The Beetle Pattern Family

Finally looking at my last blender, I decided it would be the final step to finish the family for this hero. The beetle design is busy and is a mixture of beetles and leaves, following my research of the way they move their legs and move through the earth, I did do little textured squiggles again like the ladybird, as I think these creatures move in a more similar way than the dragonfly.

The Beetle Hero

The reds, pinks and greens do all stand out here, and I think the yellow background is quite a bold choice which I do like. I thought about how to create secondaries from this, and how the beetles would look as a linear type of design.

Secondary patterns

Even though these are all on white backgrounds, I think the colour contrasts in each piece works very well and the white makes the motifs stand out more than a complimentary colour behind them. The idea of the linears are different, the leaves drop down by half each time and the beetles go sideways in more of a brick motion than a drop. With how busy they are, yet simple, it is hard to spot the repeat and I could see these working quite nicely.

Blender Designs

The blender designs are interesting and work well with the hero and the secondaries, and again I think differ drastically from both the dragonfly and the ladybird families.

Creating the Dragonfly Family

As I found the ladybird pattern created quite an interesting range of patterns from it, I thought about how the dragonfly and the beetle would work as well. Because I used to same colours I originally thought about how all the patterns would just look like it was from the same family, but the colour balance used in the heroes is different and I think will make a big difference.

Dragonfly Hero

The hero here is interesting with a lot of colours in it, thats why I chose the white background because I thought it may be too overpowering in any other colour. The dragonflies are flying over the lily pads, leaving invisible trails behind them which form the backing texture of this pattern too.

Secondary Designs

I worked on some key elements of the designs to create these secondary designs, I think these work well with the slight simplistic repeat to it. I like the difference in colour schemes but how they work well with the hero together too. Overall I think these could work well as secondaries to the hero.

Blender Patterns

Looking at Blenders here I think I managed to create quite a range using a number of motifs, I think the linear trails works quite well and I think I do prefer this in the yellow. The flowers and lily pads are interesting too and I think work well with the hero.

Overall I think this collection works well, but does look completely different to the collection with the ladybird hero, so this does prove to me that even though the colour schemes are the same, the colour balance and motifs make it totally different.

Expanding the Ladybird Pattern Family

After a feedback tutorial with Helen where I felt good about my patterns, the critique was that if I had a present wrapped in the dragonfly wrap, the beetle roll and the inside the ladybird gift bag, they would be too busy and clashing, because essentially the three designs are all hero designs. While I want to include all these, it would be more sensible to start with one and build the secondary and blender patterns off of that, for the three different heroes, creating three different families of patterns from the three main designs. I think this would be better in terms of submitting to Mat at Design Group if I still get the chance to do this, but for submitting for my module, it would be nice to show that I have improved my patterns and I can build an interesting family of them, which is also practice for the final module too.

Collection Shown in Tutorial

So the ladybird pattern at the top here shows the front of the bag, I previously tried to do a happy birthday placement and I just did not like it, but I liked the ladybird pattern that I did on the gusset of the bag, so why waste my best bit just on the gusset? Not all bags for birthdays have to have a greeting on the front, the pattern works better I think because it is eye catching, and would have a card and envelope to go with it nicely as well as wrapping paper. The pink pattern next to it would then be the gusset, with the ladybird as the tag, although this needs to be trimmed to not have the legs too.

So I started with the ladybird pattern, the dragonfly and beetle will be next to create the families from it, I think the colour palette change was definitely smart, it is simpler but it is easier for me to understand it and balance it out better. White is definitely a key element to it too, I think I have such a bad idea of it as a background but it has been helpful in some cases where a lot of colour has been used in the pattern.

Secondary Designs

As shown here I did experiment a lot when I was creating the secondaries, the colours of the backgrounds especially because it shows totally different designs, especially in the stripes, the darker colours just make it far too dense, whereas the white keeps it quite airy and flowing. The green leafy pattern with a few backgrounds is interesting, I think it works well for the colours used on the backgrounds too and goes well with the hero, I attempted a stripe because it is not really something I have managed to do before but instead of just rectangle blocks I wanted to make the most of the motifs to create this stripe idea.

Blender Designs

Blender creation for me is quite difficult because I like doing busy hero patterns and linear patterns, it is the simple ones that I tend to struggle with. I do like most of these, I think they do all go well again with the hero and using the motifs in a different way can make them look totally different. The leaf linear is interesting because while bold, it is simple and the repeat is less obvious than the rest because of the couple of range of leaves with it. I imagine these would look quite attractive as wraps and rolls along with the ladybird bag, so I am pleased with how this worked out.

Being the Best You: Self Improvement Modelling

This was my final workshop on CareerCake that I required to complete my Cardiff Met Award, although I know it will not be my last video on there as I have found the resources to be very useful for my career planning and skills.

This video covered the core components of being Unstoppable and how to find your flow, it also talks about how being in flow can bring out the best in you.

Firstly what does being unstoppable mean to me and what would be possible if I was unstoppable?

In terms of my work right now, I feel like unstoppable would be getting the right designs right the first time, having ideas constantly to flow off of this and continuing to develop without hitting bumps or moments where I lose the motivation. I always write myself to-do lists in the mindset that I would be working almost constantly throughout the day, setting aside hour by hour timetables of what I would like to get done. I feel like this is helpful because I know what I need to do, but I do not feel too down heartened when I do not achieve it all, because sometimes I may set aside an hour for a pattern, then complete more and more and spend more time, but I am still accomplishing things. I think if I was unstoppable then all the things that I would want to get done would be done how I planned them, no matter what I write down in what order, it always differs because I prefer certain things over others, or it depends on what equipment I still have set up and easy to access.

She also discussed about how what if questions can stop us from making a change, I feel like that relates a lot in my work too, when it gets to the end point and there are a lot of little points in the feedback that would improve my work drastically, I am often too scared to start over and do something better which is something I have definitely worked on now. I would think ‘What if it looks worse than the first design?’ ‘What if they do not look any better after all that work?’, and instead of drawing some new motifs to make better, colourful patterns, I would just make the current patterns more busy, or change them to a slightly different colour on photoshop. It was only this year on my module that I decided to really go for it for the improvements, and letting go of the detailed designs I had done that were just not working and opting for something more simple was definitely something I enjoyed doing in the end because it allowed me to have more fun with the deigns and the process of it.

She spoke about being in the flow and how flow writing where you literally just continously write about something and every little thought that pops into your head is written down until something good comes out. I would consider this something I would be good at, I am going to try and do this on paper and I have done this in the past with essays, then editing them down or changing words to suit the style of writing. I find I can get in the flow with writing as well as other activities in my work, and when she mentioned the environment, it does have a big impact on being able to be in the flow.

Currently, I am on a table in my dining room at my parent’s house, it is a very open house so I can hear the tv in the living room metres away and all the conversations. I think my best time of day is the afternoon where everyone else is outside and busy in the sunlight, I can just be alone on the table and get things done over the course of a couple of hours. In terms of flowing over days or longer, I am finding this hard here because it is not a massive table, ideally in my own house I have different workstations set up for my sewing machine, my drawing and painting, my laptop, and when I have to constantly move things and squish things in here I find it to be something that I put off then. So I could spend a few days on the laptop and not do anything else, which could be good for when I am creating patterns but could be a problem if I need to also be getting other things done.

I think I take my flow skills for granted, this was a question that was posed. I can get a lot done when I get into this flow, especially with writing or drawing. I think this could be transferred also to my work ethic when I have a job, I do work hard when I have a job but thinking back there could be ways that I could streamline some activities and get more of an uninterrupted flow going.

Overall this workshop was helpful in the idea of the flow and how this is a recognisable skill, I thought this was interesting and makes a step towards being unstoppable. If I can figure out how best to get into my flow, I think I could work even more effectively to get more and more done each day and stop procrastinating certain things that I try to avoid.

Hidden Job Market

For my fourth workshop, I went back to CareerCake and found another video by the founder, Aimee Bateman, that discussed the hidden job market. She spoke about how generally people check job boards for their employment opportunities when realistically this is often the last place an employer would advertise the job after first looking internally or in their own networks to fill the vacancy. I think this applies to my industry a lot, being creative your artwork and portfolio can speak for itself and getting yourself out there with connections can be very beneficial.

The personal branding workshop was touched on a bit too, and there was also a career planning course that was mentioned that I may look into. I think being in my third year in Uni now it is getting more and more realistic that I need to be getting a good job that I want to keep for a few years and I suppose being completely out of education is still surreal to me.

Aimee mentioned how networking events are important, I attended one of these last year in Uni, and made some contacts and actually took part in a course in the museum where I consulted about a new photography exhibition. This was a very useful contact as when I then started my new module and wanted to photograph insects, I was able to reach out to her, and she put me in touch with the entomology department and I was able to come in and look around all the research stored insects and photograph them. I was also asked to do a blog post which did fall off my radar but I may reach out again to see if this is still something useful to them.

I think networking is important in art too because we all individually have a range of talents, so while I study surface pattern design, I can also photograph well and studied that at a-level, I can also draw and paint so can do commissions, and you never know what someone might want or who they may know if they can see some of your other work.

From this workshop I learnt that I definitely need to update my LinkedIn and post on it more often, posting my work would help me to get noticed and remembered rather than my fairly blank profile. I think doing a little workshop on this too might be a good idea so I know how to use this effectively, as I do find I am a little apprehensive about it because I do not have the experience that I do with other social networks.

I thought the idea of a video CV is very interesting, I am not sure that I have the confidence to do something like that but maybe that could be a goal to work up to. I never knew about recruitment agents either, and how to use them to your advantage. Information interviews could be interesting to help me understand different roles more as I do not know too much about how a surface pattern designer would work in a large company.

This video taught me the importance of being present and reaching out instead of waiting for something on job pages, and the best methods to do this and be remembered. Overall I found this interesting and I think this is definitely something useful I could put to work on my social networks.

Personal Branding Workshop

Due to the coronavirus and how life has changed lately because of this, I was not able to attend my last three workshops while in University. I took part in a few workshops in Birmingham in September and then did a CV workshop not long after before falling ill for a few months. It was definitely a challenge to work from home with my usual work but the fact that we could now take some workshops online by watching these CareerCake videos was actually very useful for me as I was not fully recovered and back in Uni as it was.

CareerCake is a great resource for employability and building skills with CVs, social media presence, and a range of other skills that could be very useful for the job hunt and how I present myself online. This was the first video I had watched by Aimee Bateman, who I gathered from the video was the creator of CareerCake and features in a lot of shorter clips too that I will be definitely be checking out for the little tips that could help out massively.

The workshop began with the question: What is your personal brand? What three words would you use to describe yourself as a person?

I thought about this a lot, as a surface pattern designer I would definitely say a key word for me is creative, I also thought about jobs that I have done or how I have moved through school and University, and I have always been hard-working. I also thought about the moments where I have felt for people, or helped people, whether it’s family, friends or strangers, and I think I am compassionate.

The idea of the course is to understand what personal branding is and why it helps in your career path, create a strong and unique brand statement and learn about how to leverage social media.

Something that I picked up on that I thought was interesting was the difference between a strength and a skill, which I suppose before I did consider to be the same thing. Aimee described a skill as something you are good at, and a strength is something that you really enjoy and feel passionate about. I think an example of me is that printmaking is a skill for me, I can do it well when I do it, but I do not enjoy it and I try to avoid it if there is another way to do something. I really enjoy stitching and construction, I am good at these and I enjoy it, so I think I really try again and again to improve it and produce pieces I am proud of, so I would consider this a strength.

A part of the workshop was to ask others what three words they would use to describe you, I asked my boyfriend, my friends I live with in Uni, and my friends from school who study at different unis to me now. My boyfriend said ‘Kind, Loyal, Honest’, which was lovely to hear. My Uni friends said ‘hard-working, ambitious, creative’, ‘imaginative, insightful, warm-hearted’ and ‘thoughtful, artistic, understanding’. Again these were nice things to hear, I consider the people that I asked to be honest enough with me that they would tell me something negative if I was asking for the feedback, it was interesting that the closest to my words are from my friend Elin, who lives with me and also studies the same course as me in our creative field.

It was pointed out that we possibly see qualities that we shared and values that we share with the people we choose to trust with these kinds of questions, this is not something I would openly post on my social media pages and it makes sense that I spoke to the people I did, as I see qualities in them that do match my own.

An important question is why do I do it? Why do I do what I do?

I really enjoy it, I love being creative and watching something turn from a blank canvas, page or space and becoming something to be proud of. There was always an expectation of me throughout school because I got good grades, that I was going to be something that my parents considered important, but I have never felt passionate about anything in school like I did for art, textiles and photography. I took all three at A level with ICT, and did not drop one for my second year because I really did enjoy them all for the different reasons. My work now tends to combine all four of those subjects. I also do it because I want to be independent and own my own business.

The values lesson was interesting, the first question posed was what are your top five pet hates in relationships? I thought about this and one thing that affects how I feel towards a person in any level of relationship is disrespect, in terms of work I think unprofessionalism can get annoying very quickly while at first maybe seeming like you could have an easier time with a relaxed boss but ultimately there needs to be a level of professionalism there. I also think dishonesty is hard to deal with, you need to know that your friends and the closest people to you will be honest, even if you will not always like it.

The next question was what situations make you feel annoyed or angry? I think mostly for me I find issue with personal space, I do find myself getting very annoyed if my workspace is disturbed in particular.

The next part covered what kind of employer would I want to work for? I have never really thought about this before beyond the field that I may want to work in, but thinking about it I think I would like someone who is passionate about the work, someone who wants constant improvement and is open to suggestions about this, the worst thing is seeing an obvious problem in the way things are running and no one bothered enough to fix it. I also think professionalism is important but also flexibility, having anxiety I am very nervous that an employer would not understand if I was having a bad day, ideally I would love an employer who would trust me to work from home sometimes if this helped me, as long as I was still getting the work done. I believe too that if I was in a job that I really enjoyed, I would take the work home with me, I have never just kept my school or Uni work confined to the campus, I have always spent nights and weekends working on things.

The next section covered the personal brand statement, which is 1-2 sentences covering what I am best at, who I serve, how i do it uniquely and why I do it. This is something I do not want to rush at all, I want to think about this as my branding continues to develop and come up with something good for this.

The social media lesson was probably the most insightful, the key points touched on the importance of privacy on the internet, by googling yourself you can see what an employer might see when they google you too. It is important to lock down Facebook, it is not a good platform for networking so does not need to be open or available for everyone to see. My Facebook is rarely used anyway, I mostly use it to keep in touch with my friends and watch cute dog videos. I think a little to-do list with my social media is needed, including updating my LinkedIn and posting more content, restarting my twitter, again sometimes I rarely use so there is not really much point having anything on it as it has nothing to do with me or my work. My youtube has a little bit of my work content that I uploaded to my blog here, as I have to show my work on here for Uni and you cannot upload videos directly I had to create a Youtube account to show these. Maybe I could find a way of putting more of my work on there instead, like time lapses of me drawing or something.

Some final notes about the workshop was the importance of email addresses being professional, consistent photographs across social media and even photo of me doing my art as the picture which is something I do not have an image of, and also email signatures, which is something I have not considered at all but may be useful for me to spread my instagram for example.

Overall I really enjoyed the workshop, it was not just sitting and watching an hour of a video, it was engaging and interesting and has definitely made me enthusiastic about building more skills and watching more content on CareerCake too.

Card Designs

I was not confident with my original card design, I think this was something that I found difficult as I had not done it before. I did draw up my own patterned writing and I think it was just too straight. I went looking for an interesting font when I was designing my logo idea, and I thought this font is actually quite fitting with trends I have seen in retail and for the audience that I am aiming for with the young adult women.

Card Designs

I worked on these designs using some of the motifs I had already drawn from my patterns, I think the little leaves are cute and work together, and the dragonflies on the right card are quite interesting. I did ask for feedback on the cards and one thing I did get for the left card was that the string idea with the leaves looked a little like Christmas lights, something I did not think about. I think this is possibly because of the yellow colour too, so I think making this a green or something is worth a try. I also got feedback that the yellow border was better than the green, and as I was taking the yellow out of the left design I could add it back into the border instead. I may need to look at the design of the squiggles too, I think I could look more at seeds or saps or something as small texture as it may be more circular and be more pleasing than the squiggles in this context.

Envelopes Ideas

The idea of quite an interesting and graphic envelope could be quite bold, I like these ideas but possibly again need redefining and actually some research and something softer may be more effective for this idea. Last time I put a pattern on the interior of the card and the envelope, I think I could still like something on the inside of the envelope but the inside of the card could just have a simple little corner design and I think that would be effective enough.

Interior Envelope Pattern

I think these pieces do look quite good, I think the smaller the scale on this one for the interior of the envelope is better because I want it to be a clear texture repeat that works as a good blender here.

Again I think all of these designs need redefining but I am happy that I think I am moving in the right direction here.

Beetle Motifs and Linear Repeats

In preparation for the beetle roll design, I did these designs on Procreate with the idea of the yellow for the background in my mind so I could put a lot of the pink and green into these motifs. I think the beetles work well and will stand out amongst the leaves I designed, the squiggles as well I have spoke about before with the idea of how the feet move in the dirt.

Linear Repeats

While I do enjoy my tossed designs, I wanted to have a go with the more linear design as it is on a roll of paper so could work nicely on this. I first did it on white and tried to repeat and spotted some bits that needed more motifs and I thought it definitely needed more colour in the background so the yellow was added. I also thought about incorporating the squiggles, I think these could have been done a little smaller to work as more of a background element, I repeated this too and I just did not like the overall effect of the piece. I much prefer what I have done with the tossed designs and I think this is something I should go back to trying out now to see what the effect of the beetles could be.

The tile, the block repeat and the half drop

I think the tile looks good here with the colour of the background and the green leaves, I think the colours all do work together and I am pleased with how it turned out. The first repeat is the basic block repeat and the second is the half drop. I think the half drop is definitely a more attractive design and harder to see the repeat, the dark pink does stick out a lot more than the other colours but I think this strong colour works well with the weaker colours.

Creating the Dragonfly Pattern

The dragonfly is an important part of the collection being a focal point in the flat sheet pattern design. I decided for the texture of them I have explored the texture of the wings before and gone up close on parts of their body, so I thought about the way that they move in the air, the idea that because they are able to hover and rotate in the air, I wanted to explore this. I watched some nature documentaries and watched how the dragonflies flew, I thought the patterns that they would leave in the air behind them could be an interesting texture point for the background.

Dragonfly flight Paths

I want to use the flight paths behind the rest of the motifs in the background as a texture on an otherwise flat surface. I thought about working it in with the patterns and making sure that nothing overlaps it but I think that this would show the repeat a lot more obviously.

Dragonfly Block Repeat

With the flight patterns in the background, I used a range of my motifs to create this tile. I like the dragonflies now, I think the simple element but also using my pattern work and avoiding black has worked well here. I like the range of lily pads here too which I think helps to add to the pattern and make it busy. I think the repeat is nice but I think the tile should be a lot bigger and fuller if I wanted to use the simple tile repeat method. I did however then work on a half drop, I found it can be quite easy to transfer the block repeat to a half drop using the same motifs and then just editing the edges of the tile.

The Half Drop Tile and Repeat

I think the half drop repeat has worked better here, in the repeat it is harder to see where the repeat happens and even when you do see it especially with the dark pink motifs it is more pleasing because it does drop before it repeats again. I think learning how to do one of these was definitely worth the time and the right choice for my patterns.

Creating Ladybird Patterns

I wanted to start with the ladybird pattern as I felt like I had a lot of leaves for that design and I wanted to make sure the colour scheme worked with the red I had chosen for the new ladybirds.

Initial Ladybird Block Repeat

I first decided to try the block repeat as these I find quick and easy, and I was able to put these together quite quickly which would allow me to see how the design would work. I put these in repeat and I thought these worked well, but it was obvious where the repeat was with the line of leaves down the centre of the repeat too.

Half Drop Practice

Following a tutorial, I tried to do a half drop intitially using a few motifs, to learn the technique first to not complicate it to the point where I would get lost. I think it has worked well and this now helps me to understand how to do these types of patterns. It is harder to see the repeat which I think is great, and even when you can see the repeat there is far more of a flow to it which I think works so much better, I am excited about this technique and I think I could do a lot more with my patterns now from this.

Working on a Half Drop

I worked on the ladybird pattern a lot, I do really like the repeat and I do like it on both white and green, but for the sake of using more colour here, I think the green is a better choice for the front of the giftbag. When I tried to design on quite a small scale repeat, it is obvious where the repeat was, but I find it usually is easy to find the repeat looking at it on a laptop screen when it could be used for a wall or a duvet set instead with the size of the scale. I think for the giftbag it would be a larger scale repeat anyway so the motifs were bigger on the bag and it would be a lot easier to see the individual colours and parts of it.

Gusset Ideas

Thinking of a design to go well with the green ladybird pattern is important. I first thought about a green in a shade darker, and I just did not think that was very attractive, I did try it in the lighter colour but it would have been the same colour as the background of the ladybirds then and may have become too merged with the front and back of the bag. I think the gusset does need to look different too for the sake of the motifs being cut off on the edges, and if the gusset was the same colour I think that would look very odd. I then thought about my patterns and use of colour, and decided to try the light pink, I found this to be a pleasing pattern and actually works well with the green as well so I was very pleased with this one.

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