Timorous Beasties was established in Glasgow in 1990 by Alistair McAuley and Paul Simmons, who met studying textile design at Glasgow School of Art. Today, the studio is a diverse operation and has emerged as a multi-award-winning, internationally acclaimed icon.
Timorous Beasties’ work embodies a unique diversity of pattern, ranging from design that echoes a golden age of copperplate engraving to examples of a distinctly edgy nature, an elegant transgression, a display of chic irreverence. Yet, the studio fully engages a design discourse with textile's history by lending an aesthetic evolution to time-honoured motifs. Timorous Beasties are inspired by the universal connection between nature, art and humankind, whereby plants, animals and society are visually inextricable. They are devoted to how that impacts as pattern design in our daily experience of furnished spaces, from one-bedroom flats to country villas, to the halls of civic and government buildings, departure lounges, shops, restaurants, and hotels.