Case Study

Future Fabrics

Future Fabrics asks how today’s African stories could be woven into cloth. For generations fabric has carried coded messages—celebrations, grief, status, and hope—without a single word spoken. This collection experiments with that heritage to imagine what new narratives might feel like on skin, walls, and streets.

Surface Patterns Storytelling

Type: Self-initiated exploration
Year: 2020
Disciplines: Pattern design, illustration, colour direction
Deliverables: Pattern library, textile mockups, narrative deck

Reframing heritage for present-day themes.

African textiles have always been storytelling tools—commemorating births, signalling marriages, even distinguishing the first wife from the next. Those narratives remain powerful, but they rarely speak to the realities shaping our generation. Future Fabrics set out to honour tradition while opening the loom to new ideas like climate change, technology, and urban life.

I studied legacy fabrics from across the continent, then sketched modular tiles that could carry contemporary motifs without losing their Swahili, Maasai, or coastal roots. The swatches pair the familiar—arches, beads, braided lines—with unexpected references to circuitry, data flows, and tidal maps.

The result is an exploration of the question: What might present-day African patterns with contemporary themes look like? The collection packages the answer as a downloadable pattern library, mockups, and motion teasers for collaborators who want to move textile storytelling forward.

Disciplines

Research, illustration, digital fabrication

Timeline

Six-week sprint during April–May 2020

Context

Behance brief feature & textile community shares

View Project

Colour Language

Five hero palettes power the collection—sunset terra-cotta, ocean teal, volcanic purple, spice gold, and acid green. Each mix was tuned for both print and screen applications.