Creating repeating patterns for surface design was right up my ally. I love the natural world and knew I wanted to incorporate bumble bees and flowers into my design. After some light research, I decided on three specific bumble bees found in Wisconsin and six plants also found in Wisconsin that bumble bees love. I enjoy working by hand and painting, so I started with small gouache paintings of each element I was going to use to build my patterns. Then I scanned them and removed the background in Photoshop so I could begin puzzling them together in Illustrator.
I wanted to keep the color palette light, cheerful, and natural so I used more pastel and desaturated colors for the backgrounds of my patterns. The bumble bees are the stars of the show in my hero pattern, but I also wanted to let the flowers have their moment in the spot light since I spent a lot of time painting everything. So, I made a supporting pattern where the flowers could be larger with tiny bees zipping throughout them to make it cohesive with the hero pattern.
Since both of these patterns are still pretty colorful and busy I wanted to make a simpler support pattern as well, so I took the tiny bees from the first support pattern and arranged them to make a polka dot style pattern. I drew color from the pink flower of the thistle plant and blue background in my hero pattern and lightened them up for the background color in each of these secondary support patterns.
Once I had created all my patterns I put them on mockups to show how they would all work together in real space, and here is why I say this project was right up my ally; I want to be an interior designer so when I was looking for mockups I was excited to find a living room set up where I could combine all my patterns to create a room. I also added them to a few other things to show the versatility and range. The target audience for these patterns includes all nature lovers and bumble bee or flower enthusiasts looking for light, whimsical patterns to be used on a wide variety of things such as textiles or wallpaper. Personally, I would put the polka dot bee supporting patterns on almost anything. Phone case, keychain, shoes, clothes, stationary, etc. I got my tote bag and apron mockups from Graphicburger, my pillow mock up from Graphicpear, and my living room mockup from http//www.freepik.com designed by alexandercho.
Ad Copy: Calling all nature lovers and bumble bee enthusiasts! These whimsical patterns featuring Wisconsin bumble bees and flora can be used on a wide variety of products from wallpaper to textiles like rugs, throw pillows, curtains, or aprons. Even put them on a bag or key chain to take the great outdoors with you wherever you go.
