Meet Nelléne Vorster

I am a qualified interior designer, and I worked full time at a company selling custom curtains, blinds and upholstery. While I was working with designer fabrics to complete my projects, I desperatly wanted to be the artist showcased in the sample books, and be the designer to create all these beautiful fabrics and wallpapers distributed and presented by importers and wholesalers.

In 2019, I stumbled across the surface pattern design industry through CatCoq on skillshare, but struggled to get traction on my own with limited skills and guidance and I wasn't sure if I can actually make the shift on my own.

In 2025 I finally decided to invest in myself, to see if surface pattern design can be a new direction and a new career opportunity.

The Immersion course guided me through all the building blocks, helping with the development of skills and mindset. Even though some weeks were challenging and it was hard to keep up, Bonnie made me believe that I can do anything!

After completing the Immersion certification, I compared the quality of my patterns, colour decisions and suitability for the interior industry with earlier work, and I was shocked at the results! In only a few weeks I made drastic progress and improvements.

Since completing Immersion 2025, I resigned from my full time job, which entailed being stuck in traffic for at least 2.5 hours every day. I continued to work on my first marketable collection, I created a website, and started sharing my work on social media on a regular basis.

The next steps will be to start pitching my work to manufacturers. My goal for 2026 is to become a licensed surface designer!