Expert help with improving your tartan design

If you intend to have your tartan design woven to be made into products, we offer an Expert Tartan Design Review service. We particularly recommend this service if you are intend to record your tartan design officially for posterity, as the Scottish Register of Tartans aims to uphold traditional standards in the registrations it approves.

The Expert Tartan Design Review service will be provided independently by a world-leading tartan expert (such as a senior figure at the Scottish Tartans Authority or a recognised weaving or kiltmaking authority.) Your design will be forwarded to them, together with all design details you have provided on your tartan’s “Details” page.

Their comments and possible suggestions will be returned via a private area of our web site, which you will be notified about by email. You can share this feedback publicly on the web site if you choose, but it is not shown by default. Should you wish further advice thereafter, this process can be repeated as often as reasonably required, with a 50% fee reduction for each subsequent critique on the same design. These fees are non-returnable, even in the event that little or no improvement can be suggested.

This service includes three main aspects: aesthetic, traditional, and practical. We may offer you a choice of experts available from our panel, each of whom will have their own unique balance of interests in history, weaving, or kiltmaking. This tartan authority will review your design and suggest possible improvements in view of producing a pleasing combination of colour and pattern based on his or her extensive experience; as well as a suitably meaningful use of elements in view of your individual inspirations and interpretations, in the context of wider tartan traditions, and with a view to practical considerations in getting your fabric produced, with respect to weaving technology.