Introduction to Surface Design: Creating and Mixing Patterns

2. Welcome!: - Hi, - guys. - I'm Jenna Fry, - and this is Introduction to Surface Design, - an online workshop brought to you free by Micah. - This is our first unit, - and we're going to be discussing the formation of and fascination with patterns in this - lecture series. - We're going to be covering some basic design elements that help make your patterns awesome - From the start, - . - we're gonna look at the figure and ground relationship as well as the relationship of - contrast your designs as great tools to help you make beautiful patterns. - Your first challenge this week is going to be to design to contrast ing patterns, - and we'll talk much more about that in the lecture with each unit will have some activities - that you can do to help build your skills while you're concepts are working in your head, - using activities will be outlined in the demo section, - and I'll show you how to do a lot of different techniques that will help spark creative - ideas. - Okay, - get your sketchbooks ready. - It's time to start 3. Lecture 1: Exploring Patterns: - e everyone, - this is Gemma and this intruder service design, - creating and mixing patterns on We're gonna get started with our first lesson. - So we're going to start off by talking about patterns, - what they are, - what they're made of and why we're so interested in looking at them, - which I assume we all are, - or we wouldn't be here. - So all patterns a really made up of three central elements individual dots, - which are the starting point of all great designs. - Then, - when all those dots get together, - they form stripes. - And when all those stripes get together, - they form grids, - and those grids are what revealed the pattern structure. - Put a bunch of grids together or just one individual grid structure, - and that's where your pattern form emerges. - Let's take a look at some examples of how to get creative with this basic idea. - So really, - any kind of thing can be a dot whether it's a piece of light or a ceramic tile or some - folded piece of origami, - anything could be a dot, - and when all of those dots come together in a plane in a line, - they form a stripe. - But they still could be revealed as the individual dots that they are. - And again these dots are where the building blocks of your pattern really begin. - The more interesting this dot is to begin with, - the more interesting your pattern being. - Once you have all those dots together, - they form a conceptual and figurative stripe, - and a striped can really be any kind of linear path. - We think of stripes is being really geometric forms, - but sometimes the most interesting stripes could be things that are sort of references to - stripes that are curve year and, - you know, - take place on any kind of interesting surface stripes air also really iconic, - so you want to make sure that you're using them effectively in your designs. - When we think about stripes, - you may think zebras or barcodes or possibly even jail stripes are often really solid. - And remember when stripes a really solid because they're so iconic. - These were great focal points, - but they can also be very distracting. - So you want to be mindful about where you're placing them in your designs so that you're in - control of where you're placing the emphasis another way. - Think about Stripes is really going back to that central dot and something more ethereal, - just the dots being really close together to give the illusion of the line. - And this could be a great way to use stripes, - but without quite as much emphasis as before. - When all those stripes come together, - they form a beautiful grid, - and this is really where the pattern starts to emerge. - Grids are important for showing the system of your design, - but when they're all together, - when you have enough grids, - you start to lose the individual motifs and you end up with a beautiful surface design or a - texture. - Grits don't have to be really regular. - They can also be curvy lines. - They can go from all over the place. - They don't have to go from corner to corner, - and they can also be really distorted. - Usher was really obsessed with polar grids, - figuring out how to really define circular space through a grid. - It's a very common thing to be obsessed with patterns, - as many of you can probably attest. - So why is it that we love patterns so much? - Well, - there's lots of different explanations in cognitive psychology, - but one of them is that humans learned the best through routine, - and repetition and patterns obviously don't form until they repeat across the surface. - So we learned most things like language and socialization through patterns that happen just - in life. - And so we're drawn to them everywhere, - sometimes patterns or things that happen all the time in our day, - our habits in our daily routines. - And some are trendy that come in and out of fashion, - like the slap bracelet or the Cosby sweater. - Some trends are just trends within trends like tumblers. - A really good example of a trending trend site. - And that's a very common thing on the Internet right now with Social Media is figuring out - the aggregates of what people are interested in looking at. - And there's some scholars that say we actually even look too hard to find patterns in our - daily life. - Michael Shermer, - who's a writer for Scientific American, - writes about something he calls Patroness City, - which is this tendency to look for patterns in everything we see whether or not they're - actually even their faces are a good example of patterns that people just seem to want to - find faces in everyday objects. - But no matter how you're looking at patterns or thinking about them. - You can always boil it down to just one dot That central dot is beginning and the end of - your great design. - If you start with an interesting dot, - you'll probably end with an interesting pattern. 4. Lecture 2: Building Patterns: Not that you know a little bit about what patterns are in general. Let's take a look at an overview of how to build pattern digitally. This also would work by hands. So again we're starting with the simple dot and the dot can be a circle. It could be triangle. It could be a sweater. Here we have a diamond. You start with one motif and you repeat it enough times until that dot and dot dot next to it, become a stripe. Then you take that stripe and you repeat that stripe and the new former grid. This is a good example of where the motif sort of gets lost in the overall grid ends up with just an overarching pattern. Once you have a grid, then you need to create a repeating tile, and the repeating tile won't always be the same thing as a grid. This is a good example. Here we have a great of all of those diamonds, but to get it to repeat seamlessly in a program like illustrator, we have to find the foundation rectangle that's within that grid, and I'll show you how to do this. In the demo section, there's only certain forms that, when put together, will seamlessly tile across a surface. And those forms air called test slating shapes. I'm sure you learned about this in geometry at some point. An interesting thing is that there is really just three or four shapes that actually do this. Squares and rectangles, hexagons and triangles. And the reason that only these shapes do that is because when they're when they come together in the middle, where we have circled here that forms 360 degrees, which is a full circle in a circle is infinite space. They're the only shapes that will do that. You can put other shapes together and fill the blanks in to make them go over an entire form. But these were the only basic forms that will go over full space, and you can do a lot with desolated shapes, so you don't have to just start with something. Everything doesn't have to be geometric. Let's take an example here of how to make a test elation. So you have a test elated shape. So here we have a foundation rectangle, and then you cut part of one side off. Once you take that side off. You put it on directly on the parallel side, and that's gonna has to go come out exactly the same place it went in. So that's an illustrator. When you're making this happen digitally, it's very important that you use precise measurements, and once you have them together, then you can say, Well, leave. That looks like some kind of adorable cat for him. I see cats and everything the way it's. Some people see faces. So, yeah, designed with what interests you. This is really the biggest advice I have for any kind of design. If you don't want to look at it, nobody else is gonna want to look at it. So start with something that you're really interested in. Put a bunch of those things you're interested in together. Flip them, rotate, um, reflect him, turn him around, see what happens when they're all together, and then start to see what kind of shapes naturally form. Study the grid. Once you have the grid of with an interesting dot, it will sort of tell you what it needs. I stare at this long enough. I know what it needs, Nicolas Cage. So yeah, take a look at what's happening inside and all around your patterns, and that will help you come up with great decisions. The next tip with patterns is to know your pattern vocabulary. So let's go over some of that now. Directional prints These air used in any kind of textile design, whether it's fabric for clothing or for upholstery or rugs. The two most common directional prints one way and two way, so one way print it only can sort of be put in one direction. It's not like you couldn't have an upside down tree like in this example, but it would look weird in a two way. It could go either way. It reads both ways. Non directional prints often have a more organic energy. They feel less structured, but they are actually just a structured when you design them digitally tossed print. Usually these are kind of novelty prints like Ravens, blankets and things like that. But you see them sometimes in beautiful, illustrative patterns as well. They're just sort of all over the place. A four way is, really. You could put this any of the you know north south East west directions, and it would still read the same way. The common motif types of the common dots that air found the bigger themes within those are geometric floral, a novelty. Those air. Three huge trends in fabric design, especially. They range completely in scale and and form, but those air three main categories. The next thing to think about is the repeat type. So how is your dot Going to repeat across your grid? Easiest by far to execute is a square repeat, but it's also the most boring in a way, because it's very stable. The half drop is by far the most calm. It It's a very simple thing to do and also show you this in the demo section, just a matter of taking your stripes and offsetting them by about half of a step. So when they go vertically, it's called 1/2 drop. When that same technique is done horizontally, it's called a brick. Now, the new pattern tool in illustrator does this for you kind of, but you still get better results when you do it on your own. As is usually the case with digital stuff, the more you let your artwork be automated, the more obvious it is that it's digital spot repeats are a way to think about tossed print . Unlike is that they're actually extremely structured. The wayto help you look effortless is, of course, to have a perfect grid, and I have an activity for you to try with this on your own. It's kind of like playing sudoku, so you have, like, little you're motifs and you want to fit them in a column. But not a row just sits on its own, and you can turn them around and flip him and then do things between them and that will end up looking sort of effortless and, like somebody just blue the motifs onto the fabric. 5. Lecture 3: Design Elements I: - all right. - Our last lesson for this week is a little bit of a design lecture on two important element - in pattern design, - figure and ground and contrast. - So the figure and ground relationship is a fancy art word for positive and negative space. - Or what is your I go to first versus what is your I recognize is going in the back and - getting that foreground middle ground background to sing harmoniously is something that all - creatives are interested in, - whether it's typography or painting. - A stable relationship figure and ground is where you immediately know the black squares, - the figure, - the white squares, - the ground. - This happens a lot in photography, - where you know right away what the focal point is, - but the background is still informative. - Just that your eye goes to one place right away. - This is also happens a lot in portraiture painting, - where it's very easy to tell what's in front and what's in the back. - And, - of course, - this has happens a lot in like hand drawn illustrations. - It's also, - I think, - in pattern design, - a bit of a first thought. - So we first start designing patterns. - We think mostly about the figure unless about the ground in the more sophisticated To get - in your designs, - you'll be able to work effortlessly between them. - Reversible figure and ground is when your eye goes back and forth, - maybe easily, - but also intentionally between what's in the front and once in the back thes air, - usually like, - really vibrant. - They have a lot of energy tooth, - um, - designs like this. - So chevron patterns a really good example, - and they're super hot right now on the Pinterest you see is a lot. - It's very, - you know, - geometric cause it's so ordered. - But it's also you can see there's a lot in things like mosaic designs or even cakes. - And again, - these air good for directing. - Emphasis. - They could be quite a lot to have, - you know, - all over a wall or something like that. - Um, - but maybe you're really good from one focal piece. - The ambiguous figure ground relationship is the trickiest, - I think, - for beginners, - but often the most visually interesting. - So some really good examples of this come from, - you know, - sort of cubist paintings. - You can see that the foreground in the background are intentionally sort of distorted and - your eyes going all over the place, - and you want to look at these for a long time. - So these air, - often nice to play with in terms of subtlety, - is to keep your audience interested. - And probably the most fun figure and ground relationship is where you get to play the - optical illusion game and where the figure and ground are of equal importance, - like in reversible. - But they're sort of purposely sculpted, - so the negative and the positive space we're talking to each other. - Do I see a face or do I see a goblet, - right? - Do I see the speedy arrow in the FedEx, - or do I just read it as a logo? - Do I see the peacock in the NBC thes air? - Some really interesting examples of this guy Jonathan back, - who became Internet famous overnight because of his Steve jobs. - Apple bite really beautiful stuff here. - Paper crafting often does a great job of that sculpted relationship, - and you can also see a lot of this with, - you know, - sort of like remixed ads. - I think these air interesting rugs that air cut these air digitally fabricated where your - they look dimensional, - but they're really flat, - really playing with that figure and ground relationship and finally contrast, - which still relates to positive and negative space. - But contrast in general is just think. - It's the most useful designed thing to be focused on because it's often what's really wrong - in a design or what's really right in a design. - So this guy here, - you may or may not be familiar with Johannes Etten, - who wrote a lot about our curriculum that is the most pervasive thought in sort of art - education today about contrast formal and conceptual contrasts in compositions. - So he'd worked with his students in the early 1900 with a certain list of contrast to get - them sort of iterating and practicing and shaping form. - And all of those contracts are listed at the end of this lecture. - So let's take a look at some of his ideas about contrast. - So here's that same diamond pattern from earlier, - and if I look at these here, - the figure and ground are really competing with one another for attention. - I don't really want to look at this for too long, - so let's take a look at some of Eaton's advice here. - So big and small contrast. - Let's try that first. - If I have, - I'll make it really small and really big. - No, - still still doesn't look great to me. - We could play around with transparent and opaque and see if we have transparent background - and an opaque front is starting to get a little bit friendlier. - We could play around with other in terms of the type, - the high low, - putting it up or down straight versus curved. - We have curved type in ST backgrounds and pointed in Blunt, - And I think we're starting to get something that looks a little bit more interesting. - And if we just makes a bunch together, - we have, - ah, - horizontal and vertical contrast here, - appointed in blood. - Contrast Ah, - much and little contrast and a high and low. - And I think I'm pretty happy with this imaginary thank you card. - All right, - so that's your advice for design elements to help you design. - And let's talk about now your challenge for the week. - So your first challenge is gonna be to design two contrasting pattern tiles that illustrate - opposing forces. - So I have the full list of ITN's contrasts on the next slide for some inspiration, - but you could come up with your own as well. - I want you to work in five by five squares and Onley in gray scale like we have in the - example here. - And I want you to explore all kinds of different contrast. - So, - for example, - with these two here I was thinking about lots of different kinds of contrast. - Floral, - geometric, - curvy and straits, - possibly even feminine and masculine Wind and rain. - These are sort of natural florals and geometrics are natural partners in crime and for good - reason, - because they have a lot of inherent contrast. - So I want you to think of of your own and create a separate pattern for each word. - Don't commit to anything yet Make a bunch of them. - You know, - once you get a handle of how to build patterns digitally, - you won't be able to stop. - I promise you that. - And here's a little pep talk. - The most important thing about how to design us to do your thing. - This is the part of design where you get to really let your style flag fly. - Um, - practice. - I have a lot of activities included that will help you build your skills while you're - conceptual. - Idea is brewing. - Get out a sketch pad and sketch ideas. - Or, - if you like to sketch like I do digitally keep a Pinterest board of of things that you're - interested in and really just play around. - Anything can be a binary relationships to explore. - But here, - as they said, - are the full list of it is contrast, - and you can download this lecture on the class website so that you can spend some time with - it. - All right, - I'm really looking forward to seeing your tiles and have a good one. 6. Demo 1: The Dot, Stripe, Grid then Crop Method: - Hi. - Welcome to the demos. - So we're gonna be making a replica of that diamond pattern that I showed earlier. - And so, - of course, - to do that, - we're gonna have to start with our simple dot and in this case, - that's a rectangle. - So I'm gonna go ahead. - And actually, - it was gonna get draw square, - simply downshift to drag a perfect square, - and the next thing I want to do is rotate that so it starts to look more like a diamond bam - . - And now I need to squish it a little bit. - Now, - you'll notice if I try to do this. - I just get a perfect kind of ah, - you know, - in proportion movement. - But that's not really what I want. - I kind of want to distort it. - So we're gonna use our new best friend, - and that is object transform scale. - You're going to use this a lot in pattern. - And here we have two choices. - We can either scale it uniform, - which is just gonna make it bigger or smaller, - based on the object itself. - Or if we choose non uniform, - then we can control the horizontal and vertical skew. - So if I have these, - both at 100%. - That would just have the same shape we started with. - If I keep the vertical to keep it the same length and I just distort squishy parts the - sides I'm gonna go for 60%. - You can choose whatever you like. - Then I get the result that I want I'm gonna had in click OK, - when I'm happy. - Now, - the next problem I have is that this is not a very solid bounding box. - So what? - I'm going to go into all of my tools to make this align perfectly The bounding boxes, - what signals the alignment. - So we need to reset that. - So it's the actual form of our shape. - So back to object, - transform, - reset bounding box. - And now the bounding box is appropriate with our form, - and we're ready to start building are straight. - So I have my smart guides turned on right now, - and this is about the only time I actually like to work with them, - turned on because they actually are super helpful during pattern design. - So I'm gonna hold down all I'm gonna drag from the center, - and then you see how it says intersect and it looks all happy. - That's great. - So again, - I'm holding down all and dragging. - I'm gonna make four of these. - That's going to my first stripe. - Alright, - so I've got four and I know that they're perfectly sink there, - which I want. - Those have got to be perfect or else it's gonna show up later. - When we repeat, - if it's off a little bit in one dot it's gonna be off a lot in the bigger grid. - So it's like the whole thing and we're going Teoh pulled out and drag and just pop it right - in there. - So, - you see, - I'm starting to build a grid. - I'm gonna select all those well done out smash. - So now I've got several, - and you could always make a couple more. - You know, - it doesn't really hurt to have more than you need to start building it until you can really - start to see the pattern form. - Now, - one way you can check and see if your form is actually greeted. - Right is to look at it in outline view. - We'll go back and forth between this view a lot. - So here in outline view, - you can see what the actual vectors really are. - So if these were overlapped in any way, - you would see it differences in thickness in these lines. - So, - for example, - I'll move this one over just a tiny bit. - You would see that it was off, - even though visually you might not see it from the preview of you, - I'll return to preview. - We're gonna Chris work in black and white for right now, - since this first week is all about working in gray scale. - And let's just go ahead and pop open our swatches palette. - I'm just going to drag it out so that it's here, - hanging out on our art board for us. - Now, - if I just took all of this right now and dragged it into the swatches palette, - I could make a pattern. - Be a weirdo pattern, - but let me show you what it looks like. - I'm just gonna draw a square now and fill it with this and you see, - I get a pattern. - But it's not a perfectly repeated pattern, - and that's because I haven't actually drawn a perfectly repeated tile. - So I need to do that. - Okay, - so here I've added some color to these diamonds. - I have fills, - but no strokes on and I have a rectangle that is about the size of two of these diamonds on - top of one another, - and about the same is too wide. - Now, - to get this ready for patterning, - I need to make a perfect foundation rectangle. - So I'm going to switch into the outline view, - and you can draw your rectangle right in this view if you want to go perfectly through them - . - So you know you're going through to going down through to you basically want to make sure - that it's perfectly proportional. - So let me show you here. - I'm gonna snap it to the middle of these two. - As you can see, - this is what I'm actually making. - I have. - I want to make sure that the tops match the bottoms and the sides match the sides. - So let's start with the tops. - I have 12 bottom house of of a diamond and on the parallel side, - I have tops sold on the left. - I have halfs. - And on the right, - I have halves. - So I'm right in the exact same spot. - These are extra here, - and that won't matter. - Go back to preview and you see this black rectangles on top, - and that's gonna be our cookie cutter, - and we're gonna crop with it. - I'm going to select everything. - Now I'm going to click on the crop, - and it will crop a perfect foundation rectangle. - And now, - if I drag this entire thing over to the swatches palette, - I now have beautiful, - perfectly symmetrical tile that will cover any space really seamlessly. - Now, - if I want to change the scale of it, - the temptation is to just kind of drag out and down. - But that will just change the way that this same scaled tile fills this shape. - If you want to make it bigger, - smaller, - you need to go back to that transform to scale. - And then here you have some options, - and what you want to do is click transform patterns, - an unclipped transform objects. - And then here we can say, - Let's see what it looks like, - really, - really small. - Let's see what it looks like. - It, - like 25% nice or I can see what it looks like. - Maybe twice is big at, - like 300%. - So you have a lot of options there to move your factor patterns. - Have fun. - I'll see in the next 7. Demo 2: The Design From The Corners Method: - Okay, - So in this second demo, - I want to walk you through what's actually happening when you're building a tile from the - corners in which is very often how tiles get formed and in the third demo will show you - exactly how to do it in illustrator. - But I want to start with giving you a context. - I think this is what confuses a lot of students when they first start out designing - patterns digitally gonna walk you through a basic tile build very similar to the way that - Mexican talavera pottery tiles get constructed mosaic tiles where you're really focusing on - the corners on and working outside in. - Okay, - so the first thing I want you to do is to draw something the same thing and put it in each - corner and, - you know, - facing in the corners Now you marry to be able to tell what's gonna happen when these - images tile. - But let's go ahead and show you what that does. - So let's say I'm happy with my pattern, - gonna select it all, - and I'm going to move it into my swatches palette. - Now I'm just gonna draw you a really big rectangle. - I'm gonna fill it with that pattern that I just made. - And as you can see, - each of those quadrants come together and they make this little guy here. - That's actually what you're designing when you're working in the corners, - you actually designing the middle of that part of the tile. - So let's keep going and see what happens when we add more stuff. - So let's say I want to add a couple of little guys to the corner and I did this really - sloppily, - just so there wouldn't look too specific. - Not because I'm lazy, - if that's what you're thinking. - And now let's take a look and see what happens here. - So one little trick, - I'm gonna actually just replace this pattern, - um, - with a new one. - So I'm gonna select all of this. - I'm gonna hold down option. - When I drag it into this, - watches and Dragon hold it over this watch I made and that will replace it. - So it has to highlight like that. - And then you see, - it's replaced the pattern. - All right, - so let's keep going. - So let's maybe put, - um, - a big old something in the middle and, - you know, - maybe give it some concentric stuff here and let's see what happens with this one. - So I'm gonna take something really big in the middle. - Hold on option and drag, - drag it over and hold, - and then it replaces. - Now, - see, - because those shapes mimic this shape. - I'm starting to get this negative space here. - I'm really starting to sculpt the space. - You can see what's happening and let's put in some good little squiggles for good measure - and finish off our design. - Final option. - Drag Jake a final option Drag. - It's weird, - and there we go. - So this is just a quick and easy way to take a look at what's actually happening with your - patterns as you build them. - So this file will be in your resource is section if you just want to play around with it. - But I encourage you to look at this as another way to build patterns, - as though you're making just a simple mosaic tile and keep building corners in and see what - happens. - Good luck. - I'll see in the next them. - Um 8. Demo 3: The Outside In Method: guys. This is our final look at how to build repeating patterns in Illustrator. This technique is one of the most common ones that you find surfing the interwebs for illustrator pattern tutorials. Not that I've ever searched anything like that, but let me demonstrate it for you so that you can see how it relates to the other two ways that we built patterns together. So this one requires that you start off with the dot and you put it mathematically across a foundation rectangle. So let's go ahead and start by creating our dot. So I'm going to begin by building a little flower shape, just using the Ellipse tool. So draw a little lips here. Well, not all to drag. And I'm just gonna build a little flower shape very quickly. Notice I have my smart guides on there. Have flower shape, use my pathfinder toe, weld it together, and I'm going to give it a little center option to drag my circle from the middle. I'm going to use a lighter color there for contrast. I'm gonna go ahead and group those shapes together, so I know I have my dot I'm gonna look here and see how big my shape is. And it looks like my shapes about one by one would make it one by one. Exactly. And that way I know I have. I know the size of my dot to repeat, and that's gonna come in handy in a second. So the next thing that you're gonna want to do is to build a foundation rectangle. So since I know this is one I want to build it so that it can at least hold four across. Or so I'm gonna go ahead and click once, and I'm going to make a four by four rectangle We went type for now. Here. The middle of my dot is the same as my background. And I'm gonna leave it like that because I think it might give me some interesting effects . So the first thing I want to do is take my dot and align it to this square. Um, this is a good time. I don't want that to be in front object. Arrange. Bring to front. Um, if you go to the outline view, you can see this a little bit more clearly. So that centered out you can see, is not on the rectangle perfectly. Now it is, um that's important to get used to seeing those minor differences make a big difference when they tile altogether. And then I'm going to command see in command f, which is to paste in front. And now I have a copy. And what it wanted to you now is I want to put it exactly in the opposite corner, because whenever you're is just like working in test relations, whatever I do to one side have to do the equal and opposite to the other side. So here, I'm gonna have it ready. I'm going to move it across the x axis, four inches, see how that goes. So I know how wide it is X this way. Why that way? And now I'm gonna go ahead and fill it in. And because I know that this is for INGE's. I know that this is one inch. I know. I can repeat it two times and have plenty of space, so I'm gonna command C and command F to paste in front. And this time I'm going to say plus one and move it. One inch command C Command F. I'm just gonna keep repeating this, and you certainly don't. You can make this repeat as many times as you want. I'm gonna do a really stable one to begin with. And now we have a stripe, and I'm gonna go ahead and group that together, and I'm going to repeat the same process going vertically. Command. See, Command F. And this time I want to say on the y axis, I want you to add to oranges, and I'm going to repeat it. Going down command. See, command s and I'm gonna add to the why one command C command off, plus one. Come and see command off plus more. And I have a full rectangle here. A beautiful gridded pattern. The final step is to tell illustrator where to cut the pattern. And to do that, you have to create an invisible rectangle in the back. So I didn't select your foundation rectangle command, see, to copy and command B as in boy to paste in the back while it's still selected. Turn it into a zero, Phil. No, Phil and no stroke shape. And now you're ready to take this whole thing and drag it over to your swatches. palette and let's draw another shape and see what it looks like. Beautiful. And I'm getting some really interesting figure ground relationships there. But again, this is a very stable pattern, and we learned in our previous lecture that 1/2 drop can be a little bit more interesting. So let's take a look at how to take this basic shape and change it just a little bit. Ah, half step, if you will, to make our interests are pattern just a little bit more interesting. So here, we need to alternate the stripes just a little bit. I'm going to start with this one and again this only this is gonna have to have a nod number or else it won't work because it's got to be the tops and the bottoms can't really change. So we're gonna move this over to the left half of a step. So we've been moving everything one inch. So miracle of math, we know that that's gonna be half of an inch to move it over. So on the X axis, I'm going to say add 0.5, and that's gonna move it over just a little bit in the same for here. I'm going to say take the X axis and move that over 0.5. And now I'm started to get a very different look. Everything else is going to stay the same. I'm gonna drag this over to my swatches palette and to make another one here and fill it with the half stuff, and you can see that it's just a little bit different. Slightly more visual interest, Visually interesting. Okay, so those are some good tips to start with. Remember, you can use any kind of dot You want. You don't have to fill it as completely as I did. You can just fill in the corners. You can do anything you want in the middle, and it will still turn out to be a beautiful pattern for him. Good luck on. I can't wait to see your work here. 9. Welcome!: - Hi, - everybody. - It's me again, - Jennifer. - I hear with Introduction to Surface Design, - an online workshop brought to you by Micah in our second unit, - we're going to start to bring our concepts toe life by adding dimensional and harmonious - color palettes to our designs made last week. - I hope you have your to contrast ing patterns with you because we're gonna look today about - how you can design personal color palettes that reflect your own identity. - And brand color is a really personal choice for many designers. - So finding your own palette is gonna be one of the most important ways for you to brand - yourself as an excellent pattern designer. - I know you can do it. - I'll show you how. - Let's get started. 10. Lecture 1: Color Stories: - Hey, - everybody. - So we're gonna focus this week on using color to develop style and brand for your great - contrast ing patterns that you designed last week. - So when you're designing patterns, - you really want to use your personal style to set you apart from other designers, - and color is the perfect design element to do just that. - So let's talk about some fundamental color concepts and talk about what they have to do - with surface design. - A color palette is a limited grouping of colors used to create a composition. - Color palettes are often intuitive and unintentionally formed. - They reflect what feels right to the creator. - It's more qualitative, - So a great place to get idea for how to make your own color palettes is to just look around - you and see, - you know, - if there's already a hidden color style at play in your life, - take a look at your closet, - your class. - It looks just like this, - right? - And see if there's any themes that you can find a lot of times, - I think the colors that we choose Teoh, - where on our bodies are often really good indicators of the quality of colors that we tend - to, - like, - you know, - maybe take a look at the natural world or the world that I wish was naturally around me, - in any case, - and see what kind of colors you're drawn to. - Where do you like to be in nature? - And where don't you like to be? - So a color scheme, - on the other hand, - is a little bit different. - They're much more purposeful, - so a designer might use ideas from the color wheel toe. - Inform specific choices like monochromatic color scheme or, - you know, - something based on like a near compliment. - Even using the full spectrum of color color schemes are are on purpose, - and there are a little bit more measured. - You can get great ideas for source color anywhere, - just looking all around you. - Photos, - etcetera. - All you need to create pallets is stuff your look like looking at and a way to sample that - color. - There's all kinds of websites that show you combinations that people came up with on their - own, - and there's like APS that can help you do this as well. - APs for the phones on the inter groups. - And yeah, - you can do all this really easily. - An illustrator or Photoshopped with an eyedropper tool, - and I'll show you how to do some of that this week in the demos. - Once you have your main color, - palettes decided, - one of the hardest things is coming up with complementary neutrals. - Anybody who's ever used the wrong neutral knows that there is a right neutral on. - A lot of it has to do with understanding what the undertones are in the neutrals that - you're using. - So when you're working digitally in a program like illustrator and you do your own color - mixing, - which I'll show you how to do this week, - you might as well just go ahead and use a system that helps you plan colors out from the - beginning. - So this is sort of like the basic formula that I use for creating complementary neutrals, - and I'm gonna show you how to do that this week in the demos. - But the basic idea here is to pull some color from your dominant color and mix that in with - the neutral that you're going to be using. - And if you don't know anything about digital color mixing, - you're about to so color stories. - This is where designing a collection gets really exciting and fun. - A color stories like a theme. - So are a narrative for all the patterns that happen to be in your collection. - In this example, - Project Runway Winner and the new be fashion designer, - Jay McCarroll. - Um, - he calls this collection Center City, - which is based on Philadelphia. - Ah, - color way is part of a color story. - So it's all of the prints that are in your color story, - but showing in different color variations. - This is really critical part of selling your designs. - It really helps the consumer visualize the possibilities of mixing and matching, - and everybody likes a little bit of variety. - People can be really weird about colors, - so sometimes somebody will really like a pattern one way but wish that it had colors that - were more relevant to their home or just to their sensibilities. - So here's an example of one of my favorite designers, - Joel Dewberry, - and this is collection is called Deer Valley. - So the color story here is all of these patterns, - and they're shown in two color ways. - The Azure and the Tarragon. - I have both of these in real life, - and they're they're just unbelievably gorgeous. - And the last piece of advice I have for you about color and brand is really remembering - that you cannot trust what you see on the screen. - So once you establish a set of colors, - you're gonna want to keep using them and you're gonna want is much consistency over the - output of that color is possible. - So no matter where you're printing or applying your pattern, - you want to make sure that you can control the output. - So if you're gonna be printing fabric, - for example, - on a site like spoon flour, - it's quite worth it to buy the printed color chart so that you can actually see what - they're really color dyes look like on actual fabric. - It makes a huge difference. - Okay, - so that wraps up our lecture on color stories using color to create style and brand, - and you now have some good vocabulary in your back pocket that textile and surface - designers use all the time when promoting their own collections. - I'll see you on the next lecture to talk about some designers out there who are making - beautiful 11. Lecture 2: Style and Brand: all right, so I think it's now time to take a look at some awesome examples of masters of styling Brand to get some inspiration shall way. So we'll start with the caramel shed. And I think this man does more for the color pink than Barbie and right ladies. His designs air happy and modern and fresh. And although he uses a lot of colors in his work, there's a confidence about his color palettes that air unmistakably his own. Agatha Ruiz de la Prada, um, is a Spanish designer with a flair for just funky, campy brain boast. Everywhere on the runway, her shows air theatrical on energetic. They're really fun to watch, even if you're not super into fashion there, like just walking sculpture. And she just has a pretty natural sense of fun. Face T color. So nobody does florals like any butler, and that's coming from someone who stays about a far away from florals, as she possibly can, much to my mother's chagrin. But I can tell you that I find her designs just incredibly compelling. They're sort of vintage e, but also extremely contemporary. They feel cozy but also practical. That's a nice balance. She's has a very real consistency over time with color and brand. We're Pantone's one of my favorite furniture designers because of how much of a social designer he waas. His designs air bold and sassy, but he's very interested in social interaction and how design could inform society. So, for example, in the middle picture here, what you're actually looking at is the interior of this badass cruise ship. And his idea was that if you changed an environment, you could change the way people interacted in that environment, and that color and form and pattern and texture could do that. So Cath Kitson this is a British designer who I just think makes fantastic novelty prints. She's really well known for this sort of nostalgia, kind of like Old Kitchen of Your Dreams kind of designs, beautiful florals, lots and lots of contrast ing patterns. And she's also a good example of somebody who takes their brand and can apply it to any surface. And you know that stuff is is caskets and stuff. It's just whether it's a pillow or an iPhone cover, you know it's hers. Miss Sony designs air very well known for their great use of texture and color and pattern through knitwear, which, of course, is very tricky. They're often very geometric, but I just love the way that everything comes together over time. Even with very different kinds of colors, they still have a very similar feel to them. Hey, Chisholm is a South African designer, and she makes these really wacky, funny, interesting, illustrative pop culture patterns. They're just brimming with color and style and commentary. She says that she celebrates the vibrant color clash found in African cultures, and I just love her stuff. I could look at it all day. Emilio Pucci is probably the first name in fashion patterns, especially when it comes to geometric and mod prints on fancy scarves that you'll never afford. Pucci, Prince heir Like icons of patterns and popular culture, it's almost synonymous, and they have this. Their brand of bold, vibrant color is just become a timeless classic, which I find really interesting because thes air very noisy, but somehow they're still very elegant, and that's that's their brand Mary captions Who the's air? Great examples of thematic collections, eso her. She has these great collections that this sort of straddle fashion and art. They range an inspiration from Faberge eggs to 19th century paintings. She's a great example of pushing the limit of what patterns mixed together well, because they almost none of them mix together well. And yet all together, it's the fantastic results. They really pushed the boundaries of surface design and what I think of pretty exciting ways. Christopher Kane is another designer to look for for thematic color inspiration. He's very well known for vibrant, tongue in cheek neons all over the runway and really innovative uses of digital fabrication with his textiles. All right, so that's your design inspiration for the week, and now it's time for you to get to work on your own patterns. What I'd like you to focus on this week is bringing dynamic and informative color to the to contrast ing pattern tiles he made last week. So I'd like you to think of a theme for your collection that relates to the conceptual and formal ideas at work in your contrast ing patterns and create a color story that reflects that theme. There's lots of supporting resource is for this week for understanding and applying color both in the demos and the front if it ease, so you have a lot of practice stuff to work with. Also, a nice lecture on color theory more than you ever wanted to know. But what I want you to do is develop a personal color palette of about eight or nine colors , and then from that color group, I want you to show your pattern and three color ways. I want you to come up with a name for your collection for your color story, and I want you to come up with a name for your color ways. So let's take a look at this example here. This color story I'm calling Fiesta make on. It's a riel place in rows down Maryland. Amazing Mombasa's and there are real client, and we're working on a real branding package. This just doesn't happen to be there real patterns. But here's three imaginary color ways that I'm showing Fiesta Mexicana in Chile, del Sole and cactus. So I've given them names and given them a context, and that's what I want you to dio. And I want you to submit all of this so that we can see your results and take a look at your fabulous work. All right, Well, you've got a lot of stuff to do this week. I can't wait to see what you come up with. Enjoy. 12. Demo 1: Digital Albers: - Hey, - everybody, - This is the first demo on digital color. - Mixing the information in this demo relates really strongly to the reading that I included - in the resource and section. - So if you haven't had a chance to flip through that yet, - you might want to do that first and then come back to this or it could not make a whole lot - of sense. - What we're going to be demonstrating here is an application of some Albers color theory. - Now, - the long and short of it is that Albers really talked a lot about the way color changed - when it was in the presence of other colors. - So I'm gonna do some demonstrations here about how quick color mixing and illustrator can - help us identify those relationships and be able to capitalize on them. - So the first thing we're gonna do is work on a color blend. - Now, - this technique can be used to create all kinds of color grading and charts, - which you might be familiar with if you ever took a basic painting class or something like - that. - The same thing just digital. - So the first thing I'm gonna do is create my two colors to blend with which Albert's calls - the parent colors. - And then we're going to make the Children. - They're gonna have a lot of Children. - They, - uh they're friendly parents. - All right, - so let's draw some rectangles. - So you see here that I have my grid on, - And that is because I want to be making these perfect. - He's perfect Children. - Unlike in real life here, - I get to control the outcome of Children. - So lips eso first, - I'm gonna draw, - um, - just a little square right there. - I have my great aunt toe one inch that I know. - That's a one inch square, - and I'm going to give that a pick a color. - I just have a color group here, - Um, - from a palette that I've been using for these demos. - So gonna pick the red. - So now I'm going to click and drag and make a copy, - and I'm gonna pick another color for the parent. - I think I'll do this nice blue color here. - I always loved the way red and blue. - Look, - I'm a patriot. - I guess, - um and I'm gonna want to create five Children in between these two parents, - so I want to make sure that I have 51 inch spaces between them. - So 12345 We'll snap that one there. - The next thing I want to dio is use my illustrator blend option. - So I'm going to go into the object menu, - go to blend and choose blend options. - And I'm gonna set the specified steps to five because the steps are the spaces in between - the 12345 I just counted, - and I know that there's five spaces perfectly between them, - and I'm gonna go ahead and say, - OK, - now that that said, - I'm going to use my blend tool over here on my tools palette. - But there is also object blend make will do the same thing. - But I'm gonna click on the blend tool here. - And if I click once on my red and once on my blue Oh, - it makes this beautiful, - perfect blend between these two colors, - and they're done in perfect steps. - Eso proportionally the same amount of each of the colors, - and that matters a lot for a digital color mixing just like it matters in pigment mixing. - So now what you see here is I have this spine at any time in, - Illustrator. - You see that? - It basically just means it's a reference to a function, - but it hasn't actually been fully completed. - So the nice thing about still having the spine on is that if I keep it on and let's say it - , - just make a copy. - I'll go and just make a couple copies that I can use my direct selection tool. - And I can alter the parents and it will maintain the blend function So I could come in here - and say, - Well, - what happens if I do? - And orange and a green Beautiful. - What happens if I do A yellow and a dark blue? - Beautiful. - Okay, - um, - the next step after you do that, - I always just try to remember to expand them when you're done making a bunch of these. - So I'm gonna go ahead and just take this one here and go toe object blend, - expand. - And then you see, - it releases my spine there, - still grouped together so I can still move them, - and they're still one sort of like Grady int strip. - And now I'm gonna use that to do the color study. - So here, - this is just showing you like how they all completely mixed together. - And now I'm gonna show you why that's useful. - So I'm gonna take these colors and just move them over here a little closer to my next step - here and now what we're gonna do is we're going to apply them to a classic homage to the - square, - and you're gonna feel the power of love. - So we're going to start by going left to right. - This is a little bit tedious, - but that's because it's trying to slow you down so that you pay attention to what's - happening. - So I'm going to select the bottom one here and use my eyedropper tool, - those that the tools were going to use the most, - and then I'm going to go just left to right. - You could also do this with a blend function, - but I think for studying it's actually really nice to do this one at a time because you can - start to see the glow forming as you go. - Imagine. - Haven't actually paint these marry ladies. - Thanks, - technology. - All right, - look at that. - So let's take I'm gonna go ahead and move this over just for a second and zoom in. - So what do we see here, - take a look at it and tell me what you think you say. - When I look at it, - I see the sort of lines forming almost like it's creating this pyramid that may or may not - exist. - Now these colors air sort of really vibrant here. - I'm getting a lot of glow, - and so I can't really tell if this blue square is coming out or going in. - So it's really doing Ah, - lot of pushing and pulling. - That's very interesting. - Keeping this in mind, - you can see what I'm creating is an effect off light coming through when actually, - I'm not using any transparency effects, - these air much more consistent with things like printing than using, - you know, - like 80% opacity or something like that, - that the layer blend mode options An illustrator with preproduction. - I find them to be very unstable. - So this is a much more stable result, - and let's go the other way and see what we see this time. - So let's go is me beautiful. - Now, - this has a completely different experience right here. - I'm getting a much hotter feel in the middle, - and I can see some really nice effects here now, - these are gonna be different for whichever to parents you have. - Just like in real life. - If you blend two parents, - you get very different kids, - the same with, - you know, - imaginary color parents. - So play around and really stop and look and see what you what you have. - And then your job is to figure out now that I have applied this theory and I see how to add - dimension with mixing colors, - how can you take that knowledge and use it to make your patterns push and pull and come - forward and recede where you want them to? - It's all about how can you control the color to control the result instead of the result - controlling you. - Now you can either stop here and just play with this type of mixing, - or I have sort of a part to that. - I'm going to show you right now. - This is a little bit more advanced so you can skip over this if you want, - but it's worth taking a look at. - So after you've made one full blend, - you can blend those two together and create a color matrix, - and the instructions again are all here. - So I have them perfectly spaced for you here. - So I'm gonna go ahead and just give each one of these color. - So I think I'll dio maybe, - or complementary ones. - Soldier The red in the green. - And I'll do this one like, - uh, - like a light yellow. - And maybe that one there on and then go ahead and select them all and remove this stroke. - I kept the stroke on just to help you be able to see these better. - These air perfectly spaced for you five apart so you can keep your blend option set. - So let's go ahead and blend These so blend options are already set. - I can click 12 to blend, - and I can click 12 to blend beautiful. - And now a very important is to release thes blends from their spine. - If you try to blend these together now, - you will get some really awesome glitch art. - So if that's what you're trying to dio do that now, - otherwise go ahead and expand. - So go to blend, - expands objects, - blend, - expand, - and then these are also five steps apart. - So I'm going Teoh, - select both of these. - This is the other way to do it object blend, - make. - And then I get this really, - really interesting. - Full blend here, - this full matrix. - Now the advantage to blending a full matrix toe have for your colorizing is that it's got a - really nice shifts in tone on these nice shifts in tone are really great for adding - highlights and shadows without using graze. - You know a lot of times when people want to make something darker, - they add black classic new mistake. - It's always better to use the compliment of a color to get sort of a more muted shade. - You'll have more dimension, - but get still. - Get that nice, - great shadow or highly. - So that's what's great about these. - Thea Other thing is that sort of need that I have found working with students over the - years is that even if you pick the four ugliest colors to start with in this, - when you mix ugly with ugly somehow it's nice every time it ends up with, - like some sort of a beautiful variation. - So good thinks nature enough variety will yield. - Beauty, - I think, - is the lesson there. - So while we're on the topic of nature and beauty, - I'll take you to the final step, - and that is the colorizing the mandalas. - So after you have created some beautiful color palettes, - I've included some $1 here for practice. - So I have a little blurb here about what men dollars are that you can read. - But I like to include these because the act of coloring mandalas as a rich cultural history - . - But it also has sort of like medical and psychological history. - It's used a lot for patients with anxiety or people who are trying. - Teoh, - you know, - resolve a conflict and what I have found a lot with color. - Teaching color to students over the years is it brings up a lot of anxiety. - Some people are naturally good with color, - and they just take to it really well. - And it's they almost can't remember what it was like not to understand it. - And other people just really don't They don't see it or they don't feel it. - And that could be really frustrating thing to not be ableto to really execute perfectly in - your designs. - So the nice thing about coloring these $1 is that you just sort of let your intuition lead - you, - and so you could look at. - You know, - you could make yourself a palette here to color them with. - Or you could pick one of these color books. - They all have specific print purposes. - But for the, - you know, - you can also just look. - It is like a giant box of crayons. - You can pick one of these up and then, - you know, - just pick whatever you like. - Whatever is sort of calling to you. - A nice thing to do sometimes is to set an intention for the mandalas. - So maybe you look at it and say, - before I color it in. - I want to bring the intention of forgiveness or the intention of peace to your designs. - And I don't know about you, - but I could certainly live in a world with a little bit more forgiveness and peace. - So go ahead and try your hand at coloring intuitively or coloring. - Sort of. - Mathematically both ways work out great. - And I'm looking forward to seeing your results. - So have some fun with ease, - and I'll see in the next wave 13. Demo 2: Mixing Complimentary Neutrals: Okay, So I'm going to demonstrate for you now how to mix complementary neutrals for your compositions. These are some color ways that I demonstrated in the lecture this week, and I'm gonna mix for you a gray and a brown that are complementary. What you see here are my two contrasting styles in this color way, the red color way. And I also included the full color group of my full color palette of eight different colors that I'll get mixed and matched said that everything looks really seamless and I'm going to start by mixing the gray. So the formula that I mentioned before is that you want about 10% of your dominant color mixed with 30% of a gray. So this one is pretty simple to dio. So first, we're gonna pick the dominant color, which is the red here. Um, the first thing I need to do is to come to my color in my swatch palette. I want a double click on it, and they want to make sure that a click global color and this is gonna allow me to get percentages tints, um, of colors. This is actually great for one color print jobs to color print jobs, which you young whippersnappers probably won't have to deal with much because of digital printing. But back in the day, color was really expensive, so this was, like, essential. So when you do that, it gives you this color window here, and it allows you to deal with percentages of color, which is different than transparency percentages. All right, so I'm going to start off with just a square here of my color. It's starting up 100% so I'm gonna bring that all the way down to 10. You could type it if it's being funky, Um, all the way down to 10. Okay. And then I'm gonna make another square, and this one I'm going to fill with my 30% gray. This comes standard on this watches pellets. The 30 graze the gray scale, so it'll show you what it is there, but you can also came means black, so you can adjust it there as well. So these were the two colors I have here, and I need to blend them together to make my perfect gray. So what I'm gonna use is my blend palette that I used before, so that's under object blend. And first I need to go to blend options. And before when we did blending, we had multiple steps because we're making a lot of blends. But now I just want one. I just want to mix those two together. So first, I'm gonna set my blend options at one. And then now I can use my blend tool and say, Mix this with this, and then I get this really nice gray here. You notice it still has a spine. So I want to make sure that I expand that I'm gonna go ahead and ungroomed fit as well. And now I have a really nice gray that goes very seamlessly with everything here. And you can tell the difference. Hopefully between how well that griegos and that great there, This isn't necessarily bad, but this one really sinks to the back unless these other colors really come forward. Whereas this is fairly competitive for attention. All right, so we have our gray, um and now it's time to make our brown. So I'm going to go ahead and follow that math, which is that I want my two. I want my dominant color and its complement or as close is there is. So my dominant is the 100% of the red. And then this one, I could choose either one of thes greens. I'll get a slightly different result, but I'm gonna choose the lighter of the greens. Okay, so one a little bit of a brighter around, Um, and I'm gonna mix that with a 20% gray. So I'm gonna have do this in two parts. First, I'm gonna mix these together, so I already have my blend option. Said it one to pick my Blundell and blend them and go ahead and expand this and I'm group it. And then I'm gonna take this result here, and I'm going Teoh mix that with a 20% gray. So that's five. That's 20% gray. And I'm gonna mix those two together, and there I have a nice, warm brown expand that I'm gonna group it and then I have this really nice brown that fits in very nicely with my color scheme. Okay, so that's how you mix complementary neutrals. And I hope you'll take that same logic and apply it to any kind of mutuals that you have to design with. The trick really is pulled from colors that you already have. All neutrals have colors in them, like a little bit of some color. So if you purposely put the color and that you wanted to read like, you know, if I wanted to read a little bit red, I mix a little bit of red and with it, and it's gonna it's gonna sink well with the rest of the colors. All right, Have fun with this one. I could blend and mix digital colors all day long. Hopefully, you can, too, according to the results. 14. Demo 3: Repel/Attract: - All right. - So this is our final demonstration of some color tricks this week for developing your own - style and brand. - This is an exercise I call repel and attract in this exercise. - But I'm gonna have you do is work with photos of color combinations you're drawn to and - ones that you want to avoid. - We're gonna be picking colors from photos to develop color palettes, - learning about color groups in illustrator and also a function called Edit Colors. - So we're going to start here with some colors I am repelled by, - and you can download this exercise in your resource is section. - I left these douche bags out for your benefit, - but let's go ahead and start by pulling some colors out of this image, - and we're gonna fill these boxes in Witham. - Someone used my eyedropper tool for some to select the box on. - I'm gonna pick some of these colors that I really am that I don't really like so much. - So this these oranges, - I really Yeah. - This is these are not my favorite. - Well, - sorry. - Probably day. - No, - that's not poly d. - That's Rami. - Get it. - Get it together Friday. - Just get it together. - um, - Google Will's little Sammy side boob there on and let's get some j Wow. - All right. - And now I have a group of colors that actually, - um, - don't end up looking terrible, - but I'm still not totally drawn to them. - They kind of have a weird orangey quality to them that I'm not super fund of. - So the next thing I'm going to do once I have all my colors picked is I'm going to create - what's called a color group out of these. - The swatches here. - So I have my swatches palette. - I'm gonna select thes colors here. - And then I'm gonna come over to my swatches palette, - and I'm going to click on the new color group Icon looks like a folder with a plus sign. - When I do that, - I get some options. - I do want to name it Mukalla, - Jersey Shore for obvious reasons. - And then I can choose either to create them from selected swatches. - So if I had drive them into this palette, - I could do from there or this nice option here. - This from selected artwork. - So they don't have to drag each one of these in one by one and click OK, - and then you notice it creates a group for me, - which is super helpful. - And now that it's a color group, - I can use a terrific new function called Edit Colors that this was new. - Maybe CS five metre frozen CS four or not. - This is a super great efficiency trick for re coloring artwork vector artwork that's you - know, - already exists. - So I'm going to select my artwork that I want to re color, - which is this tile. - And I'm gonna choose this re color artwork option. - It looks like a little color wheel, - and depending on your version, - you might see it up here. - It might also be in your color palette, - but you click on that and it's gonna pull up this window here, - and this is gonna pick all of the colors in your tile. - Sometimes they'll all directly map. - Sometimes it doesn't map the, - um, - the neutrals. - So if you just click once there and say yes, - it'll add, - you know, - the white color to that harmony. - So I have four colors here that I want Teoh re color this tile with, - So I'm gonna pick my Jersey shore colors. - Um and then you notice. - It's just gonna pick random colors. - And I actually am quite propelled by the combination, - so I could just stop here. - But this is one of my favorite things to Dio down here. - There's this option that says randomly change color order. - And if I just kind of keep clicking that it will take me through different who very - repulsive, - Um, - colors through, - uh, - through my color group. - And I can just keep playing until I really hate it. - Who? - I really hate that, - Um, - See, - I don't hate that. - And it's funny. - I don't eat that either. - Um, - getting Haiti. - Oh, - I hate that. - All right, - I'm gonna stop here. - I'm gonna stop before I get any more hatred. - I'm gonna go ahead and say OK, - and I'll say yes. - Once I have a color group already picked. - I can use that to colorize any tiles. - So over here I have my Muppet Babies collection of colors. - So I'm gonna go ahead and I'm just gonna review the process of making a color group. - Once I have my colors, - I select them. - I choose new color group. - I give it a name, - it makes a group for me I can Then take my artwork that I want to re color. - Choose the re color artwork button good and say yes to adding the neutral. - Pick my colors there and keep going until I am happy. - Now notice here where it says save changes. - This just means the order of how the colors appear. - So I'm just gonna say yes. - The nice thing about that is, - once it's now, - if I go to re color this the default will sort of be to the last it goes in order. - So it definitely will match there at the same sort of colors. - And I'm gonna go ahead and say, - OK, - so once you're done practicing with this activity, - it's time to colorize your own tiles. - What you see here are two examples of contrast ing patterns in two different color ways. - These don't happen to be from the same color story. - One color story is the Jersey Shore, - and this one is Muppet babies. - But there are both examples of color ways. - So maybe I give this color way. - The name of Ronnie and Sammi is Fourth of July fight and this one I call baby Kermit on - Christmas. - So whatever you wanna call the patterns, - as long as there are a reflection of your own personality that will really help brand your - designs your pattern designs as coming from you as a specific designer. - So this week, - when I want to see our three examples of color ways, - we're looking at two color ways right now. - From one color story on, - I want you to upload that in one document and share it with the glass so I can't wait to - see what you create. - Good luck. 15. Welcome!: Hi. Welcome back. This is Jennifer I and I'm here with Introduction to Surface Design, An online workshop brought to you by Micah. This is our final unit, and we're going to be discussing how to create the mixed and matched pattern collections of your dreams. I'm gonna teach you apron math, which is your back pocket trick to make beautiful collections. Thes collections will be great representations of your personal style and will be flexible patterns that you can apply to a number of surfaces. As part of our study this week, we're going to take a look at the patterns of other pattern designers, See what they dio learn from the pros. And I'll show you some awesome stuff that my students made too. I bet you'll be as proud of them as I am. Okay, everyone, let's get started on our final lesson. 16. Lecture 1: Design Elements III - Texture: - welcome back to our third installment of the design elements, - Siri's, - and this week we're going to be talking about texture and how physical and implied texture - can be used in your designs to create and maximize visual interest. - So all texture really is is a surface. - And since this is of course about surface design, - this is something hopefully, - we're all pretty concerned about most of the time when we're thinking about texture. - This is kind of what comes to mind. - Something tactile and physical. - Physical texture represents changes to the surface of an object, - whether it's the surface of a canvas from built up paint or the surface of an exoskeleton - smoothly. - Three D printed in plastic visual texture is something that gets used a lot in painting and - photography to create the illusion of texture. - Visual texture is implied. - It's used to create a sense of energy and a sense of tact. - Il ity textures used to evoke sensory ideas. - Toe encouraged the audience to want to interact with the work on a visceral level. - So let's take a look at some hints for making your own third tile in your collection. - This week, - you could think about using nontraditional materials and non traditional mediums such as - this painting here by Jimmy Lee Sudduth, - where he's painting on driftwood. - Using a combination of mud and leftover house paint, - you could think about capturing texture photographically with the political commentary. - You could paint the pain and build up the surface, - challenging the idea of what a surfaces in general you could use butterflies and put them - in resin winky face. - Consider embroidery as a terrific way to add texture or cut paper and fabric collage. - There's no wrong way to get texture into the work that you're designing. - If your designs feel little flat as often beginning illustrator graphics can see about - adding a texture to your work and examine the results. - Good luck. 17. Lecture 2: Creating Collections I: - guys and welcome to part one of our final lecture in the Siri's creating collections. - Today, - we're gonna be talking about strategies for mixing and matching patterns to create a - cohesive collection. - A great way to learn stuff is to study the work of others who have come before you. - And if you take a look at the work of other surface designers collections, - you'll notice they have a few key things in common. - Great collections have a natural and beautiful variety. - If you want to make sure that there's enough variety in your designs, - just keep looking for those contrasts. - We've been talking about contrasts of color and value line visual weight, - direction, - scale motif, - etcetera. - If you have a lot of contrasts, - you'll have a lot of variety. - Being mindful and purposeful about repeating certain elements is a direct and effective way - to communicate cohesiveness to your audience. - Try repeating things like motifs and colors, - but vary the scale in the value. - I think most people who are John to pattern designer also drawn to balance. - It could be generalizing, - but I think it's a good idea to balance dominant patterns with subtle patterns, - vibrant color with quiet color, - but you don't need to get all precise about it. - Near balance is often more appealing than perfect balance. - If you follow formula too closely, - like one flora, - one geometric, - one all over pattern one large scale, - one small scale, - etcetera. - It's gonna look like a formulate collection. - Oftentimes, - with fabric designers, - especially, - they'll design around ah, - focal or what's called a key pattern in this example. - Here, - the one off handkerchief pattern in the middle is the key pattern that the rest of the - collection is built around so it might help you to think about one of your patterns is - being this sort of lead actor and the other pattern says, - acting in supporting roles. - If you're aiming to create commercial interest for your work than playing up, - your brand is critical. - This is what makes customers desire your work. - They want your style in their life. - So at the beginning, - I think it's important that you make patterns for you that communicate who you are and what - your point of view is. - And then as you develop your audience, - then you can cater to their needs more specifically above all else. - You should make sure that whatever work you're designing, - that it's usable in the context that it's going to be applied. - Teoh. - So some patterns will look fantastic on the screen, - but they're just never gonna make a beautiful rug or a pillowcase. - And so if that's what you're selling, - you want to make sure that it works. - Customers love to get ideas and inspiration from designer, - so help them out. - Show them what a quilt might look like in your design or wall hanging. - So finally, - the apron test. - How can you ensure that the collections you have our meeting these design elements of - variety repetition balance focal point, - etcetera. - Well, - this is something I came up with called the Apron tests, - using apron math to see if your patterns actually hold up. - So I'm gonna take you through an apron with two patterns, - three patterns and four patterns. - So, - and of course, - this is just a metaphor. - You can imagine that this could be a wall with a chair, - rail or whatever just agreed. - Or a skeleton toe hold your patterns up against and see when you're actually applying them - in a mixed format. - Do they make sense? - Do they still read cohesive Sometimes when you're looking at patterns at like 100% to 100% - it's very it's hard to tell. - So here, - in the first example, - we haven't an apron with two patterns, - one dominant pattern and one light pattern. - So 75% of fabric A and 25% of B I think you'll agree it's pretty balanced. - If you have three patterns, - test it like this. - Do 25% of fabric, - a 15% of B and 60% of C. - If you have four patterns, - try mixing it up like this. - 25% of fabric a 10% of fabric be 60% of fabric C and 5% of D. - If when you put your fabrics into these proportions and they still read cohesive and you - can mix and match throughout them, - you probably have a pretty good collection on your hands. - All right, - that's it for today, - and I'll see you in the next lecture when we take a look at some examples of my fantastic - student work and the way that they've organized their collections, - take care 18. Lecture 3: Creating Collections II: - Well, - hey, - it's time to do one of my favorite things. - And that is show off some examples of my incredibly talented students. - Very hard work. - These projects are part of a final project in my semester long patterns course at Mica. - I have the work of three very talented designers to show you, - and I think you'll find some really terrific inspiration of how to finalize and balance - your final collections, - as well as get some hints on how to present your final collections to a viewing audience. - We'll start with Christina's work here from a collection she calls Branches and Blossoms. - One of the things I had my students due to present was to start off with a cover page that - shows all of the patterns together to give the audience a hint of what's to come. - So these patterns are based loosely around the Greek gods of sleep, - death and night. - Christina did a good amount of research here, - on which types of flowers related to her themes of sleep and death and night, - and created just a fantastic collection, - very well balanced of lots of different shapes and forms. - Part of what I think formally makes this collection, - so successful is how much contrast of direction there is. - So we have some patterns that go one direction, - some that can go multiple directions. - We have a lot of vertical energy. - Contrast it with some horizontal energy. - We have some curvy lines versus, - um, - straight lines, - and there's lots of individual texture. - This one is my favorite color combination because I'm quite a sucker for blue and brown, - and I love the way orangish red plays against that blue for a little bit of pot. - But it's also very soothing. - This is also a nice balance to the other two colors that feel a little bit somber here. - She's playing off that orange more, - but going a little bit deeper. - So it's a similar color combination. - A stay as this, - but a little bit deeper of a sensibility. - And that's an important amount of variety to look at, - including for your eventual client. - Some people really respond well to bold, - confident color, - and other people prefer things that recede into the background a little bit in Lindy's - collection here, - it's just full of vibrancy and fun, - and everything is really just precise and very perfectly executed, - which ends up, - I think, - making the consumer very comfortable. - So originally Lindy was thinking about flowers associated with Marie Antoinette. - That's where the ideas began, - and she just kept working with other patterns to really push contrast. - So this is a fantastic example of how AH floral and geometric contrast can take an entire - collection in multiple directions. - Here we have it in pop art pinks. - One of the things I just love about the knees design is how well she works with color and - dimension. - So she's using color very well here in the plaid and also in the Q Bert design and the - individual flower designs to give that example of transparency to make it feel like there's - movement and energy here she has in electric lime sunny days, - infrared and my personal favorite CM. - Why not? - One of the things I think makes this pattern collection so successful is how much - repetition there is. - Lindy's really mastered the application of color balance. - All of these patterns feel like they have just the right amount of color in them, - but she's also working with textures and rhythm extremely well, - so thes patterns are all feel like they have an awful lot of movement, - and yet there's a balance in line weight that makes you feel like you could put these - patterns together. - So we have the bold Chevron stripes but then put putting those next to them or illustrated - flowers. - They really balance each other out. - The final example here is from Tanya, - and this is a collection she calls Flora, - and this is sort of an homage to her doodles. - Or at least those are my words, - not hers. - In her sketchbooks, - I see a lot of repetition of these certain floral shapes. - Ah, - lot of intricate texture and hatch work. - Tanya did a lot of really fantastic, - monochromatic work, - so for her it was a bit of a struggle to find the color that really represented her - personality, - because a lot of her brand is really black and white. - She's done a fantastic job here of bringing in the spirit of mono chrome's. - Although these air two colors, - it almost still feels like a monochrome, - or like a black and white. - It has that same sensibility here. - I love the reds and the greens. - I can see any number of these as a beautiful kitchen curtains I think in this color way you - can really see the formal relationships Tanya was working on, - trying to balance and sculpt that figure and ground relationship. - As I mentioned earlier, - one of the most difficult things for beginning pattern designers is understanding how to - simultaneously sculpt the figure in the ground so that that relationship is active and - purposeful. - Here, - where she has different textures in the background, - she's starting to really hit it in a way that's visually interesting but also conceptually - relevant. - And finally, - we This is Tanya in her comfort zone, - working in blacks and whites, - this is almost could look exactly like it just came right out of her sketchbook. - What you can see very well here in the black and white is how she's balanced the darks and - the lights in these patterns. - So the contrast ing pattern she has with the lights go all the way from a pure white - background to a pure gray background to a gray and white background. - So there's a lot of balance here and how she's presented the collection. - But in addition to the kind of balance that's found within each of the pattern tiles, - all right, - So now that you've seen some great examples of a final collection, - it's your turn. - You've started off with two contrasting tiles, - which is the building blocks of any great collection to have that really strong contrast, - and your final step this week is gonna be to balance those tiles with something neutral and - subtle. - I'm building here off examples of what I showed you before of the Fiesta Makana patterns, - and what I've added here is a simple scalloped pattern in a complementary neutral. - What I hope you pay attention to in this These examples are not only the way that the - students have balanced their collection of prints, - but also the way that they've presented their images in a very professional, - clear way that lets you focus on the work itself I've included in your resource is section - , - a template that you can choose to work with to present your collections to the class. - Because there's so many of us in this course, - the more consistent Artiles R As we look at them together, - the easier I think it will be to see the individual differences in our work. - OK, - so this concludes our lecture series on introduction to surface design, - creating and mixing patterns. - You have some demos toe look at this week and some activities to work with to test your - collections to see if they pass the apron test. - And I can't wait to see your final collections. - It's been great having class of you taking care. 19. Demo 1: Making Simple Scallops: - All right. - So here I have my two contrasting tiles in the cayenne color way, - and I need to design 1/3 tile to round out this collection and balance these forms. - So I'm gonna design with a complimentary neutral, - and you'll remember this from unit two, - where I designed a complimentary gray and brown to go with my color group. - So I think I'll start with my grain neutral. - And in deciding what kind of subtle pattern to coordinate with ease, - I took a look at the contrast between these. - So here I have some very curvy lines going into a diagonal directions, - and here I have some very strong vertical lines. - So if I follow the contrasts, - what makes sense would be something that has a little bit of a curve for some repetition, - but that goes horizontally. - So I think that will be the perfect balance to this collection. - So I'm gonna test out and see if a simple scallop motif might look really great and I'm - gonna work with tone on tone color. - So what I have here is a circle that is using my complementary grain neutral as it's Phil - and then a slightly late lighter tint of that same gray as the stroke. - I have the stroke set at four points and I've made a circle and put it right here on my - corner. - So the first thing that I need to do is build my line across and you'll remember this from - the first unit. - I will command C command F to paste in front, - and then I'm gonna use my X axis to move these one inch at a time all the way across. - Okay, - so I have my first stripe. - The second thing I'm gonna dio is to make my stripe down at the bottom on the exit so that - I know that these all come out evenly. - So I'm gonna command see the whole strip command after paced in front. - And this is a three inch by three inch square. - So I'm gonna tell Illustrator to send that down the y axis, - add three inches and he'll put that on the bottom. - And now I'm ready to start staggering these and make my scalloped pattern come to life. - So I'm gonna command see these command after place in front, - and then I'm gonna send it down the y axis 1/2 a niche, - and I'm going to send it over half a niche to give it some contrast. - Now, - the important thing here is that I remember to keep working, - So each stripe is on top of the one in front of it, - and I'm at the end. - I'm gonna have to move this to the front. - The reason I put this stripe here second is because as this goes down, - it can be harder to see As you continue to build the stripes, - it's harder to see if these circles are actually exactly bisecting. - And that's important, - of course, - that this line here be the same as that line there. - So once I have two minds here, - I can select this entire thing. - Command C command F, - and then I want to send it down one inch, - come and see command F. - And I'm going to send that down one inch. - So here I have a beautiful scalloped pattern. - Now the only thing that I'm gonna want to do now is that if you look up at the top, - you can see the very tops of the circles are being cut off. - So because I know everything is in proportion right now, - and it's perfectly mathematically spaced. - I'll select the entire thing and just move it down with my down arrows so that I'm getting - the top. - I'm clearing the top of those circles, - and I may have to come back in an unjust this later, - but that's okay. - Final step. - I need to set my foundation rectangle crap. - So I'm going Teoh, - click once and say this is a three inch by three inch rectangle. - While it's still selected, - I'm going to make it no stroke, - no Phil and go toe objects. - Arrange center back. - And now I'm ready to make this a pattern. - So I'm gonna select everything, - and I'm going to drag it to my swatches palette, - and then I'm gonna test and see what it looks like. - So I'm gonna fill it here. - Beautiful. - So I have a beautiful tone on tone scallop and let's take a look at what it looks like next - to my other tiles. - Well, - it looks pretty good. - It's up for To me, - the proportion looks like it's off a little bit, - so it must mean that's a little bit smaller of a scale just for my sense of visual interest - , - so I'm going to select it. - Goto object transform scale mixture. - My object is clicked off. - And here where it says skill. - I'm gonna take that all the way down to 25 see what it looks like. - I actually feel pretty good about that. - To me, - the scale of this scallop feels incorrect proportion with the scale of the thickness of - these lines. - But that's just to my visual sensibilities. - You need to trust your own instincts, - so I'll go ahead and say OK, - and there we have a beautiful coordinating neutral that balances those patterns. - You have another example of a type of pattern you can easily make under your belt. - Good luck. 20. Demo 2: Passing The Apron Test: - Okay, - so it's time to go over apron math. - This made up idea it came up with to test the patterns in a collection to see if there's - enough balance in visual interest toe actually apply these patterns to a surface. - So the reason that I'm using an apron as a metaphor here is because aprons air naturally - broken up into several different quadrants. - So I'm using an apron here, - obviously as a metaphor to think about ah, - kind of a grid for the application of patterns. - An apron is an object that, - naturally, - like fancy aprons, - tend to have a lot of different patterns on them. - And if you look at it, - it's very grid, - like we have separate modules that can each be filled with a different contrast ing pattern - . - And it's an easy way to test to see if your patterns actually look good together in a - variety of proportions. - So I've included a template for this apron in your front. - If it e section this week as a way for you to test and see if your patterns actually mix - and match together in proportion, - let me walk you through kind of the decision making process that I came to when I was - balancing this imaginary collection. - So I showed you in the simple scallops demonstration, - how to make thes patterns and why I chose that why I chose that scale and that tone on tone - color. - So what I've done here is created three subtle patterns, - one in a gray color way, - one in the neutral brown color way. - And then the 3rd 1 I did in a tone on tone from the color itself. - So that's another way to think about balancing. - It doesn't have to be, - Ah, - complementary neutral. - It can also just be pulling the dominant color out and using that as a tone on tone because - you know it'll match if you this is sort of a monochromatic solution. - So once I created these swatches, - then I just sort of started to play around, - and I wanted to see what things would look like when I try different patterns with them, - and what you'll notice here is because all of these colors are so similar in this - collection, - really, - any of these could work with any of the rest of them, - which I think is a great selling point, - especially for fabric designers. - So that's the apron test for individual colors. - But let's go ahead and do the apron test with the whole collection and see how they work. - So I'm just gonna play around with some of these examples of aprons that I included and - just to see if everything kind of coordinates together. - They don't have to all coordinate together, - but I think it ups the market value of your fabric collection, - especially if they can. - This is maybe of specific importance to quilters or people that use lots of different - fabrics within one design. - So maybe I want to test out and see what that would look like with the green and the - florals together. - I think that's not terrible. - I may want to balance that with some stripes and maybe over here I want to try the neutrals - with the neutrals and try the stripes. - Maybe what this stripes is the trim and all of these air looking pretty good to me like - they make a lot of sense together. - Maybe I mix and match there so you can imagine that again. - This apron is just a metaphor for a plane of space that's divided into sections it almost - even looks like a wall with the chair, - rail and an upper and a lower portion and also the molding. - It's the same sort of idea. - So even if you're not into aprons, - this is still a really useful technique to see if your patterns will apply to surfaces - nicely together. - And if you're proportion is right, - all right, - well, - good luck and fingers crossed that your collections past the apron test.