Above is my take on the 3.6 Geometric & Graphic Trends (ladies swimsuit patterns) for this Creative Exercise in Make It In Design online course. It was a bit of a challenge, taking me a couple weeks to complete. There were a lot of research lessons in this section, which led to a whole lot of design making fun on the various trend and color websites.
I’m still in the Trend section of this course, taking it slow (I do have a day job). There are several “how to” lessons in each section which pushes us to step out of the comfort zone on creating artwork/patterns. As a graphic designer in my day job, I already know a lot of Illustrator, but designing surface patterns is a whole different concept from creating ads, brochures, and catalogs. Creative Exercises include lessons to broaden our techniques and scope of design. Love it!
I had to learn some new-to-me techniques using geometric shapes in Illustrator. Was super fun. The top left pattern in the image (circle looking flowers), seen on one of the swimsuit mockups, is actually one circle. I duplicated, transformed, colored it in various ways to create a flower of sorts of circles! All from one little circle (for each flower). I have three or four circles on this. The polka dot is also one circle transformed into many.
The shell motif started from a circle also. Transforming it into a sunburst then overlaying with a square shape, cropping, then duplicating, recoloring I was able to make a pattern which is six of the shell looking squares. Makes a great seamless pattern.
The zigzag created from a straight line was easy and fun too. I used the polygon shape is one shape also, transformed into many variations. Lots of great Illustrator techniques learned on this lesson.
My color selection came from the WGSN S/S 18 Colour Trend. Not sure I hit the trendy 20-30 year old females in patterns, but I learned a lot in Illustrator techniques.
The Brief was:
Using geometric & graphic trends
- Design a collection of six key patterns and three coordinating patterns using only a graphic or geometric style.
- There are no colour restrictions (as you’re designing for a digital print, you can use as many or as few colours as you like).
- We would prefer to see a generic Spring/Summer palette.
- You can create a simple pattern concept or a formal repeating tile the choice is yours (the brief is to simply create concepts and development ideas).
- The designs will be applied to fashion (in particular ladies swimwear).
- The target audience is a young trendy female aged 20-30.
- Think about colour, placement and scale.
- Hand-drawn styles and textures are not allowed; the desired look is to achieve clean graphic lines and strong geometric structures.
- We only require pattern swatches and early ideas at this stage.
Not confident I met the 20-30 year old trendy young female for this collection, and I’m sure those ladies would more likely wear a bikini, which I did not do a mock up of…maybe later.
Some of these patterns may make it to my Shop at Spoonflower so check often to see what’s new.
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