Following a career spanning 20 years in the arts sector, intergalactic innovator Claire Sowton recognised the power of data in creative spaces and how this data could be used to create something that was equally beautiful and personally meaningful.

Not only did she want to make a tool that was useful and pushed technological limits, but Claire also saw the value in making something that truly connected to people on an emotional level.

Claire explained:

I have developed a web tool which takes the stars on any date and time in any place and generates a graphics file that can be used as a pattern by designers and craftspeople in their work.

This star-spangled project was born from Claire’s acceptance to the Resident Entrepreneurs Programme, part of Creative Informatics initiative at the University of Edinburgh in 2022. This platform, gave her the first funding boost she needed to launch the tool in the quilt making industry.

Following this initial developmental spark, Claire gave credit to the Data Driven Innovation (DDI) Fellows Programme, funded by the Bayes Centre and the Edinburgh Futures Institute, in its commitment to supporting academic and professional services staff at the University of Edinburgh to explore and develop spin-out or startup ventures.

That’s actually quite rare - the DDI programme is an inclusive initiative that I was really grateful to join.

The DDI Fellows programme boosted Claire's venture and her business development skills into the stratosphere. She is now using this knowledge to take her innovation across creative disciplines.

“The support has been invaluable”, she adds, stating that her project has benefitted from generous branding expertise, consultation support on storytelling and business model support.

It’s often difficult to articulate your complex ideas into a digestible format and clear business model that others can easily understand, but the DDI fellowship team’s support has helped me do just that.

Her inspiration for this project came from working with pioneering colleagues at the University of Edinburgh, particularly in digital education, and a dissatisfaction with typical personalised products widely available to buy for presents, marking milestones and commemorating loved ones.

Data has a big role to play in our ideas about how meaning can be integrated into design, whether you are celebrating a birth, a wedding or remembering someone’s life.

The meaning woven into each data-driven design gives people an opportunity to stitch and celebrate both the little and the big moments in their lives. “That, to me, is why this is so magical”, she adds.

It was only after the injection of seed funding by the DDI fellowship into Claire’s project, that she really began to see the impact of her work.  

I knew the technology worked, but I didn’t know how far I could take the project’s redevelopment in a short space of time.

With the business support from the DDI fellowship, Claire’s ambitious project is reaching monumental milestones, with the company recently receiving its Intellectual Property marker and trademark registration approval in July 2026.

The data-driven trailblazer revealed her next steps in preparing to launch her subscription design service, after which craftspeople will be able to run, test and make unique and special patterns from her project.

Looking to the future, Claire hopes to see a wide range of professional craftspeople, designers and makers  using the tool across disciplines. She explained that a subscription-based model would be a fantastic indication that people were buying into her tool and could propel different designs in new areas.

Claire works part time for the University of Edinburgh using her doctorate as a research impact manager in Moray House School of Education and Sport, to help researchers think about how they can maximise benefits to society from their projects. She also runs her own creative business, which principally works with technology and textiles.

In the age of AI generated art, Claire hopes her tool will act as a support to creative communities in their fight to protect the human element of the craft industry’s traditions.

You can sign up to find out about the launch of Woven Pixel at www.wovenpixel.co.uk

Instagram @wovenpixeldesign