“Whether you’re at the beach everyday, love going on vacation, or like being reminded of vacation, when you’re someplace else, these patterns are for you! With a bright yet sophisticated color palette these patterns pair nicely with beach chairs, towels, phone cases, and beach bags. Next time you find yourself at Target, World Market, and/or Urban Outfitters, make sure to grab one of these items to brighten your day!”
Throughout this project I experienced many emotions. I have never done surface or pattern design, so I was very excited and eager to try something new. I enjoyed putting my mood board together imagining all the elements I could incorporate into my pattern. As seen below on my mood board, I looked at palm trees, leaves, waves, coconuts, kiwis, different sun shapes, lemons, the “hang loose” or “Shaka” symbol (commonly used in the surf world), and colors that were bright, happy, and reminded me of the beach. I wanted to create a pattern inspired by life on the water with elements associated with spending time on the beach. My intended audience for these patterns is teenagers to people in their early 30s who enjoy spending time on the beach.
I first started by drawing all of the elements on Adobe Illustrator on my iPad and then resizing and scaling them on my computer. My color scheme at first was very literal and I struggled finding a cohesiveness across all the images. I slowly narrowed down my images to the ones you see above in my pattern and chose a completely different color scheme rather than sticking with the actual colors of each image. By using a darker green, yellow, tan, and two shades of pink I could keep my patterns vibrant and happy while still feeling sophisticated and unified.
As I began rescaling the images to create the final pattern I really struggled with the edges and getting them to align when duplicating the pattern because I was starting in the middle and moving outward. After lots of trial and error, I realized it was easier for me to move from the outside in in order for it to duplicate nicely. Finally, I watched a couple videos on Skillshare on how to create mockups. Particularly, this one was very helpful (https://www.skillshare.com/classes/Mastering-Mockups/2034678428/projects?category=creative) ! And then used Photoshop to apply my patterns onto different objects. In the end, I enjoyed this project and seeing how many different possibilities there are for pattern design, but I think in the future I would enjoy it more if I didn’t have a certain due date and could refigure it over time without any constraints.
