How To Design An Eye Catching Seamless Pattern In Affinity Photo

1. Intro: Hello, my name is Helene surface pattern designer and art teacher. And I'm here today to show you how to create your own eye catching surface pattern design using affinity photo. Have you ever wondered how to create a seamless pattern that stands out that doesn't have an obvious repeat pattern pattern that is eye, a pattern that creates fail. Then this is the class for you. I will give you the steps that I use to create a nice flowing, seamless pattern. Here you will learn the process of creating a toss technique of the seamless pattern. You can use either your own hand drawn elements or even vector element. The preferred element of choice would be floral, knees, and other nature element. There'll be no emitting about. This is straightforward, easy to learn Leso Here you can start building your portfolio and creating your own patterns to sell to clients, even on your own preton demand site. Join me in this class if you'd like to create eye catching, seamless pattern. And we will be using the Finity photo, looking forward to seeing you there. 2. The 4 Step Plan: How to create an eye catching, seamless pattern. These are the steps that I use. Number one, you need to have good elements. Whether you're doing this hand drawn or you're doing vector elements. The best thing for you to do, for your viewer to look at your pattern in a way that stands out to them, is to try and do elements that have a little bit of a curve on the end. So this is an example of a leaf. And you can see this first one here is straight, and then this one just has a little bit of a bend and you'll see y in the next slide. It creates more flow. So one on the left where you have the leaves that are straight, and then one on the right that has leaves that have curve at the end. So the ones with the curve at the end just brings a more flow. And what you'll find is with the one on the left with the straight lines here. When you're creating a seamless pattern and you blow it up and you change a scale of it, you're going to see lots of lines. The viewer's eye, we'll be dotted around seeing that line across the pattern. But when you do something that has a bit of a curve, it kind of takes the viewer's focus away from all the lines that they can see and where the repeat is happening. So I'll show you an example of that. Here are two of my patterns. This one with the butterfly. It is a task pattern, but it has a linear way about it, so it's not completely tossed, but it has the elements to it. For example, the flowers upside down. Now you can see with the flowers, they're not straight, so it just has a slight bend. Okay? And then even this leaf here is just a slight bend. It doesn't have to be a complete curve. Very, very slight bend, and that will make all the difference to your pattern. And then this one on the right, we have some florals, so you're not having any lines there, so that's okay. But I have added some lines in the background. I've added line, but it's very minimal and that's it. I haven't added loads of lines going around, but the main focus is your main elements and just making sure that there is a flow to it. So just having that bend. So let's go to the next slide. So point number two is having a focal point. Now again, it's all about what your viewers sees and what you want them to see. So here I've got an example. I've just put a G shape in the middle of the pattern. Well, it's not a pattern yet, but you can see that's how it will start. So you have your focal point. Now if you turn to the right here, this example, I have added a two can in the middle of. And I wanted that to be the focal point because it was a pattern, but it has birds in the pattern there. And then you've got the leaves here. And you can see also that how's that curve going on there? You've got another curve in each of these. Yeah. And you can see this one is a small line, but it's very, very small. You don't want to show too many straight lines, the main drawings of your elements there. So this is my focal point. So yeah, number two is having a focal point. So onto number three is working from the inside out. I have my focal point, I might double on that again in making that smaller. And then I just put my other elements around it and work ray around the elements. Yeah, that's how it is. So you work from the inside outwards. You can have a bit more of creativity when you do that. It's quite fun, especially when you're doing task patterns. Then number four is to feel in the edges. So once you fill the inside, it starts to go to the edges. You work on the edges, and then you repeat it to the other side. And we repeat it to the other side, the four sides of the tile. So these are the four things that you will need to have when you're doing your eye catching seamless pattern. As we start our next class, I will show you how to design your seamless pattern using these steps. 3. Design The Pattern: You want to have your elements. Having around four to five elements can work really nicely and making sure that you have edited them. I have a class on Skillshare which will teach you about how to edit your hand drawn elements. It doesn't have to be hand drawn, it can be elements as well. Drawings, these ones have been hand drawn, but they've been using ink. It has a nice effect to it. And what I found with editing, it just edited really nicely. So that's worth for try. So, I'm doing a paisley design and the first thing we need to work on, so we've already worked on the elements, so making sure there is curves in it, has a bit of curves, any straight lines. And so the next point is the focal point, which is your favorite element. So for me it's going to be this one. This is like the hero one. So it doesn't have to be directly in the center. You can put it off the center if you want to. So I'm going to put mine here, so that's my focal point with the detail, et cetera. And then I'm going to put all the other elements around it. So working from the inside out. So I've got this here, we might want to turn it around. You put my elements here, and I start working from the inside out. Because I have these five elements here, I want to double on it. So I can choose something like this. Go to Edit, copy, Edit, Paste. Again, when you're doing toss patterns, you want to think about the sizing, all the elements will be the same size. Gives a bit more interest. When you've got some that are different sizes as well. Just make that smaller. I quite like the detail in this one to make this one bigger. Now we're filling the center now and it's going to start going to the edges because it's getting quite close. Now when you're using another element, you want to think about changing it slightly. You don't want to have it where you can. You can see the pattern going there and there. You can see this one is upside down. The same as that. Think about moving it around so it's not exactly the same. It takes people's eyes off that obvious repeat. I'm just move that around here, keeping it the same size. This time what, what you can do is work on one corner, one side first I'm doing this side can use this pattern again. Another thing you can do, toss things around, but also you can flip them if you right click and then click on Transform. And you can flip it either horizontally or vertically. I'm going to do it horizontally. It's just fled that way. Again, you can just fill in the gaps as well along the way. Let's see if we can do, if we can flip it vertically and reduce the size of that. You just want them hanging at the edge of little bit. Turn, turn that around. Now what I'm happy with this size, I just select all the elements using the shift key. Then I copy and paste it. Then I go onto the side, I'm doing the x, I'm going to put whatever the amount, the size of your square minus 33500 pixels. And then enter. Then you do the same thing on the top. You want to try and do something slightly different for the top as well. I'm going to use this element here once you've got the hand of, It's pretty straightforward if you look at my class about creating hand drawn element, creating a seamless pattern, using hand drawn elements, you'll get an idea of how to create a pattern. Then when you've got the basics there, it becomes a more easier to do patterns and a lot more quicker as well. It's all about composition here and working out what works nicely. You have to have a bit of a creative eye when it comes to task patterns. That's what I love about it. It just gives me a bit of freedom to work out what works well for the pattern. I could do one there, but this element here and there will be too close. I think we've got that one. Let's try this one. Okay, that's filled in the space there. I'm going to select those three, then it copy and it paste. Then I'm going to go on the y axis. You don't need to do minus, you just can do plus 3,500 and Enter. And it does it will you. Then you can see that it's overlaps on this one here. I can either change the one at the top, make that smaller, which I think I'm going to do this one here smaller. I'll just see if that has worked. It's touching, so delete that one. Maybe I can put some in there. Edit, copy, edit, paste. And then I'm going to put that on the x five. There we go. Now it's just filling in all the blank. Okay? And that's it really. You've got your pattern here, obviously. You need to test it to see if it looks right. You can then add texture. So I've already got my texture here, so I'm just adding it to the background gives a bit of a different look to it. So what I'm going to do now, I'm going to save my file, then. Once I've done that, I'm going to it as Jpeg. This Jpeg could change depending on how the repeat is in. If I'm happy with that, go to the file export as a j and where you want to save it. 4. Test The Pattern : Test the pattern over the square here. First of all, once I've done that, I will save it and then I'm going to test the pattern. Now what you do, you just get the square over the top. That square needs to be on the top layer. I'll go to the bitmap is my favorite part. Click on the Jpeg that you have and then I'm just going to use this. Just bring it in. You can see the repeat. That's it really. You can see it's repeating very nicely in my eyes. I probably would put one more and then there, because I feel like there's a little space again, you go back to your original file and then add that. And then when you finish with it, you then overwrite the new one. You save it as a Jpegs, the one that you previously Did you overwrite it? Yeah, that's repeating nicely. And then you can use that you like fabrics. The surface pattern has so many surfaces you can use it on. Yes, that is it. Thank you very much for joining me in my class. Please show me your final pieces and what you have. So if you have some designs that you've been working on, or even just a paisley design that I've done here, and it would be lovely to see what you can design yourself and see how the repeat has come. That would be lovely. Thank you for joining me in my class. 5. Outro: Thank you for joining me in this class. I hope you've enjoyed it. I hope you've understood it. And if you have any questions, please do. Feel free to let me know. It'll be lovely to see your final piece or pieces and just put them into the resources tab. And I would love to see what you have produced and for others to see what you've done as well. So I'm here to help you. If you have any questions, tips you would like to learn. I'm here to help. Thank you again for joining me in this class. Again, you can look at all my other videos that I've done on seamless patterns in affinity photo and affinity signer and also markups I have done. I will be doing some more classes as well. If you have any questions again or any ideas, I'll be happy to bring in some content for you. Thank you again and happy creating.