Our latest newsletter and press articles

August 2019

Textile Design student to represent Australasia

Congratulations to final year Bachelor of Design in Textile Design student, Kate Whittaker, who has achieved an AUT first by winning the Australia and New Zealand heat in the Society of Dyers and Colourist’s Global Colour Atlas competition. Her award includes an invitation to attend the competition’s grand final being held between 29 November and 3 December at the Xiamen Academy of Arts and Design, Fuzhou University, in China.

The aim of Kate’s projectwas to create a zero-waste garment inspired by nature’s naturally waste-free ecosystem. Using principles of biomimicry, she took inspiration from nature's own biological systems to create an innovative zero waste pattern that utilises every centimetre of the printed fabric, selvedge to selvedge, meaning that nothing will be wasted in the printing and construction of the garment.

Read more about the SDC competition

Smart ‘Physiowear’ selected for Best Awards Finals

Master of Creative Technologies student, Colin Anderson, has been selected as a finalist for this year’s Best Awards in the Product Design category. Colin’s ‘Physiowear’ garment is the result of over a year’s research and development working with the Textile and Design Lab’s Senior Technician, Gordon Fraser.

^{Colin’s smart-knit ‘Physiowear’ shorts produced at the Textile and Design Lab}

‘Physiowear’ is an e-textile compression short that uses a combination of soft and hard technologies to monitor posture and provide corrective feedback using vibrotactile motors. ‘The shorts can be worn under most garments and used in everyday life’, says Colin.

Read more

Join us on Instagram – textileanddesignlab

The Textile and Design Lab’s Instagram page is now live and being managed by postgraduate student and lecturer, Susie Cho. Students and commercial partners are encouraged to share images of their work.

Please forward images and short captions to tdl@aut.ac.nz

1st class honours for MCT graduate

Congratulations to Farshid Sarmast who recently graduated with first class honours in his Master of Creative Technologies degree.Farshid worked extensively with the Textile and Design Lab during his postgraduate project, which was done in collaboration with industry partner, Myovolt.  Farshid was also successful in attaining a postgraduate student grant from Callaghan Innovation for his project.

Short courses and Workshops

Our next round of short courses and workshops begins at the end of August with our new 3D Visualisation and Concept development workshop being run over the weekend of 31 August – 1 September. The courses and workshops are an ideal way to upskill in a range of textile-related fields with minimal time investment. Our full programme is as follows:

• 31 Aug – 1 Sep: 3D Visualisation and Concept Development
• 5 – 6 Sep: Introduction to Textiles
• 5 – 6 Sep: Photoshop Basics for Textile Design
• 12- 13 Sep: Digital Textile Design – Repeating Patterns
• 12 – 13 Sep: International Textile Development and Sourcing
• 21 – 22 Sep: Knitwear Design
• 28 – 29 Nov: E-Textiles

Read more and register here