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Tag: surfacepattern

More Mock Ups

I was excited to see my designs on a larger range of things after doing a few that I found online, I collected what I needed, notebooks, a mug and coaster, some more stationery, even a phone case, and I managed to create some simple mock up images from these by setting up a little white light area. I think these kind of images show the patterns very well against a white background and I think this is probably how I would show them on a product listing too.

I first had a go at some notebooks here, which was great because it has given me a chance to put different patterns together and see how they work together. I also had a pen and pencil in some images that I think look good with a little blender design to go onto them. The advantage of doing my own mockups means that I can arrange them right, I can open the notebook or anything else and get the best images that I need. So I did open a notebook and put a blender on the inside cover and a light blue page with a placement design sat in the corner which I think looks cute.

I next tried some images using a mug and coaster, a pen holder and some notebook together which I think looks quite good together. They all work as good giftware items which is exactly what I want my collection to be. I think overall the mockups are great and have made me think more about what I want to ensure my patterns do, this includes scale, colourways, and I think I can look into editing designs now to make them exactly what I want them to be.

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Spoonflower Contest – Day at the Lake

The Day at the Lake contest made me think of cabins, boats and fishing particularly, although a day at the lake for me would probably be walking, photography, spending time with friends, just because I do not know how to fish.

I decided on the theme of fish because I thought I could do quite bright and vibrant with the colour choices and interesting shapes with the actual fish.

Hero Design

The hero design came out quite bright with all the fish swimming in a couple of different directions. I like this, but I think the contrast of the colours make it look more child-like, nothing wrong with that but its not generally the market that I aim for, so I guess I should keep this in mind in the future when I am playing with the brighter colours.

Single Coloured Fish Designs

I tried some designs that used a single colour for the fish in the foreground then a contrasting colour for the background. I actually think that some of the darker colours worked well with this but I found the purple and blue combination to be particularly harmonising.

Blue and Purple Fish Designs

I tried the designs using the blue and purple combination, then tried them with a range of blue, purple and yellow backgrounds for this. I think this is interesting and I actually ended up submitting the blue one for the contest. I think I always think I need to enter the hero design I do for the actual challenge but all these designs do still follow the theme so I think sometimes a slightly simpler design may be the one to go for.

Bubble Blenders

Finally a few blenders here with the bubbles, I think these are quite cute and work well, although again I think the contrast of the yellow turns it into more a child-like design again.

Berry, Foliage and Flower Patterns

I moved on today to some berry patterns, using just the berries and related foliage here. I did make a point of separating these for the sake of creating these mini collections but once I do a proper hero design I will then work from there and perhaps combine some of the berry and mushrooms and things like that.

These show some quite busy designs that I would maybe call heroes or busy secondaries, I found with these that having a kind of half drop motif throughout it catches the eye but all the smaller ones helps to distract from this. The top one too with the colours on the background is interesting as it means I do not have to have a solid colour in the background.

These I would say are the busier kind of blenders on such a large scale or secondaries. I actually really like the colours against the white background and I think both of them work well together. The other one looks maybe a little muted but the colours do look nice together.

These I would say are much more blender feeling, although I think the scale of these could be put down an awful lot to make them a lot smaller. I reused the two right hand patterns and just made them more simple, I think the top one works well and the bottom one is nice but I think I prefer it with the dots as welll. The instant response I got from the left hand ones were ‘Jellybeans’, so I do not think this translated well, especially in that size, maybe if they were smaller scale they would look different but I think the more random dot designs I have done work nicely.

I tried some designs based on some of the foliage motifs I had started to create. The first image I think shows some nice examples in the left hand ones, I like the scale of these as well. The next photo shows some more blender or secondary type designs, which I think work but do not excite me very much.

I had this idea for blenders at around 5am when I woke up in the awful heat, just alternating the size of the dots for a more interesting dot effect. I think the three colourways work well too and I think these could work well with the hero kind of designs so I am happy with these.

Lastly today I tried some flower designs, I did not expect great thing from these by themselves as I struggled with the aromatherapy contest in this way. I think overall the dark experiments actually turned out a lot better, which is weird as I do not use a great deal of dark backgrounds in my work. I think the light green one (which looks a little light blue in the yellow lit room I took the picture in) looks almost christmassy, which is definitely something that I want to avoid. I think the white flowers are interesting and both colourways work well, but I am not sure how these fit in with the rest of the collection, so this is something I would have to check while I am picking the final kind of results.

Bioluminescence Spoonflower Contest

I have been doing a couple of contests with Spoonflower at the moment, what I enjoy about them is that they give you a theme, and it is often so unique you do not have anything that just happens to fit into it, so I enjoy taking a few hours a week to work towards this. I usually start by taking the theme and mindmapping a little, so for this one I thought of creatures that produce their own light, and thought of jellyfish and plankton, I thought jellyfish would make a really nice pattern.

I decide on a colour scheme, this is sometimes dictated by the contest but was not for this one, but I decided to go with a range of blues for the ocean, and a bright contrasting pink for the jellyfish. I used procreate to make my motifs, and used a couple of tools add light and luminescence to them, such as the light brush tool and the glowing dots.

Tile of Entry

I created this repeating tile for it, I quite like it as it has a range of contrast and bold colours in it. I have now entered this for the contest and will be looking into the upcoming contests to be prepared for them, I would like to enter every week but I did miss last week’s due to working hard on my submission, but the previous two weeks, Pastel Cafe and East Fork, can be seen below.

East Fork and Pastel Cafe Entries

I like that these are testing my skills and making me learn new things, I am trying out new colours and objects I have never drawn before, so I hope to keep this going for my own development.

Final Mini Fabric Collection

My mini fabric collection was based from the dragonfly designs I created from the hero, originally I created a ladybird design for the giftbag, a dragonfly giftwrap and a beetle giftwrap which I put together as the collection. Some feedback from this was that if each design was put together as wrapped gifts in the giftbag, the designs may clash and look too busy. So I took each of my hero designs, and created a family of patterns from each one. The ladybird ones I used to create the paper collection, and I used the dragonfly ones for the fabric ones. The beetle ones have not been used for anything final, but I still like the patterns I created for that, and thought that I could take a selection of patterns across the three families for the final paper collection, but they did end up being quite different families so I do not think they would have worked so well like this.

collection

I originally tried this mock up, showing the makeup pouch, with some reuseable make up remover pads, and this travel wrap. I like the hero on the pouch, I think this works well with the scale of it and the contrast of the white background with the black zip. The wrap too I think is bold with the yellow background, this works well and will have a blender on the inside to keep it more refined. The pads however I thought it might be a good idea to put three different colourways of the lily blender, but I do not think this worked as well as I wanted to, I think it creates too much colour across the board, and without the other secondary I created that focuses more on the pink, it just stands out too much here.

I refined the pads in the collection by using the plainer yellow blender with the trails pattern, I think this is more simple but it does go better with the colour scheme and the purpose maybe too, white may not be the best colour for a pad that could be stained with makeup constantly, a brighter one might hide that effect a little. I also show designs here for the inside of the travel wrap, as shown it has different compartments for various things you would need, and shows the blender on the inside and the secondary design on the outside. For this, I could adapt it to a more waterproof fabric that could be better for carrying shower essentials too.

flat collection mock up

I created this flat mock up design like I did with the final collection too, this shows all the elements of the fabric collection, including what colour the inside of the make up pouch would be. I do think seeing it like this does show that they go together quite well, much better than with the lily designs I tried before.

PATTERN COLLECTION BOARD

Finally I then put the four patterns I used in this collection together to show them flat on a board, I think they work together well with the use of the yellow and green being particularly dominant.

Final Collection

The final collection has gone through a lot of drafts and alterations, I think I am finally at a place where I am happy with it and fully planned out everything, down to what colour the bottom of the giftbag is and the greeting inside the card.

finished collection 2

I swapped the flat wrap sheet with the other side of the double sided roll, as the feedback was to make the flat sheet a little busier, and I thought the other side of the roll should be a little calmer due to the boldness of the pink side, so I think this was probably a good decision. I also muted the colour of the ladybird green a little. There was feedback about the differing colours in the backgrounds, but I decided to keep things as they were in this sense, because the pink background may look a little stand out and odd here, but the sides of the gift bag are also pink so I think this works. I suppose the yellow of the card is a little different but I think it ties in with the slight yellow in the hero, and gives quite a nice effect on the card, I do not think the envelope being pink or green would have the same effect because the yellow border is so dominant on the card.

FLAT PAPER COLLECTION

I was advised in my latest tutorial to do this flat mock up sheet of everything, this shows the entire collection and every detail of it which I think would be great to show someone who hasn’t seen any of the collection, because this makes it very clear with every detail. Especially with something like the gift bag that shows it all around.

PATTERNS FLAT BOARD

This updated pattern board shows all the patterns used in the final collection, with the addition of the gift tag motif and the placement design on the front of the card. I chose this card in the end because I think the layout worked the best, I did like some other card designs I did but they would not have gone that well with this particular set of patterns, as they were influenced more from the Dragonfly or Beetle collections.

Next I want to show the final design of the fabric collection in a similar way to this, to make sure it is clear what each piece is and that they go together well.