1. Introduction
PatternDesigners ("PatternDesigners," "we," "us," or "our") is operated by James Brown, trading as PatternDesigners, a UK sole trader. PatternDesigners operates a directory and job board for the surface pattern and textile design industry — including designer profiles, company profiles, pattern-type taxonomy pages, and design job listings.
This Privacy Policy explains what personal information we collect, why we collect it, who we share it with, how long we keep it, and the choices you have. It applies to patterndesigners.com and the services described in our Terms of Service.
This Privacy Policy works alongside the Terms of Service and our Cookie Policy. It does not repeat the acceptable-use, content-ownership, payment, job-posting, or liability terms set out in the Terms — see that document for those.
We built PatternDesigners as a directory that, by its nature, includes information about people and companies before they've created an account with us. We take that responsibility seriously, and this policy explains how we handle it, alongside the more familiar categories of account, payment, and analytics data.
2. Information We Collect
Information you provide directly
| Information | When it's collected |
|---|---|
| Account details (name, email) | When you sign in via Clerk, our identity provider |
| Designer or company profile information (bio, portfolio images, social/website links, categories, skills, location, pricing/availability) | When you claim and edit a profile |
| Claim verification details (the email associated with your account, used to match an existing profile) | When you claim a designer or company profile |
| Designer application, interview, and "register interest" form details (name, email, location, social handles, experience, work description, uploaded images, and similar fields specific to each form) | When you submit one of these forms |
| Job posting details (job title, description, company name and contact email, salary/location, application link, uploaded images) | When you post a job |
| Uploaded images (portfolio images, logos, submission attachments) | When you upload content through any of the above |
| Newsletter email address | When you subscribe via the site footer |
| Payment-related details (billing email, amount, order status) | When you pay for a job listing, via Stripe |
Information collected automatically
| Information | When it's collected |
|---|---|
| Session technical data (IP address, user agent) | When you're signed in, as part of standard session security |
| Likes and saved items (which designers, companies, jobs, and pattern types you've liked) | When you use the like feature while signed in |
| Affiliate click data (IP address, user agent, and, if signed in, your account) | When you click an affiliate (equipment) link |
| Hashed, one-way profile-view identifiers (not your raw IP address or account token) | When you view a designer, company, type, or job page — used only to count views |
| Google Analytics identifiers and usage data (pages visited, device/browser type) | Generally, while browsing the site — see Section 7 |
We do not collect government-issued ID, financial account numbers, or health information, and we do not ask for more than the fields above.
3. How We Use Information
- Account creation and authentication — to create and secure your account, via our identity provider Clerk.
- Profile claiming — to verify that the email address on your account matches the email on file for a profile, before letting you take ownership of it. See our Terms for what this verification does and doesn't check.
- Publishing directory content — to display designer, company, and job information on the public site, including content we've compiled from publicly available sources before a profile is claimed.
- Saving and revisiting items — to let you like and save designers, companies, jobs, and pattern types you're interested in, tied to your account.
- Processing job listings and payments — to take payment for a job listing (via Stripe), verify that payment before publishing, and send you related notifications (payment received, payment failed, listing approved, listing rejected, listing expiring).
- Sending transactional emails — approval notifications, claim confirmations, invites, and payment updates.
- Sending the newsletter — if you subscribe, using your email address for that purpose.
- Customer support and correction requests — to respond if you contact us, including requests to correct or remove directory information.
- Fraud prevention — Stripe uses its own technical signals (including cookies) to reduce payment fraud on transactions processed through it.
- Site analytics — to understand how the site is used, via Google Analytics, and to count profile views using a hashed, non-identifying technique.
- Attributing affiliate purchases — to record that a purchase followed a link from our site, so we can be paid a commission.
We do not use your information to train AI models, and we do not sell your personal information to third parties.
4. Legal Bases (GDPR / UK GDPR)
Where GDPR or UK GDPR applies, we rely on the following legal bases:
| Legal basis | Applies to |
|---|---|
| Contract | Account creation, profile claiming, job listing payments and publication, sending you service-related notifications, and account features such as likes and saved items |
| Legitimate interests | Compiling and publishing aggregated designer/company directory information from public sources; site analytics; affiliate click attribution; fraud prevention |
| Consent | Newsletter subscription; voluntary form submissions (designer application, interview, register-interest); non-essential (analytics) cookies |
| Legal obligation | Responding to lawful requests from regulators or law enforcement, where applicable |
Where we rely on legitimate interests to compile a profile about you before you have an account, you have the right to object — see Section 12.
5. Third-Party Processors
We work with a small number of service providers to run PatternDesigners. We only list providers actually in use below.
| Provider | Purpose | Data involved |
|---|---|---|
| Clerk | Authentication and account/session management | Name, email, sign-in and session tokens |
| Stripe | Payment processing for paid job listings | Billing email, payment amount, payment status, job-tier metadata. Card details are handled directly by Stripe and never reach our servers. |
| Email delivery | Sending transactional emails (approvals, claim confirmations, invites, payment notifications) and our newsletter | Email address, name (where applicable), and relevant message content |
| AWS S3 | File and image storage | Uploaded images and file attachments |
| ImageKit | Image delivery and processing | Uploaded images, generated image URLs |
| Google Analytics | Website usage analytics | IP address (as processed by Google Analytics), device/browser information, pages visited, analytics cookie identifiers |
Hosting and infrastructure. The site is hosted on Vercel (frontend) with backend infrastructure using AWS and a self-managed Redis instance for queuing and caching. These providers may process technical/hosting-level data (such as server request logs) as part of running the site, but are not given access to use your data for their own purposes.
Social scheduling. We use Publer to help share already-public designer and job listings on social media. This only involves content that is already public on the site, not your personal account data.
We do not use any AI provider as a data processor — see Section 9.
6. Payments
If you pay for a job listing, your payment is processed by Stripe, our third-party payment processor. We do not store your full card details — Stripe handles that directly, and we only receive confirmation of payment status, the amount, and a payment reference.
We keep a record of your orders (amount, currency, status, and the listing it relates to) so you can view your payment history in your account and so we can resolve payment issues. See our Terms of Service for how payment relates to job listing approval.
7. Analytics
We use Google Analytics to understand overall site usage — which pages are visited and how the site is used in aggregate. This involves standard Google Analytics cookies and identifiers described in our Cookie Policy.
Separately, we count views of designer, company, type, and job pages using a one-way cryptographic hash of certain technical details rather than storing your raw IP address or account token. This lets us show view counts without retaining information that identifies you personally.
We do not use session-recording, heatmap, or behavioral-advertising tracking tools — we don't have any installed.
8. Affiliate Links
Some links on PatternDesigners (for example, to recommended equipment) are affiliate links. When you click one, we record technical information — your IP address, browser/device information, and, if you're signed in, your account and the profile the link appeared on — so that a resulting purchase can be attributed to us for commission purposes.
This is separate from the newsletter and analytics data described above, and separate from any tracking used by the merchant's own site once you leave ours. See our Terms of Service for the affiliate disclosure itself, and Section 11 below for retention.
9. AI Prompt Library
The AI Prompt Library provides staff-written prompts that link out to third-party AI tools (such as ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini). Selecting a prompt opens that third-party service in your browser, or copies text for you to paste there yourself.
We do not send any of your data to an AI provider, and we do not process prompts through our own AI backend — we don't have one for this feature. Any AI service you choose to use through the Prompt Library is independent of PatternDesigners and governed by that provider's own privacy policy, not ours.
10. Cookies
We use a small number of cookies: authentication cookies (from Clerk, to keep you signed in), payment security cookies (from Stripe, during checkout), and analytics cookies (from Google Analytics). All of these are described in detail, including how to manage your preferences, in our Cookie Policy.
11. Data Retention
| Category | Retention |
|---|---|
| Account information | Until the account is deleted, plus a reasonable backup period where required for security and disaster recovery. |
| Aggregated (unclaimed) designer/company profiles | Until removed, corrected, or no longer required for editorial purposes. |
| Claimed profile information | Until the profile or associated account is deleted, plus any period reasonably required for backups or legal obligations. |
| Job listings | Live for the purchased listing period, then retained for 7 years for accounting, legal, and business record purposes. |
| Form submissions (designer applications, interviews, register-interest) | 2 years. |
| Payment/order records | 7 years. |
| Uploaded images | While the associated profile, listing, or submission exists, then removed within a reasonable period unless required for backups or legal compliance. |
| Likes and saved items | Until the account is deleted. |
| Affiliate click data (IP, user agent) | 12 months. |
| Newsletter subscriber data | Until unsubscribed. |
| Analytics data (Google Analytics) | According to the configured Google Analytics retention period. |
12. Your Rights
Depending on where you live, you may have the following rights over your personal information:
| Right | Description |
|---|---|
| Access | Ask us what personal information we hold about you |
| Correction | Ask us to correct inaccurate information — including in an aggregated profile you haven't claimed |
| Deletion | Ask us to delete your personal information, subject to legal exceptions |
| Portability | Ask us for a copy of information you've provided, in a portable format |
| Objection | Object to our processing of your information under legitimate interests — including objecting to an aggregated profile being published about you |
| Restriction | Ask us to limit how we use your information while a request is being resolved |
| Withdraw consent | Withdraw consent at any time for anything we process on that basis (such as the newsletter or analytics cookies), without affecting processing that already happened |
How to exercise these rights. Contact us using the details in Section 17. We don't currently offer a fully self-service account-deletion tool, so requests are handled by our team directly — we'll confirm your identity and respond within a reasonable time.
If you are in the EU or UK, you also have the right to complain to your local data protection authority. If you are a California resident, you have rights under the CCPA consistent with those above, including the right to know and delete; we do not sell personal information.
13. Children's Privacy
PatternDesigners is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 16. You must be at least 16 years old to create an account, consistent with our Terms of Service.
14. International Data Transfers
Some of our service providers (including Clerk, Stripe, our email service providers, and Google Analytics) are based in, or transfer data to, the United States. Where personal information is transferred outside the UK or EEA, we rely on appropriate safeguards recognised under applicable law, including Standard Contractual Clauses or equivalent transfer mechanisms where required.
15. Security
We use reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect the information we hold, including relying on established providers (Clerk, Stripe) for authentication and payment security rather than building our own.
No method of storing or transmitting information is completely secure, and we can't guarantee absolute security. If we become aware of a breach affecting your personal information, we will notify you as required by applicable law.
16. Changes to This Privacy Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we'll update the "Last Updated" date above. For material changes, we'll provide appropriate notice — such as a notice on the site or an email to registered users — rather than relying only on the updated date.
17. Contact
PatternDesigners is operated by James Brown, trading as PatternDesigners, a UK sole trader.
Email: [email protected]
Correspondence address: Colmore Row, Birmingham, B3 2BS, United Kingdom
Use this email for privacy requests, copyright and rights complaints, legal enquiries, and general support. We do not operate a separate privacy inbox.
If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, or want to exercise any of the rights in Section 12, please contact us using the details above.