Sydney Catherine Benda

Now working as a freelance textile designer with a love of all things nature. Wildflowers and the mountains fuel my work. I spend a lot of my time in the woods hiking and backing and gathering inspiration for my work.

Working as a textile designer for Target’s RTW team, I focused on hand painted print and pattern. Designing both for the women’s apparel and accessories departments, my work is shown in Universal Thread brand. During my time there, we launched the brand and through artwork, helped to create the brand identity. ‘

While working on the team, I was able to craft a strong knowledge of color, trend forecasting, and balance within a collection. I was able to be a part of department trend presentations, and help to cultivate the tone of artwork for the seasons. As well as being the Textile Designer for the Universal Thread brand, I would put together seasonal runway recaps, festival recaps, and help or host various workshops, such as natural dyeing with garden vegetables, market flowers, and food scrapes.

BACKGROUND

Born and raised by the water in Michigan, I grew up playing sports with my brothers, designing clothes, and painting with my grandmother. Focusing on soccer and art throughout high school, I went on to attend Savannah College of Art and Design and played on the SCAD Women’s Soccer Team while studying fashion design with a focus on textiles.

During my time at SCAD, I took part in Collaborative Learning opportunities with companies such as Reebok and Michael’s Swimwear where she worked on active sportswear products and print and pattern design for production. During 2015, I collaborated with senior fashion design student Casey Smith where I designed and wove the textiles for her collection. This is featured in the American Woven’s Collection. This was selected and show in the SCAD Senior Fashion Show 2015.

I took part in two internships with Target, first designing on the Childrenswear team and then again as a textile design intern on the Womenswear team where I had my prints go into production for SS2016. During my senior thesis collection at SCAD, I designed and embroidered my own textiles, which were selected and shown in the SCAD Senior Fashion Show for 2016. This collection is featured in the Poetic Scribbles Collection.

Honored as a CFDA+ 2016 Design Graduate where I was selected as one of the top fifty-one graduates from the top design schools around the world in the field of fashion. I was selected as one of ten in the category of textiles specializing in surface treatments, textures, and wovens.

To Sydney's earlier work from her undergraduate degree, please visit her behance - http://portfolios.scad.edu/sydneycatherine