This year’s PatternLab22 is a multidisciplinary group with 10 talented designers. Together they create a brilliant compilation of young talent and creativity. They are 10 Master of Arts students at Aalto University of Arts, Design and Architecture in Helsinki, Finland. The project is supervised and curated by Professor Maarit Salolainen, who has extensive experience in working in the international textile industry.
Meet the designers!
Ione Rawlins
Master’s Programme in Fashion, Clothing and Textile Design
Ione is interested in eclectic surface design. Her design process relies heavily on referencing the past. She is inspired by ornamental and classical aesthetics from antiquity up to the 20th century. Ione especially enjoys painting her designs, and wishes she did it more.
In her free time Ione appreciates cooking and eating, taking silly photos and making playlists.
Sanna has always loved drawing and painting by hand which has lately translated into her pattern design process. Sanna likes using figurative elements to create detailed surfaces but enjoys crafting flowing textural abstractions as well. She enjoys using different mediums and exploring their characteristics like the boldness of ink and the softness of charcoal.
Sanna finds inspiration in the small joys and surprising quirks of everyday life. When she wants to reboot her brain during or in between design processes, she goes hiking, takes a dip in the sea or wanders to the nearest second hand shop.
Edith Kankkunen
Master’s Programme in Fashion, Clothing and Textile Design
Edith loves playing with abstract shapes, refined details and muted tones. She enjoys creating pattern motifs with ink and acrylic paints, but appreciates more traditional and unconventional mediums as well. Digital painting is another medium she has recently discovered. Edith is currently challenging herself to create more figurative and ornamental designs, as those aren’t her usual style.
Edith is inspired by all kinds of flowers, plants and landscapes, as well as everyday situations and objects. She loves discovering new things from ordinary life, like a detailed ornament in a familiar building next door. In her free time, she enjoys taking long walks outdoors, knitting and nurturing her plants. Edith’s latest addition to her free time activities is keeping her puppy away from trouble.
Sabina is a versatile designer with a love for compelling surface patterns. She enjoys working on organic, sketch-like, graphic and textural designs, each with a distinct mood. To her, the cohesiveness of a collection is just as significant as each individual design. She believes bold surface patterns can emerge from even the most humble of creative processes.
As a creative Sabina has a conceptual approach, seeking inspiration from intriguing narratives, natural rhythms and abstraction. She designs in an intuitive way, comfortably switching between analogue and digital ways of working. She doesn’t shy away from colour or trying new techniques, and her process is honest and craft-based at heart. The countryside is where her imagination runs free.
Anna is an aspiring textile and fashion designer based in Helsinki, Finland. As a print and surface designer her strengths lie especially with traditional hand-made repeats and digital painting. She has a versatile style and finds it easy to adapt her designs to meet different briefs and needs of the customers.
Her favourite part of the print design process is to idealise and design the concept and manage the collections. She gathers her inspiration from all around her, and the design process for her is something intuitive and personal. Anna finds herself collaborative, open-minded and ambitious. She is in her element when working in an open, creative and versatile atmosphere.
Tuulikki enjoys working on detailed, painterly and textured surface patterns that have a carefully considered rhythm. She loves art supply stores and can often be found incorporating traditional mediums into her work, such as watercolors. In addition, yarns and weaving looms are also tools she uses for structural textile designs.
She gathers inspiration from nature, real and imaginary places and everyday life. Tuulikki admires surfaces that are full of detail to discover. She enjoys working with color and creates different color combinations for different moods and environments. When not at work, you might find Tuikku enjoying nature or brunching with friends.
Aida is interested in abstract and detailed designs. When creating patterns she enjoys playing with layers and colors, and her focus is often on the rhythm and flow of a pattern. Currently, her favorite mediums are ink and her Wacom tablet. She has an extensive understanding of techniques and tends to choose her mediums according to the theme of the project.
Aida is inspired by trends, tales, art, culture and current events. She remains fascinated by her surroundings and in her free time she likes to stay active and enjoys learning new things.
Praejeen Kunawong
Master’s Programme in Fashion, Clothing and Textile Design
Praejeen hails from Bangkok, a bustling and crowded city. That’s why when she moved to Finland, she found the value in balancing the calm of nature with dynamic urban living, something inherent to Finnish culture. This also influences her creative approach to pattern design. Since she was familiar with working primarily digitally, she has now begun to explore more mixed media techniques, such hand painting combined with digital tools.
Praejeen is typically fascinated by intuitively capturing the aesthetics of everyday life and the combination of sophisticated colors. She is also intrigued by eclectic atmospheres and juxtapositions. In her spare time she illustrates narratives, often with figures of women. Some of them are represented in her woven textiles.
Aino loves making her designs first by hand before editing them digitally. She enjoys twisting mundane things into something quirky and strange – creating an illustrative fantasy from ordinary life. Aino started out in art and design with collage, a technique she was happy to use whilst designing patterns.
When Aino is not busy with her design work, she loves to take street dance classes, even though her knees and ankles disagree with the hobby. Singing karaoke is the ideal way for Aino to have fun at a party, but her number one pastime is cuddling with dogs.
Saara likes to explore and experiment when it comes to pattern design: be it large scale, small scale, abstract or figurative it’s fun to have some variation! Saara loves playing with colors and enjoys discovering new, surprising color combinations.
Saara likes working with ink and watercolors, but often chooses to work with an iPad Pro alongside more traditional mediums. She also works as an illustrator and she likes illustrative patterns that tell a story. She designs for both adults and children.
Saara has two kids and a dog. She enjoys yoga, aerial circus acrobatics and swimming in the winter.
