Surface Pattern Design - Week 2, Module 2 (Trends)

Weeks 2 and 3 of Module 2 of the Surface Pattern Design eCourse were all about understanding trends in the design world. How is it that suddenly owls are all the rage, or digital florals, or a particular colour? There's a huge industry involved in trend forecasting for fashion and homewares, so as designers for those markets it's vital to be aware of current trends and trend predictions in our design work.

This isn't to say that you always have to follow those trends. It's certainly OK to "do your own thing", but as a surface pattern designer you should at least be aware of the images that surround your customers and events that may influence your customers buying habits (for example the Olympics, or Christmas).

Here are some of the creative exercises we were set in Week 2 to help our understanding of trends in design:

Seeking out trends 

The first exercise was to get out and start making notes about the trends you see in the stores and on what people are wearing. I took my camera with me and headed in to town to see what the department stores, big labels and smaller boutiques had in store for us for Autumn/Winter 12/13. These are some of the trends I noticed:

1. Black is Back! Oh no - surely not, I thought, as I saw window display after window display with mannequins clad only in black. At least the black trend is tempered somewhat by a smattering of metallics (think studs and faux diamonds), interesting textures, cut-outs and lace patterns.

2. Jewel tones - not all colour has been forgotten though. I'm pleased to report we'll be seeing lots of the jewel-like tones such as a deep emerald, rich amethyst purple, bright pink, and garnet red (hooray, some of my favourite colours!)

3. Tangerine Tango lives on - This year's hot colour (see below) is still everywhere and looks set to continue to be a theme this A/W, albeit it a more muted tone, apt for Autumn.

3. Textured Knits -  we can also look forward to snuggling up in knits in various patterns and textures:

Other trends included strong graphic prints, digital prints, photographic images being used on textiles and hand-printed designs. In terms of motifs, anything woodland is still a big theme for this Autumn/Winter - think owls, foxes and birds of all descriptions.

In summary, there's lots to choose from and creativity and individuality are strong themes. I'm really looking forward to Autumn!

Tangerine Tango - Giftwrap Brief

Every year, Pantone (the leading company for colour matching, ensuring a standardised colour system throughout the designing and manufacturing process), selects a Colour of the Year. For 2012, the colour was "Tangerine Tango":

Pantone described the colour as "reminiscent of the radiant shadings of a sunset... marrying the vivaciousness and adrenaline rush of red with the friendliness and warmth of yellow.... providing the energy boost we need to recharge and move forward".

Immediately upon the announcement of Tangerine Tango as the Colour of the Year 2012, designers began using the colour (knowing that other designers would also be) in readiness for the demand that would inevitably follow once consumers started to see this colour everywhere.

In some ways, this type of trend prediction is effectively a self-fulfilling prophecy. However, the prediction needs to be carefully considered in the first case to consider the likely mood of consumers in a particular season and the desire for something fresh and different to what has come immediately before as well as reflect what is happening in the design world at the time.

So, bearing in mind the current trend for all things tangerine, the brief for this creative exercise was to create a fresh pattern for use on giftwrap, using Tangerine Tango as the primary inspiration.  Here's what I created from some sketches of pansies, using Tangerine Tango as the background colour with the pansy motif in a fresh palette of pale grey and aqua:

Giftwrap is a great example of a "placement" design. As the wrap will be a set dimension, it's not necessary for the design to be in an actual technical repeat (for example as is the case with fabric or wallpaper). I've just laid it out to give the impression of a repeat.

I printed out my design and used it to wrap a small box to see how it would look:

I was pretty chuffed with this! I could also see this design on beauty product packaging or stationery such as diaries, notebooks or journals.

Country/Cultural Trends

We were then encouraged us to think about trends in the country we live in - whether they are tied to international influences or the country's own culture/religion/landscape.

I live in Munich, which is in the state of Bavaria in Germany, a state with very much it's own identity, history and cultural traditions. Here are some examples of "Bavarian" style (as you can see hearts are a big theme!):

This has really made me think about how I might be able to work my own style into something Bavarian themed for a design collection. Definitely something to consider for the future.

Celebration and Holiday Trends in Stationery

There are certain trend-influencing events that we know will happen every year at a particular time of year (for example Christmas, Valentines Day, Mother's Day etc.). Others will happen throughout the year (birthdays, weddings, christenings, anniversaries etc.). These are obviously mainly of relevance in the stationery industry.  As a designer (particular if you're designing for stationery products and greetings cards), it's important to have a range of designs in your portfolio that can work for all these different events.

Rachael (our wonderful course tutor) encouraged us to think about these different events and which our designs might be most suited to, as well as collecting samples of designs that particularly appeal to us.

Major Events: Olympic Inspired Design Brief

Major events are a great opportunity to create designs which will be sought out by consumers to commemorate and celebrate those events. A brilliant example of this is the twin London major events of the Diamond Jubilee and the 2012 London Olympics. Unless you've been living in a cave, you'll have seen all the Union Jack and London icon inspired designs flooding the shops, on everything from teatowels and mugs to fashion accessories, food and beauty packaging:

Designs by Emma Bridgewater for the Diamond Jubilee

Sephora - Olympic inspired nail polish

With this current "major event" trend in mind, the final exercise for this week was to design a pattern inspired by the London 2012 Olympics. Since the official London 2012 logos and the Olympic rings are protected intellectual property and there are legal restrictions on anything which would depict an association with the London Games (set out here http://www.london2012.com/documents/brand-guidelines/guidelines-for-non-commercial-use.pdf), I ended up going for a generic London/Great Britain design on this teatowel design, using images I had shot in London on film years ago together with some paint drip motifs I had from previous mark-making exercises (which I scanned in and digitally recoloured). I was aiming for an edgy "Cool Britannia" look.

They are a bit different from my usual intricate pretty style, but it was fun to experiment and they have the playful, edgy look I was aiming for. I may even go ahead and get them printed as tea towels as a memento of our fantastic London Games!

Surface Design - Module 2, Week 1 (Collections)

So now it's onto Module 2 of The Surface Pattern Design Course taught by Rachael Taylor.

Whereas Module 1 was very much design focused, getting us to find inspiration around us, get sketching and think about colour and pattern in our designs, Module 2 is more focused on the professional side of surface pattern design. Over the course of the module, we'll be looking at how to put together a collection, trends in the design industry and then building and marketing our own brand identity.

Week 1 was all about collections.

1.1. Designing

To begin the first week, Rachael, got us to get designing again. First, by choosing an object in the room, making various sketches of this and then picking a colour palette from a photograph or magazine image and useing that palette and the sketches to create a design. I received some beautiful sculptural alliums this week, so striking that I just had to draw them. Here's some of the sketches I made using a big fat marker pen and some regular printing paper (to ensure I had strong lines when I scanned them in):

The colour palette came from some photographs I took of the flowers. But I didn't want the colours to be an exact replica of the flowers as per the photograph, so instead I used some of the subtler colours in the image to create the palette. I created the design concept below including my photographs, sketches and the colour palette:

1.2. Putting a Collection Together

Rachael explained what it is that makes a collection of designs (for example they may be tied together by motifs, a concept, a colour palette or some of all of these elements) and how important it is to produce collections of designs, rather than individual designs. Collections are far more valuable to a buyer, since they can use them across a range of products (for example stationery, giftwrap or bedding).  One design on its own may not get noticed, whereas a collection will immediately help a potential buyer/licensee envisage how those designs may be used on a range of co-ordinating products.  A collection also helps you, as as designer, to showcase your design style.

There are different ways in which a design collection can be utilised. For example, a collection may be sold outright to a buyer, licenced for a particular period of time and purpose, used in your own product range or used as a portfolio piece to showcase your design abilities.

The creative exercise under this topic was to look for a collection (either in homewares, fashion, stationery or beauty) and deconstruct this by (a) identifying the different patterns, the motifs used, the different scales, co-ordinating elements and the colour palette, (b) considering what category the patterns fit into and (c) what it is about the collection that is appealing.

For this exercise, I chose a set of cake tins by Orla Kiely, which I received as a birthday present:

The key motif here is the stem design. But it has been used in different ways. On the really big tin, it is used at the biggest scale in the collection in a cross-hatch pattern in all colours from the collection's colour palette (zingy orange, earthy brown, navy, mustard yellow, olive green and grey). Two simpler versions of the same stem motif are used on the grey tin (where the pattern is made by a raised texture, and the scale has been reduced right down) and on the small tin, in a simple colour palette using yellow mustard for the background with the stem design as a white outline. The final two tins have different motifs (flower heads), but co-ordinate with the rest of the tins through the colour palette (picking up only certain of the colours in the palette), and also the theme (botanic) and style (graphic retro).

I think it's a really great example of a collection of co-ordinating patterns, appealing to the current trend for all things retro (both in the colour palette and motif style), which have been applied to everyday useful objects.

It definitely will make me consider playing with scale and adapting the same motif in different ways. As Orla Kiely shows, the possibilities even just with one motif are endless:

1.3 Creating Your Own Collection

The next exercise was to create collection based on the sketches and colour palette I created for exercise 1.1, experimenting with scale, composition, colour and contrasting patterns. I scanned in my drawings from 1.1 and experimented with layering different motifs, scale and colour combinations. I ended up with tons of designs, but narrowed down to the following final collection, called "Sculptural Blooms":

1.4 Physical Product Mock-ups

The next step was to present the collection. You'll see some digital product mock ups I made using the technical workshops in 1.5, below. But before doing that, Rachael also suggested we make some physical product mock-ups by printing off our designs and wrapping them around some products to get a feel as to how they might work on different items. Below you can see I made physical mock ups of a book and cake tin. It's a bit of a buzz to get an idea of how your designs might look in 3D, on real products.

1.5 Technical Workshops

Tying into the idea of presenting our designs, this week's technical workshops showed us how to make a room set up and also how to use a product template:

Here's a room mock up, showing one of my designs from the "Sculptural Blooms" collection as wallpaper:

And here's another of the designs applied to a product template for an over mitt, using Adobe Illustrator (not my favourite software, but I'm trying!). This is the kind of template that would be supplied by a manufacturer for a design to be applied to.

1.6 Working to a brief

The final exercise of the first week was to create a concept design board for a new line of stationery. I'll be sharing my designs for this in a separate post later this week, so watch this space.

1.7 Interview with Louise Tiler

Finally we were given an audio interview with recent graduate Louise Tiler who has won numerous awards for her designs and has already launched her own label. What I took away most from this interview was the importance of entering competitions, to get yourself known in the industry, and also staying true to your own design style.

Next week: Trends!