Master Pattern Designs Like a Pro

1. Hello! Welcome!: Do you often wonder why some patterns work and some don't? When creating a surface pattern design, there are a number of design strategies to think about in order to make a design successful. Just creating pretty motives and a technical repeat isn't enough. In this class, I'm going to show you my Top 3 strategies for creating a well-balanced, stunning pattern. That's right. There's just three, I promise you if you implement just these three strategies into your designs, you'll take them to the next level and they will go from just a novice pattern to a professional pattern. Hi, my name is Mel and I'm a full-time illustrator and surface pattern designer from Wellington New Zealand. I've been designing and licensing patterns for 10 years and I've learned a lot over these years. I've made lots of mistakes in my designs. Particularly at the beginning of my career when I had no idea about pattern composition and color theory. I still make mistakes but if I take the time to think about the strategies I'm going to show you in this class, then I always produce a well-balanced, harmonious pattern that draws you in. Once you start implementing these design strategies into your designs, you start to build a portfolio that stands out and may even bring in a nice income for you. This class is for surface pattern designers at the beginning of their journey in this fascinating industry, or for those who have been creating patterns for a while, but just can't work out why they aren't licensing. I don't teach you how to create patterns in this class. You can learn it in one of my other classes. In this class, we're just talking about the design fundamentals to help take your pattern designs to the next level. For this class, all you'll need is a notebook and pen to write down all these tips I'm going to give you or you can just print them out and the cheat sheet provided. You'll also need your favorite design program. This could be procreate, Photoshop, Illustrator, or affinity. Does that sound good? Great. Let's get right to it. 2. COLOUR: My first tip to creating a great pattern is to select a limited color palette. Limiting your colors creates a more sophisticated look and doesn't overwhelm the eyes. Colors communicate the overall vibe of your design and they set the tone. When creating a new pattern, ask yourself what your designs mood is. Does it feel bubbly and bold with bright pops of color? Or is it dark and moody with more lash deep colors? I like to stick to around 5-6 colors, which I take from my bank of colors. My bank of colors is a large pellet of around 40 colors that I use all the time. They speak my name and help my style to be consistent. Here are a few ways to select colors. To begin with, you could use a color wheel to select colors in one of the following ways, you could select just analogous colors. For this, it's a good idea to first start with a background color. Then use the color wheel to select colors that are next to each other to use for your motives. Another way you could use the color wheel is to use split complimentary colors. You could use two analogous colors plus one contrasting color, which is on the opposite side of the color wheel. This is a great way to create an interesting accent to your design. Another way to capture colors is to use nature. I like to always have my phone on me and take photos of colors in nature. You can then use the eyedropper tool in your design application to pick colors from your image or a selection of images say from a mood board. Then you could use a color palette tool on the Internet. Here are some of my favorites. I love Coolors. Design Seeds is another really good one and also Pantone. Now once you've selected your palette, it's also important to balance the colors in your pattern design. To do this, let's look at the primary colors, the secondary colors, and the accent colors. The primary color should take up most of the design. Quite often this could be your background color. Secondary colors take up less than half of the design and they are still noticeable, but they aren't the stand out like the primary color. Accent colors take up a small portion of the design, and I often use these for fill and motives. Contrast is an important element for not just surface pattern designers, but also all types of artists and designers. Our brain really craves contrast and it can really hurt if it doesn't have contrast. Let's look at this example. The one on the left really hurts the eyes. That's because it has no contrast, whereas the one on the right does. To ensure you've got good contrast in your pattern design, try switching it to black and white. You'll quickly see where you need to add more contrast. Lastly, don't panic if your palette doesn't work, you can always make adjustments and try alternative colors. 3. DEPTH: Have you noticed that some pattern designs draw you in wanting to see more? William Morris patterns are a good example in that you are intrigued to look closer to discover more. William was a genius at creating depth in his patterns. My favorite way to create depth is by creating interesting backgrounds. Here are four of my favorite ways that you can implement different backgrounds into your design to create depth. Now, these can be created as a full pattern that is placed behind the main motives or as fillers. The first method is to add dots or marks to the background layer. Now, this is probably my most favorite method and you'll see it a lot in my designs. Try using dots or marks together with large-scale motives to create a nice balance. Play around with the size, spacing, and repetition of the dots or max. You could have them scattered all evenly spaced. Adding stripes to your background creates a more structured contrast to your pattern. You could use a simple solid color stripe background, or you could play around with more organic shapes and create a really interesting effect. Silhouettes is another favorite method of mine. Creating silhouettes gives the impression of shadows and creates a wonderful depth in your pattern. To create a silhouette, I typically just take a motive such as a large branch, and fill it with a solid dark color, then adjust the blending mode in my design application to create a shadow effect. My last favorite method is by using textures. Now, the previous methods I talked about could be considered textures. But when I think of textures, I think in a more literal sense of a more specific texture feel such as wood or concrete or paper grain. I love taking photos of textures, in nature such as bark of a tree, and then turning it into a texture to use as a background in my pattern. When creating depth through the use of dots, stripes, silhouettes, and textures, or any other method it's important to ensure that these are there to add contrast, contexts, and depth to your foreground hero of the patterns. Try to not let your background steal the show, but rather ensure it gives the motors center stage and you can do this by creating backgrounds that are soft and subtle. Through the use of muted tones and smaller scales. 4. BALANCE: [MUSIC] Your ultimate goal is to create a well balanced pattern. When a pattern is well balanced, it feels harmonious and is attractive to the eye. If it's out of balance, it may feel unnatural and messy. You really just want it to create harmony. Let's look at some ways to ensure that your pattern is well balanced. To start with, let's look at composition. Look for the following alignment issues in your composition of your pattern design. Sometimes this requires you to take a step away from your pattern for a day, then come back. When you return to your design, you'll probably find that there are gaps and channels that are preventing your pattern to feel natural. If you see an unintended row of motifs in a pattern, then you have a line up, it could be any direction, vertical, horizontal, diagonal and they are very jarring for your pattern. If you find a lineup, try and adjust some of the motifs to remove the line up. You then might find some alleys and these are the negative spaces in between the motifs that form an empty line, we don't want those either. Another thing to look for are gaps or holes. These are blank areas in your pattern that break up the natural flow. Then there are meet ups, this is when two identical motifs or two motifs of the same color are placed next to each other or two motifs are too close to each other in comparison to the rest of the motifs. Adding a variety of motif shapes will create a more interesting and balanced pattern. Try dividing your motifs into three main categories, your hero motifs and these are the star of the show, the focal point of your pattern, such as maybe a bird. Then you have complementary motifs, these are generally smaller than your hero and help support it, so for a pattern with a bird this could be a collection of flowers, leaves, and twigs for example. Then you have filler motifs. We did talk about these in the previous video. Fillers are motifs that are small and there are lots of them to fill the gaps between the larger elements. Another issue that you might find is that you have too many motifs. Too many motifs will create chaos in your design. Ensure that each motif has a purpose, it's either a hero motive, a complimentary motive, or a filler and they all must work together to tell a story. Another problem is too many colors. Now this goes back to my first tip where I gave you ideas on how to create a good color palette. Try limit your color palette to no more than five colors in one design. Try adding shades of the same color instead of adding more colors. 5. YOUR PROJECT: Now that you know my three strategies for creating a well-balanced, harmonious pattern, it's your turn. For your project, I want you to create one pattern using motifs of your choice. Ensure you incorporate the three tips I've talked about in the previous lessons. Let's recap on those. Firstly, color. Select a limited palette using the methods I mentioned. Then, for depth, I want you to explore two or three of the background ideas I talked about and then add them to your pattern. Select your favorite one or the one that best creates a balanced pattern. Then balance. Once you've completed your pattern, step away from it for a day. The next day, fix all the gaps, alleys, line-ups and meet-ups to create a well-balanced pattern. Also, remove any unnecessary motifs that aren't working. When you're done, upload your final pattern along with any earlier versions you had that you fixed or modified using the tips I outlined. I can't wait to see your patterns. 6. Conclusion: Congratulations, you've made it to the end of this class. In this class, I have shown you my Top 3 strategies for creating stunning, well-balanced pattern designs. I showed you how color and creation tips and balance can take your patterns to the next level and make them more professional. I really hope you found this information useful as I really had fun putting it together. Don't forget to upload your patterns to the project gallery along with your process so we can see how you've implemented these strategies. If you post your work on Instagram, please do tag me, @melarmstrongdesign so I can see what you've done. If you have any questions or need some help somewhere along the line, you can just start a conversation in the discussions panel and I'll be happy to answer them for you. If you like this class, please take a moment to leave a review. It would mean a lot to me and it also helps me to improve as a teacher. Don't forget to follow me here on Skillshare to stay up to date with any announcements or new classes that I make. You can do this by clicking the following button right here. Again, thank you so much for taking my class. I'm so looking forward to seeing your work. See you next time. Happy pattern-making.