Tartan Design Service

Design your own exclusive tartan with Lochcarron of Scotland. Work with our in-house designers to create a clan, family, corporate or university tartan.

As the world’s leading manufacturer of tartan, we are all passionate about the tartan we design and make here in Scotland. Tartan is the thread woven through our history and is the story of our future.

With our rich textile heritage and contemporary design capabilities it is very fitting that we offer a bespoke service for tartan design. Inspired by your tartan brief, our in-house design team will create tartan patterns as prints generated through our CAD system. These designs can then be sent to you electronically or in print format for approval. Alternatively a more interesting option for you would be to visit the mill and work directly with our skilled design team and use this as an opportunity to see just how we dye, warp, weave and prepare our fabrics and accessories ready for our customers.

We can also guide you through the process of registering your tartan with The Scottish Register of Tartan ensuring its place in tartan history.

As well as creating your own tartan, you can have your design converted into a wide choice of fabrics and accessories made here at our mill in Scotland.

Start your tartan design journey with Lochcarron of Scotland

Firstly, we need a design brief, if you already have one then please share this with us, if not we can help you create a brief. Included in your brief, please advise us of key colours that you would like to use, and any other influences or inspiration that we need to look at or research, whether that is a corporate colour, a historical link or more personal family connections. We have a detailed sheet that will help you write up your brief, this can be supplied to you.

The design process begins with selecting colours and yarns, we use up to a maximum of 6 colours in tartan. Using this colour palette, our skilled team then develop some design options which will be created within our CAD system. At this stage we need to know what the tartan is being used for, whether it is for a kilt, blanket or a scarf, this allows us to create the tartan options in the correct fabric type for your end use. The designs from our CAD can be sent electronically or printed out and mailed out to you, we will create 4-6 options to begin the development.

The beauty of designing your tartan with Lochcarron is that we are the manufacturer and your tartan will be designed and woven in our mill, and as the worlds leading manufacturer of tartan you are in good hands. Our mill is based in Selkirk, a town which has a rich textile heritage and is situated in the heart of the Scottish Borders. Once you have approved your final design we can begin to make your tartan in the mill. The first stage is to dye your colours in our dyehouse. We will dye the colours for the warp and the weft, when these threads are woven together in the loom they interlace to weave up the cloth that will be your final tartan fabric. The tartan is designed, dyed, warped, woven and inspected in our mill, we then send the cloth to our partners in Galashiels for the finishing process. The finishing is when the cloth is washed then dried,

Registering your tartan with The Scottish Register of Tartans

Consider registering your tartan, once you have a finalised design. Your final design can be submitted for approval to the Scottish Register of Tartans. This registers your tartan, giving it provenance, it will be logged on the national register. A certificate of authenticity is available from The Scottish Register of Tartans. We can help you with this process, please get in touch for more details.

Click here to find out more and to complete our Tartan Design Service Brief form.

If you would like more information about making your tartan design, please get in touch with us at:

Telephone: + 44 (0)1750 726025 | Email:  hello@lochcarron.com