Textile & Pattern Design Course

What you'll learn

Learn digital textile and pattern design with our handcrafts short courses in Sydney!

This hands-on course will teach you how to create exciting digital patterns ready for fabric printing and garment production. Whether you’re using your own hand-drawn designs or digital images, you’ll learn how to bring them to life in Adobe Illustrator.

You’ll explore the fundamentals of colour, drawing, composition, and pattern repeats, with a focus on developing your unique creative style. By the end of the course, you’ll have a professional-quality fabric design, ready for printing.

Throughout the course, you’ll receive personalised feedback from your tutor, ensuring you leave with a solid understanding of how to transform your creative ideas into polished digital prints.

Image credit: Work created by past student Catriona Johnston.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this Textile & Pattern Design course, you will be able to:

Confidently use Adobe Illustrator for textile design, including key drawing, editing, and selection tools
Understand different colour palettes and base fabrics for textile applications
Develop your own design style by experimenting with patterns, images, and drawing techniques
Create a professional-quality, ready-to-print fabric design

Course content

What will be covered in this Textile & Pattern Design course?

Setting up your document for fabric printing
Introduction to print design in Adobe Illustrator
Creating a print design concept from your own source material
Working with placement prints and pattern repeats
Exploring colour palettes and their applications for fabric design
Preparing print files for fabric printing and garment manufacturing

Intended audience

Who is this Textile & Pattern Design course for?

This course is for students who already have a basic understanding of Adobe Illustrator and are familiar with its fundamental drawing, editing, and selection tools. It’s ideal for those looking to enhance their skills in graphic design, textile design, or digital illustration.

Whether you’re an experienced designer or a beginner looking to refine your skills, this course will help you take your creativity to the next level.

Course venue

Rozelle Campus

2A Gordon Street, Rozelle NSW 2039 (corner of Gordon St & Victoria Rd in the grounds of St. Joseph's Church)

Course materials

What to bring to class:

In the first week, students will discuss ideas for creating a repeating design using their own artwork. It may be helpful to bring along 1–5 illustrations you’ve made at home (drawn with ink, pen, pencil, watercolour, gouache, etc.), or photos and images you’d like to work with or use as inspiration. Some of these may be scanned and used in your print during later weeks.
A selection of your own illustrations (1–5), which may include hand-drawn designs or photographs that you’d like to use as source material for your prints.
A hard drive or USB (min. 16GB) to store your files.
A device with Adobe Illustrator installed, along with an active Illustrator license. Alternatively, you can log in to your Adobe account on one of our classroom computers. Please note that the college does not provide Adobe licenses.

Tip: Adobe currently offers a 7-day free trial of Illustrator, which may be useful if you’re deciding whether to subscribe.

Course testimonials

Iwona said: Excellent methodical tutor, lots of hands on learning, lots of time allowed for interaction with the tutor one on one.
Freya said: Jackie the tutor was fantastic ! Thank you
Angeliki said: The course was very inspiring! I learned more than I expected. The tutor was enthusiastic and shared a lot of knowledge. Gave me the push I needed to be creative again!
Liz said: Fantastic teacher who was incredibly patient. Small class size was perfect for learning and to be able to be guided through the programs.
Cheryl said: it was the right course for me

Course tutors

Jacqueline Curry

Jacqueline has been working as a designer in the textile industry for over 20 years in Australia and the UK. She uses a number of digital programmes in her workflow including Adobe Illustrator,...

View Jacqueline Curry's profile

Classes Online Courses

Textile & Pattern Design Course

Sat 1 Nov 2025 - Sat 8 Nov 2025

2 sessions, 12 hours total

9:30am - 3:30pm (UTC+11:00) (first session)

2A Gordon St, Rozelle

Jacqueline Curry

When	Time	Where	Session Notes
Sat 1 Nov 2025	9:30am - 3:30pm	A1-2: Computer Room - 2A Gordon St, Rozelle
Sat 8 Nov 2025	9:30am - 3:30pm	A1-2: Computer Room - 2A Gordon St, Rozelle

If there isn't a class to suit you, please join our waitlist and we will notify you when we have places available. Join waitlist for Textile & Pattern Design Course