ABOUT

Katy Dika is a Providence, RI based soft goods & surface designer with over 15 years of professional design experience.  Katy draws influence from many areas including entomology, mid-century surface design, and patterns that occur in nature. She is a problem solver & design thinker who enjoys working with clients including startups, mentoring budding designers, and bringing great products to market.  

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Katy is a Rhode Island School of Design- Apparel grad, a Thomas J. Watson Fellow, and a member of the Design x RI 2017 Advance cohort.  Katy has taught Textile and Apparel classes in the Rhode Island School of Design undergraduate and PreCollege programs, and continues to teach Surface Design in CE at RISD.

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INSPIRATION

Katy’s current body of surface design work reflects back to a lifelong love of insects, her travels in Australia and New Zealand as a Thomas J. Watson Fellow, and her many years as Curator of the natural history collection at Rhode Island School of Design's Edna Lawrence Nature Lab.  During her year abroad, Katy studied with entomologists, diving deeply into topics such as sexually deceptive orchids and the wasps they trick into “mating” with them, and tiny micro Lepidoptera— moths whose larvae create gorgeous patterns on the leaves they feed on.  Some of these topics are visualized in her repeating patterns, which offer more than aesthetic appeal, but give us a peak into the complex lives of insects and the plants they love.  Pieces from this collection are available for license and for view at Surtex 2020. 

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CLIENTS

Select past clients include Pyrex, Talbots, Chadwick's, Coldwater Creek, Summer Infant, Good Baby/Evenflo, Sylvania, Aqua Leisure, Innovative Development, Fit & Fresh, Dorel Juvenile Group, Empower Fitness, Natco Home and many others both large and small.