New
New
Year 10

Developing your textile voice

I can reflect on what influences a designer’s style and use visual resources to inspire a thread card study.

New
New
Year 10

Developing your textile voice

I can reflect on what influences a designer’s style and use visual resources to inspire a thread card study.

These resources will be removed by end of Summer Term 2025.

Switch to our new teaching resources now - designed by teachers and leading subject experts, and tested in classrooms.

These resources were created for remote use during the pandemic and are not designed for classroom teaching.

Lesson details

Key learning points

  1. A textile designer's voice is shaped by influences, materials and ideas.
  2. Artists develop their style through experimentation, repetition and reflection.
  3. A personal style is not fixed — it can grow and change over time.

Keywords

  • Style - a distinctive visual language or way of working

  • Influence - something that inspires or shapes your creative choices

  • Experiment - testing ideas, materials, or techniques to discover possibilities

Common misconception

Style is something that you have to figure out immediately.

Your textile style will grow and change as you explore materials, artists and your own ideas. You don’t have to know it yet.


To help you plan your year 10 art and design lesson on: Developing your textile voice, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...

Encourage pupils to justify their thread and colour choices by linking them clearly to their visual resource and the designer’s style. This supports deeper thinking and builds vocabulary around influence and experimentation.
Teacher tip

Equipment

Card, scissors, tape, and a range of textured threads. Visual resources like photos or objects should inspire colour and texture choices.

Licence

This content is © Oak National Academy Limited (2025), licensed on Open Government Licence version 3.0 except where otherwise stated. See Oak's terms & conditions (Collection 2).

Lesson video

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Prior knowledge starter quiz

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6 Questions

Q1.
Match these key words to their definitions:

Correct Answer:style,a distinctive visual language or way of working.

a distinctive visual language or way of working.

Correct Answer:influence,something that inspires or shapes your creative choices.

something that inspires or shapes your creative choices.

Correct Answer:experiment,testing ideas, materials, or techniques to discover possibilities.

testing ideas, materials, or techniques to discover possibilities.

Q2.
Textile design mainly comprises which elements?

print, paint, sculpture
print, embroidery, paint
Correct answer: print, constructed, embroidery

Q3.
An artistic style is influenced by__________, like colour, techniques, materials and themes.

Correct Answer: personal choices, personal decisions, choices, decisions

Q4.
Investigating an artist's style may mean looking at:

Correct answer: choice of colour
Correct answer: techniques
other artists from a similar period
Correct answer: materials
Correct answer: themes

Q5.
A __________ can be used to inspire creative work. These can include photographs, drawings, patterns and motifs, found objects or textures, images from books, magazines, online and personal items.

template
visual clue
Correct answer: visual resource
mistake

Q6.
Why are photos a good source of inspiration?

Correct answer: Photos can quickly capture ideas as they happen.
Correct answer: They can be edited to explore and develop new ideas over time.
They are popular with the younger generation.
They are cheap to develop.

Assessment exit quiz

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6 Questions

Q1.
A designer's can change over time as they experiment and reflect.

Correct Answer: style

Q2.
Which of these is NOT a reason for using a thread card study?

Correct answer: To test stitch accuracy
To explore colour and texture
To reflect a designer’s influences
To match materials to a visual source

Q3.
Match each keyword to its correct meaning.

Correct Answer:style,a personal way of working or visual language

a personal way of working or visual language

Correct Answer:experiment,testing materials, techniques, or ideas

testing materials, techniques, or ideas

Correct Answer:influence,something that inspires creative decisions

something that inspires creative decisions

Correct Answer:Resource,a visual or material reference used to spark ideas

a visual or material reference used to spark ideas

Q4.
What helps a designer develop their style?

Avoiding feedback
Copying only one artist
Correct answer: Experimentation and reflection
Using only traditional materials

Q5.
A thread card can reflect the or form in your visual resource.

Correct Answer: texture, surface

Q6.
Why are visual resources useful in textile design?

They help write artist statements
Correct answer: They give ideas for colour and texture
They are easy to print out
They replace sampling entirely

Additional material

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