a design she had grown up with. She had been living in Glasgow for four years and decided to use her surroundings as inspiration for the competition. Because it was during lockdown, she couldn’t get out much, so she walked around her neighbourhood (Great Western Road) as if she were a tourist, taking photos and looking at the city from a different perspective.  She made a note of geometric shapes, different textures and colours and wove all those influences into her tartan design using six bright colours. She is quite a ‘maximalist’, so she found it natural to come up with a tartan which was cheerful and colourful with lots going on.

Sophie's winning Tartan design was made into carpet at our British factory and Sophie came to watch it come to life on the axminster machines, seeing the craftmanship and care that goes into weaving every single piece. 

Louisa Knapp was a final year student at the University of Huddersfield specialising in textiles. She entered and won the Campaign for Wool 2020 competition with Alternative Flooring and Margo Selby to design a co-ordinating carpet and cloth that celebrated British design and British making while highlighting the wonders of wool.

The Alternative Flooring and Margo Selby student collaboration competition was part of a programme of projects celebrating the 10th anniversary of the launch of Campaign for Wool which were all showcased during Wool Week 2020.

Being a huge admirer of both Alternative Flooring and Margo Selby, Louisa jumped at the chance to work with us both. In addition to this, she was feeling very creative during the 2020 lockdown, testing a few design ideas for her final year thinking it would be good practice to put together a professionally produced mini collection. 

The result was her beautiful, and aptly named, Stay At Home Fibonacci design, 

"In winning this competition, I am incredibly proud to be in a position of championing the beauty and diversity of wool." 

We took Louisa's winning Stay At Home Fibonacci design and crafted it into carpet, weaving it into life from British wool on axminster looms in Britain. This beautiful patterned carpet is a limited edition and completely made to order in 3.66m wide broadloom only. Currently no samples are available and a minimum order quantity will apply. 

Lily Mullen was the winner of The Bradford Textiles Society Competition sponsored by Alternative Flooring and British Wool. Lily was studying Printed Textiles at Leeds Arts University.

Lily wanted to enter the competition using British Wool because she was very drawn in when she started learning about the wool fibre and the processes it goes through to become a finished product. The category really played into her passion to design for interiors. For Lily, the idea to design a carpet/rug was very exciting, along with the prospect of working with both us and British Wool. 

Albers was inspired by Lily's desire to bring joy to the interior setting through playful and bold design. Her inspiration comes from patterns that occur in the manmade world, looking to Modernist architecture specifically for this design. Pattern is part and parcel of our everyday life – from the ornate to the mundane – and it is Lily's passion. The concept behind her Albers design was to invite consumers to embrace colour and pattern in their home setting.

"I think now more than ever people want some colour in their lives. Brands such as Alternative Flooring give people the confidence to play with pattern in their homes. Designer collaborations across a range of disciplines from oil painters to digital artists is opening the concept of pattern in the home to more people which from my perspective can only be a good thing."

We couldn't agree more Lily!