Silver Award for Brighton MET student at UNIQLO and Tate Modern t-shirt competition 

Sophie Norman, an art & design student at Brighton MET College, has won a silver award in an international t-shirt competition run by UNIQLO and the Tate Modern. 

The annual t-shirt design competition, UT Grand Prix (UTGP), encourages entrants of any occupation, age, gender, or nationality to freely express their creativity.

The competition has been running since 2005 and is judged by a combined panel of representatives from Tate Modern and UNIQLO.

The judges selected five winning designs from thousands of entries, with this year’s theme being ‘Create the Future: Be Inspired by Play’

Sophie was one of the winning contestants, receiving a silver award for her t-shirt design. She said:

“When we did some dry etch printing using recycled Tetra Paks, I over-inked the paper leaving me with lots of leftovers. I found the patterns and textures interesting and decided to have a go at making a collage with them, something I would never have thought about doing before starting this Foundation course. I was really pleased with my design and decided to enter the competition as I really had made the design by “play” fitting into this year’s competition theme.

“When I found out that I’d won a silver award, I was obviously delighted. My kids are proud of me and are even wearing the t-shirts, which is great! It’s wonderful to see my design on display at the Uniqlo Tate Modern shop and on the website.

“Cath my course leader not only introduced me to printing with recycled Tetra Paks and collage but also suggested entering the competition. I’d like to especially thank Cath and Dagmara for a fantastic year of non-stop creative fun, Vicky for her superb printing inductions and Jonny for helping me format my design.”


Cath Laffan, one of Sophie’s lecturers on her course, added:
“I recommended the competition as it was accessible, it was appropriate to the course, as it is centred around experimentation, and that was the central theme of the competition.

“I am very proud of Sophie, of course, and she is now going on to do a master’s in fine art, which is fantastic.”

Sophie’s t-shirts are already on sale at the Tate Modern, and will soon be available for purchase on the UNIQLO website as well.