Pattern Collections and Portfolios: Dos, Don'ts, and Myths | Melissa Lee | Skillshare
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Pattern Collections and Portfolios: Dos, Don'ts, and Myths

teacher avatar Melissa Lee, allow yourself to fail before you succeed

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Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      Introduction

      2:56

    • 2.

      My Timeline

      5:49

    • 3.

      PI: Why Design In Collections?

      1:28

    • 4.

      PI: The Dos Don'ts and Myths of Designing in Collections

      2:37

    • 5.

      PI: Collection Size

      3:43

    • 6.

      PI: Is Having an Industry Focus Important?

      3:11

    • 7.

      PI: Collection Complexity: Heroes, Coordinates, & Blenders

      5:40

    • 8.

      PI: To Repeat or Not to Repeat Motifs?

      2:40

    • 9.

      PI: Color Palettes for Collections

      5:42

    • 10.

      PI: Collection Colorways

      9:55

    • 11.

      PI: A Quick Note on Pantone Colors

      1:45

    • 12.

      PII: Physical or Digital Portfolios: Is It Worth It To Send Both?

      7:19

    • 13.

      PII: What Should You Include In Your Portfolio?

      5:34

    • 14.

      PII: A Quick Note on Trends

      2:53

    • 15.

      PII: How Do You Get Your Work Noticed?

      2:44

    • 16.

      PII: Portfolio Presentation

      3:14

    • 17.

      PII: A Quick Note on Print on Demand (POD) Sites

      1:52

    • 18.

      Some Words of Encouragement

      4:01

    • 19.

      Thank You!

      2:26

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About This Class

(Published July 2022) This is a lecture-based class that focuses on the Dos, Don’ts, and Myths of pattern collections and surface design portfolios.

Hi! I’m Melissa Lee, an illustrator and surface designer who has the great joy of working with Riley Blake Designs as one of their fabric designers! I first learned how to make a technically repeating pattern in Adobe Illustrator back in 2015 right here on Skillshare. I now have about seven years of experience at making patterns and pattern collections, about three years of experience at submitting a surface design portfolio, and two years of experience at being a licensed fabric designer.

Lesson Overview:

  1. Class Introduction
  2. My Surface Pattern Design Timeline
  3. Part I: Pattern Collections
    • Why Design in Collections?
    • The Dos, Don’ts, and Myths of Designing in Collections
    • Collection Size
    • Is Having An Industry Focus Important?
    • Collection Complexity: Heroes, Coordinates, & Blenders
    • Should You Avoid Repeating Motifs Across a Collection?
    • Color Palettes for Collections
    • Collection Colorways
    • A Quick Note on Pantone Colors
  4. Part II: Surface Design Portfolios
    • Physical or Digital Portfolios: Is It Worth It To Send Both?
    • What Should You Include In Your Portfolio?
    • A Quick Note on Trends
    • How Do You Get Your Work Noticed?
    • Portfolio Presentation Best Practices
    • A Quick Note on Print on Demand (POD) Sites
  5. Some Words of Encouragement
  6. Closing Thoughts

Want to learn Illustrator? This class takes a step away from the more technical side of learning and focuses on everything that I have learned over the years regarding pattern collections and surface design portfolios. If you’d like to learn Adobe Illustrator and the art of designing repeating patterns, check out my other Skillshare classes on pattern design:

  1. Surface Design In Adobe Illustrator: A Beginner's Guide to Pattern Building - A comprehensive introduction to surface design in Adobe Illustrator.
  2. Character Design Crash Course: Characters for Surface Pattern Design - I cover things to consider when designing characters specifically for patterns, as well as demonstrate my personal process for creating a repeat pattern tile in Adobe Photoshop, but that lesson is somewhat outdated unless you use an older version of Photoshop than CC, as it is updated and improved yearly.
  3. Basics in Adobe Illustrator: Radial, Grid, and Mirror Repeats - Everything you need to know about duplicating and repeating objects, including how to use the Radial, Grid, and Mirror repeat tools, and a deep dive into the Rotate and Reflect tools.
  4. Basics in Adobe Illustrator: A Deep Dive into Exporting - Everything you need to know about exporting artwork and graphics from Adobe Illustrator.

Through demystifying pattern collections and portfolios, this class can help you to avoid the sort of stagnation and loss of momentum that I experienced on my own journey to becoming a surface designer. My hope for you is to leave this class feeling motivated to share and submit your work and to continue creating patterns! 

So let’s get started!

***

Adobe, and Adobe Illustrator are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe in the United States and/or other countries.

Meet Your Teacher

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Melissa Lee

allow yourself to fail before you succeed

Top Teacher

Hi! My name's Melissa Lee, and I'm an illustrator and surface pattern designer living in the hilly forests of Northern California. Alongside doing freelance and art licensing work (I am a proud Riley Blake Designs fabric designer), I've spent much of my time cultivating my love of sharing what I know and encouraging others to nourish their creative side through teaching online art courses here on Skillshare. I love making patterns, character art, and watercolor paintings. I'm endlessly inspired by animals and nature (whether living today or extinct), science fiction and fantasy, space and astrology, witchy things, and bees.

Always bees.

I teach a wide range of topics on Skillshare, including classes on surface pattern design, creative entrepreneurship, vector prog... See full profile

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Transcripts

1. Introduction: Hi, I'm Melissa Lee. I'm a professional illustrator and surface designer. And some of my absolute favorite things to make are patterns. I first learned how to make a technically repeating pattern in Adobe Illustrator back in 2015, right here on Skillshare. I now have about seven years of experience at making patterns and pattern collections. About three years of experience at submitting a surface design portfolio, and two years of experience at being a licensed fabric designer. If you're doing the math on that and thinking, Huh? It sure took her a while to start actually making money from her pattern work. Well, you're not wrong. There are a few reasons for that. Like, for example, my various day jobs keeping me busy, life in general, getting in the way, making classes on Skillshare, taking up a lot of my time. But also the hard truth is that I was getting in my own way. Two things that I see over and over again that cause budding surface designers, including myself, to stagnate and lose momentum are collections and portfolios. Specifically, the idea that they have to be absolutely perfect in every single way before you should start sharing your work or submitting your portfolio. Because I was so focused, really obsessed with the idea that my portfolio needed to look a certain way and it needed to follow every single piece of advice I'd learned to a T. I wasted a lot of time on feeling discouraged and overwhelmed, and most importantly, on not showing or submitting my work like I should have been. When I finally decided that enough was enough, and I actually started to submit my work, I landed a dream licensing deal within a year. My goal with this class is to share with you everything that I've learned over the years regarding pattern collections and surface design portfolios, through taking dozens of classes myself, and from actual practical learned experience. And trust me, I have learned a LOT. In my first-class on pattern design, I focused on the technical side of creating a repeating pattern in Adobe Illustrator. So it is a very demo heavy class, whereas this class is lecture-based and focuses on the dos, don'ts, and myths of pattern collections and portfolios. My hope for this class is that it can help you to avoid the sort of stagnation that I experienced on my own journey to becoming a surface designer. I want you to leave this class feeling motivated to share your work and to continue creating patterns. So let's get started! 2. My Timeline: Like many people can relate. I have always loved drawing and any kind of arts and crafts. Growing up. art classes where the fun classes in school for me, and that never changed all the way up through college where I majored in studio art, and beyond that to now. But it wasn't until I learned about surface design and how to make patterns that I really thought I could make a living out of illustration. I had never before felt so excited or motivated to succeed at a creative career. I had approximately a truckload of determination, [laughs] and luckily, that ultimately served me well, but I had some road bumps along the way. So I want to show you a more detailed timeline of my surface design journey. In spring of 2015, I found Skillshare and I learned how to make a repeating pattern in Adobe Illustrator. I quickly fell in love with making patterns. And then I spent about three years taking more pattern design classes, making patterns and collections here and there, learning Illustrator but not using it consistently enough to really get comfortable in it, which is why it took me three years. In 2018, I made the first collection that I felt really represented me and my style. And then I made two more. So in 2019, I spent a ton of time making a perfect portfolio and getting it printed so that I could finally start sending it out to companies. I spent a good amount of time researching companies I wanted to pitch to and started sending out both a physical printed portfolio and/or a digital portfolio via email in the summer of 2019. In October of the same year, I went to the fall Quilt Market in Houston, Texas and met with a few different fabric companies so that I could show them my portfolio. I didn't get a licensing deal there like I had dreamed I might. So I spent a good month or so feeling pretty discouraged and sorry for myself. But I eventually picked myself back up and started submitting again. Despite my butt hurt feelings [laughs], going to fall Quilt Market was a wonderful experience and all of the nos that I did receive there, and after via e-mail, we're incredibly kind and encouraging. So don't let my experience discourage you if you also want to try that. I discovered the company, Riley Blake Designs, at the trade show and I fell in love with their curation and their overall vibe pretty much immediately. And they quickly became one of my top three fabric company choices. So naturally, they were one of the first places that I submitted work to after I got home and started submitting again. A few months passed by with no response, and I assumed it was another no. C'est la V, I thought, I'm used to nos by now. I planned to resubmit to them and some other companies as soon as I had new work. Then in May of 2020, I got an email from Riley Blake's Director of Design, asking if I was still interested in signing on with them as the new fabric designer, I was like, "I am absolutely still interested. Yes, please!" I naturally was very emotional and had a happy cry about it. So in July of 2020, I signed my first licensing deal with Riley Blake designs. From day one, my goal was to get my pattern work on to quilting fabric and everything else after that feels like a bonus. I really wanted to get back into sewing, and being a fabric designer has seriously motivated me like nothing else ever could. I now consider myself a quilter, if a very inexperienced one, and it's been an absolute joy and a blast. It just goes to show that you never know when you might get a yes. The timing may not be right immediately, but it could be in a few months. So be patient and keep trying. So anyway, my first fabric collection didn't actually come out for another 15 months. It depends on the company and industry, really, but a year from when the art is accepted to when the product ships is not uncommon within the fabric industry, which means that I didn't get my first licensing royalty check until October of 2021. I didn't feel confident enough in my work to start pitching it to companies until late 2018 because I wasn't consistently making patterns and improving my skills through practice for those four years. And then it took me another six or so months to create a perfect portfolio. I use my portfolio not being completed to my high standards as an excuse to put off submitting my work for much longer than I should have. It took me five years from when I first started dreaming about this career to when I landed my first licensing deal, and over six years to when I received my first licensing royalty check. Now, I don't want you to think that I'm ashamed of my timeline. I'm not at all. I'm actually really proud of the fact that, despite it taking so long, I never fully gave up on it. I had my moments, my days, and sometimes months, of feeling discouraged and not creating artwork. But I had so much passion and perseverance that I eventually made it happen. There is zero shame in that, and if your timeline ends up looking similar to mine, or if you're already at year three or four and you feel like you haven't made much progress. That's okay. You're not a failure. I think it's good to be aware of the possibility of it taking a long time, I just don't want you to think that it HAS to take that long for you. I have so many artist friends who found success much more quickly, some even within six months, so the possibilities are endless. Your story doesn't have to take as long as mine did, but I hope you feel encouraged by it nevertheless. 3. PI: Why Design In Collections?: So why design in collections in the first place? Well, first of all, collections are the cornerstone of industries such as fabric, stationary and paper crafts, and home decor. So designing and collections opens up your work to so many opportunities that it might not have gotten otherwise. Even though not all industries necessarily require collections, art directors can easily pick and choose prints from your collection lineup. Offering your work in sets of themes gives the end-user, client, or art director a well-rounded view of who you are as an artist and also helps them to better recognize your abilities as an artist. Designing in collections helps you, the artist, to develop your skills in so many ways. Through designing collection after collection, you are essentially forced to understand color, complexity, composition, and balance, which in turn allows for a very cohesive and polished presentation. It's also just really fun and rewarding. It's so satisfying to see a beautiful set of artwork that goes so perfectly together. It gives you the unique opportunity to tell a story and infuse meaning into your work. Now that we understand the benefits of working in collections, let's talk how. 4. PI: The Dos Don'ts and Myths of Designing in Collections: There are a lot of options when it comes to creating pattern collections, and there aren't as many hard set rules as you may think. There's a lot of conflicting information out there, which honestly, in my mind, just further supports the fact that there are no hard set rules and that there are always exceptions to most, if not all, pieces of advice you may receive. Naturally, people give advice based on their own experiences and what has worked best for them, so since there are so many different experiences that people have had, it makes sense that there are some differing ideas out there about what works and what doesn't. Let this be encouraging rather than discouraging, though, because really what that means is that there are so many different ways to succeed as an artist and, specifically, as a surface designer. There isn't just one path with one set of rigid rules that you have to follow in order to get your work seen or licensed. Now, I definitely understand if this news feels somewhat frustrating or overwhelming to you, because having a set of guidelines can be so incredibly helpful, and I doubt that I would be where I am today if I hadn't followed the wisdom and guidelines set out by my mentors. It's not that there are no best practices to follow in surface design. Just that most of them are more flexible than you might assume. I'm going to go over some general guidelines for what makes a good pattern collection. And then I'm going to go over some reasons why some of these guidelines are flexible. A pattern collection typically includes 7 to 12 patterns based on a theme or story. Anything less than that is considered a mini collection. Collections usually have a name, a logo, names for each pattern, and a short story, description, or about the line. Well-balanced collections generally include 8 to 18 colors. More on that later, though. It's not mandatory, but many industries require multiple colorways. Since bolt fabric is MY main squeeze, I have always made all of my pattern collections in at least two colorways to begin with. Not only do you want to make sure that each pattern has enough contrast, but that the collection as a whole has enough contrast as well. There should be a balance of complex and simple designs. So collections should include some hero or focal point prints, some coordinates, and some blenders, and I'll talk more about those later on as well. Finally, there should be a mix of small, medium, and large scale patterns. 5. PI: Collection Size: Let's revisit collection size first. A full pattern collection typically includes 7 to 12 unique patterns. There seems to be a bit of disagreement on whether seven or eight patterns makes a full collection, but I've seen so many collections that are made up of only seven patterns, which are seemingly referred to as full collections. So in my opinion, I think seven is more accurate than eight. But your mileage may vary on that and that's okay. However, a collection of six or fewer would definitely be considered a mini collection. Something that I see a lot of people stressing over is the question of whether or not they should always create full collections. I struggled with this idea myself. I have made exactly four collections with 10 to 12 patterns each, and I do love how most of them turned out, but in my experience, it has felt consistently stressful and overwhelming to make that many patterns in a collection all at the same time. I have found that I tend to get impatient when in the middle of creating a full collection. And I often find myself itching to move on to another theme. I also found that sometimes I would rush patterns because I really wanted to reach a certain number of patterns in a collection so that I could move on to another one. So over time, I realized that it's better for me to have a strong mini collection than a large collection with some weaker, rushed patterns. So what I've done is I've transitioned to making mini collections of three to five patterns. And then because I do like to have a bunch of options for art directors to pick and choose from, I will often revisit them weeks, or even months, later and add to them. Or one time an art director I worked with liked one of my mini collections and asked me to make a couple more prints for it. So that's when I revisited that particular collection. This workflow helps me to be more prolific and feel much less overwhelm. It also allows me to have a wider variety of themes represented in my portfolio more quickly than I would have otherwise. Most importantly, though, it's easier for me to start a collection when I know I'll only be making a few patterns versus 10 to 12. And starting is always the hardest part for me. A piece of advice I like to give is to look for the things that make starting a project easier, even if just a little bit, and once you find them, hold onto those practices and incorporate them into your regular workflow. The trick is to find what workflow works best for you as an individual. I tried out making a full pattern collection in month multiple times and found that doing that all the time was too stressful for me. I feel much more settled and comfortable in how I work now. Designing in collections can also be very industry-dependent, as I touched on earlier. So for example, if your heart is set on either the fabric or scrapbooking industries, It's a good idea to design in collections, but many fabric companies are open to mini collections as well. I go more into this later, but I secured a licensing deal with a fabric company with a submission of just five patterns plus one more that they saw on my website. But that's still only six patterns. That's still a mini collection. Creating a large collection is not absolutely necessary, nor is it for everyone. It is the job of an art director to see the potential in a person's artwork, no matter how many patterns you've included in a collection. 6. PI: Is Having an Industry Focus Important?: Should you have an idea of the end product or products to guide you to make more cohesive collections? Or should you make patterns first and then decide where they fit? This is a which comes first, the chicken or the egg sort of question. In my opinion, I don't really think there's a right or wrong answer. It's hard to say because I do think studying one or two industries where you want to see your work and deciding if they warant collections or just standalone patterns and letting that be how you approach making patterns. I think that that can be really helpful. If you have your heart set on one industry in particular, then yes, you probably want to try to approach your work with that industry in mind. I'm a fabric designer, so I've learned that tossed repeats are useful for things like bolt fabric. Because sewists, and especially quilters, find it really helpful to have non-directional or multi-directional prints. So I definitely keep things like that in mind when I'm working on new collections for fabric. But I didn't really start doing that until I was more of an intermediate designer. And until I had experience as a licensed fabric designer. That's not to say that you shouldn't choose an industry and, you know, really set your heart on it from the beginning because having a dream like that can be extremely motivating. It certainly was for me. I wanted my work on bolt fabric, one, because I wanted to get back into sewing. And two, because I really loved the idea of my artwork being on something that other artists and crafters could use to express themselves creatively. I was right because seeing all the amazing projects that people make with my fabric is one of the most rewarding things about my career. But it can be so easy to overthink things, especially when you're a beginner. I think that beginners should really focus more on just making a body of work. Make standalone patterns, make collections in whatever size you feel inspired to, experiment. Spend a significant amount of time making whatever you want to make. And then that's when you can take a step back. Look at your work and your experiences in making that work. And look for what was easier for you, what worked best, what you liked and didn't like, etc. I believe having an existing body of pattern work can help you to more easily analyze where you think your work would fit and go from there. If you have a specific industry in mind, you can keep making work until you feel like it would fit well within whatever that industry, may be. I made a ton of standalone patterns, collections, and mini collections on my own journey too. Finding a style I felt really good and confident about pitching to fabric companies specifically. So like I said before, I don't really think there's a right or wrong answer. I think if focusing on an industry helps motivate you, go for it. But if it does the opposite, if it paralyzes you in any way than just focus on making artwork. And eventually you'll get to a point where you can better recognize where it may fit. 7. PI: Collection Complexity: Heroes, Coordinates, & Blenders: "Think of designing your collections as if you are styling and outfit - - everything goes together." Lilla Rogers. Typically, pattern collections should have a balance of complex and simple designs. They should include some hero or focal point prints, some coordinates, and some blenders. Hero prints are the stars of the collection. They are the main focal point. They are generally the largest in scale, the most complex and detailed and typically are what most visually showcase your style. These are the patterns that catch the viewer's attention and draw them in. They set the foundation for the rest of the prints through telling a story or showcasing a theme. And they help draw all of the prints together. Coordinate prints, support, and coordinate with the hero prints. They help reference and support the overall theme. And they are generally less detailed in composition than a hero print, but more detailed than a blender print. Coordinates usually have fewer colors than are typically included in a hero print as well. And they really round out a collection. Blender prints do just as the name suggests. They blend the entire collection together. They are typically smaller in scale, the least complex in composition, and typically only use two to three colors that are often tonal. I believe that blenders do most of the work when it comes to really bringing balance to a collection. Without blenders, a collection can come across as too busy visually. So what blenders do is they give a place for the eye to rest when you're looking at an entire collection. So polka dots, stripes, and ginghams are all really good examples of blenders. This concept of heroes coordinates and blenders can sometimes trip people up because it really depends on both your style and on how all of the patterns within a collection work with and alongside each other. So it's all relative. Prints are judged in relation to the other prints surrounding it. If you're like me and you have a detailed, complex style with many different motifs, then naturally your hero prints should be the most complex and detailed patterns within the collection. But if your style is more minimalist, then you don't necessarily need to have super complex hero prints. I've seen many beautiful, successful collections where all of the prints could be classified as coordinates and blenders if they existed in another collection. For example, Clea Broad has a gorgeous collection called Love Struck with Paintbrush Studio fabrics that I think falls into this category. The collection description reads, "We have met our match with Clea Broad's first collection, Love Struck, inspired by the magic of fire, this deceptively simple abstract collection is perfect for all of your DIY home dec or sewing projects! This mighty matchstick collection has six prints available in a warm and cool colorway that is sure to stun." This is how I categorized the prints in this collection just from looking at them. To me, the Strike print feels like the main or focal point print here. And then I also think the Hello You print is a hero as well. While the rest feel like coordinates and blenders. After reading the description, I felt pretty validated in my assumptions and I picked up on all of that from just visuals alone. This collection works because all of the beautiful patterns go together so wonderfully, but there is still some variety in complexity. So even if you have a more minimalist style, you still have hero prints in relation to the other designs. The main point I want you to take away from this is that if your style is more minimalist, embrace that quality. It's not necessary to try to force yourself to make something more complex than feels right to you, if that wouldn't be a true reflection of the kind of beauty and artwork that you want to put into the world. One last piece of advice I want to give regarding complexity is to try to go into creating a hero print with the knowledge that it can take a lot of time to create. This print is called Buzzing Meadow, and it is one of the hero prints in my Harmony collection. It is complex for sure, which made it very time-consuming to create. [laughs] I actually go over my process of creating this pattern in more detail in my first pattern class in case you're curious. But long story short, I spent a lot of time creating sections of flowers, grouping them, and testing the repeat over and over throughout the process. If you have a more detailed or maximalist style and you start to hero a repeat, knowing that it may take a long time and a lot of trial and error to get it right, for me, it feels less frustrating when it does inevitably take approximately 10 million repeat tests to get it perfect. [laughs] Your mileage may vary on that, but I like to share that advice anyway, just in case Some of you will find hero prints to be the most difficult to create. And others will actually find blender prints to be the most difficult. I used to struggle with blenders myself, because I tend to want to just add more, whether it's color or motifs or whatever. This is part of the reason why working in collections is so valuable because it really stretches you as an artist and helps you to build those skills. Now I really enjoy making blenders because it feels like a nice break from the super time-consuming hero prints that I make. 8. PI: To Repeat or Not to Repeat Motifs?: Something else that I often see designers struggle with is the question of whether or not it's okay to repeat motifs across multiple patterns within a single collection. I remember learning years ago that you should avoid doing this. And I've seen a lot of feedback in the various communities that I've been a part of over the years suggesting the same thing. But the fact is I see motifs being used across patterns in licensed collections all the time. I see it so often that I've started looking for it and noting it out of habit. So much so that I can think of quite a few collections off the top of my head where this is true. I do agree that it is generally best practice not to repeat a particularly eye-catching motif across patterns. But I think that it's more than okay to do so with less prominent motifs. And even that is not a hard set rule. It just becomes a little more tricky when the element you're repeating is a particularly eye-catching sort of hero motif, if you will. This is a fabric collection that I have licensed with Riley Blake Designs called Harmony. And this little flower motif is repeated across both a hero pattern and a coordinate. In the hero pattern, there are a ton of other floral motifs surrounding it. Whereas in the coordinate, this particular flower is the star. I also have a very simple bee design that is repeated across three separate patterns, two heroes and one blender. The bee is the star of the blender print, but not the two heroes. These two patterns are by Corinne Wells and they are a part of her beautiful collection called Rocky Mountain Wild, also with Riley Blake Designs. If I'm not mistaken, these are the exact same repeat with all of the same motifs. The difference being that the coordinate only uses two colors and is scaled down, whereas the main hero version is much more colorful and at a significantly larger scale. I think that this is a really clever usage of a beautiful repeat. And it works perfectly because these two prints still serve a very different purpose within the collection, even though they use the same motifs. It's a perfect example of what I've been talking about. Some designers might not think to try something like this because they're worried about breaking a rule. But patterns can absolutely share motifs as long as you make sure that all of them serve a different purpose within a collection. 9. PI: Color Palettes for Collections: Well balanced collections generally include 8 to 18 colors. There should be some neutrals. So think creams, topes, grays, browns, and blacks. I often find that having several shades of the same color is pretty useful. So in this collection, I have a couple of purples, quite a few pinks and greens and so on. You always want to include dark and light colors to ensure that there is plenty of contrast. Not only do you want to make sure that each pattern has enough contrast, but that the collection as a whole has enough contrast as well. Much like complexity, color is also relative, so what may be considered a dark color in one collection could be a mid-tone or light color in another. In this collection, I consider the plum purple and the hunter green to be dark colors. Then this sort of rich terracotta color is a dark in this colorway. The raspberry color is a mid-tone too dark color as well, I think. The most important thing to remember is that you want your colors to provide enough contrast. The fabric manufacturer that I work with can print 18 colors per pattern. Don't quote me on this, but that seems to be an industry standard. 18 is a fairly common number that I hear. Something that I really want to stress though, is that one of the most common mistakes that we make as new designers is using too many colors in a collection. Really challenge yourself to limit your color palette as much as possible. If you observe the color palettes of more experienced and mature surface designers, you'll find that most of them use fairly limited palettes, sometimes with only six or eight colors total. I tend to use more than that though. I use about 15 in one colorway and 21 to 22 colors overall. But that's with three colorways, so there would be fewer colors if I just had two. This pattern is called Living Wall and it's probably the most complex pattern that I have ever made. When I revisited this pattern for this class, I was actually pretty surprised to discover that it only has nine colors. It almost looks like it uses more than that, at least to me. But sure enough, these are the only colors included in this very complex large repeat. A quick way to figure this out is by selecting the rectangle that it's applied to. Going to any of the three swatches and clicking and dragging the pattern repeat onto your art board. And then with it still selected, click New Color Group. Click Okay, and it will pop them all into your swatches panel. That's just something I didn't share in my other class, and it's a nice way to figure out what colors are in a particular pattern. Something I think is helpful to be aware of is that you can include shades, tones, or tints of the same color. And you don't necessarily have to count all of them in your color palette or use all of them in the rest of the collection. What I mean by that is sometimes you have a motif that requires multiple tones of the same color. So if you're going for a watercolor or a painterly sort of look, you will often need three to five tones of the same color. This pattern here is by Bonnie Christine, who is one of my mentors and also a mentor and teacher to thousands of other people. And if you haven't checked out her classes on Skillshare, you definitely need to do that. So these flowers were created by scanning in watercolor paintings. And she used, I think, five tones of pink for the petals and four or five tones of green for the leaves. So with the background cream color and the yellow gold in the stamens, there's technically about 13 colors in this pattern alone. However, she only used maybe two of the pinks and two of the greens in the rest of this collection. So her overall color palette is still quite limited. Probably the most common feedback I've given on pattern collections is that one or more of the patterns needs more contrast. If two colors that are too similar in value are touching, they are difficult to differentiate visually. You don't want your viewer to have to squint in order to see some of the motifs. So if you're trying to stick with a certain amount of colors within an existing limited color palette, and you're worried about adding another tone or shade of one of your colors in order to fix a contrast issue, my advice is to not worry about that so much and not let it dictate that color change. I used to worry about upping the number of total colors in a palette all the time. Now that I've had some experience working with a fabric company though, I have found that it's more important to make sure that the colors have enough contrast than it is to make sure that you technically are only using a certain amount of colors in a collection. As long as there aren't more than 18 colors in one pattern, generally, the screen printing manufacturer can make it happen. Companies often make minor color changes anyway, and they have always worked with me to make sure colors are working and that there aren't too many. All of that being said, I just wanted to remind you again that limiting your main set of colors is a really good practice, with the ONE exception being different tones or shades when necessary. I hope that makes sense. I just know that it's something that I've stressed over myself. So I wanted to talk about it hopefully to alleviate some stress for others. 10. PI: Collection Colorways: Now let's talk colorways. As I mentioned before, since I have always had my heart set on becoming a fabric designer, I have always made all of my pattern collections and at least two colorways to begin with. I always try to finalize my first colorway before moving on to the second. But sometimes I get inspired by a color idea in the middle of the collection creation process. And I land on something that I end up using in a second colorway. So that's fine. But it can be really helpful to really nail down one colorway before moving on to a second. And by the way, my color palettes often go through a ton of changes throughout the collection creation process. And that is totally okay as well. Sometimes you think you have a perfect palate to begin with. And then as you build patterns, it becomes clear that you need to make some changes. The fabric company that I work with does three colorways per collection. So I had to create a third colorway for them before turning in my Illustrator files. I was really excited about getting to do that, but I also just did not really know what I was doing. So this is originally what my first fabric collection Harmony looked like. I submitted to Riley liked designs with just five of these patterns in this first colorway. Because at the time, that was what their submission guidelines asked for, just five patterns. Then they also wanted to print this beehive one that I didn't actually include in the five pattern submission. And then later on they asked me to make another blender with bees. So this is an overall look at the three colorways that I came up with for the final seven patterns that were chosen. I turn them in and told the director of design that I was 100% open to whatever color changes they wanted to make. So they got back to me with...this. So they changed this one... This one...and this one. I think because I had more blue in my original set of patterns, I had it in my head that I needed to keep that blue. I felt an attachment to it. I guess. Now it feels wild to me that I didn't even think of getting rid of it. Like, it wasn't an option for me, not because I wasn't open to changing it, but because I didn't think of it. Luckily, the creative team at Riley Blake Designs rightfully recognized that it was an extra color that didn't really need to be there anymore. So they created this gorgeous sage green version using a green that already existed in the collection and limiting the palate a bit more. I absolutely love this green version two, so I'm so glad they did that. Anyway. I think switching these two honey colors and having more of this deep yellow ocher color was a great decision as well. I believe they also changed the pink in this bee blender from a baby pink to a more peachy pink like I have over here. Once again, limiting the colors a bit more. And then with this Honeycomb print, they changed this one to the purple gray. Now with some more experience, I realized that these two versions were way too similar before, which made it so that they were serving the same purpose within the collection. So if they were in a store side-by-side, no one would need both, right? That's a good question to ask yourself when you're creating a second colorway... Do both color versions of the same print contribute something different to the collection? If a customer or shop owner was presented with both options, would they want to buy both? If they're too similar, the answer is most likely that they would only choose one. You want to make sure that every print is needed in some way. By giving this one a mid-tone background, these two prints are now automatically accomplishing a different mission within the collection. The creative team at Riley Blake Designs has helped me finalize color on both of the collections I have with them so far, which has been a really wonderful learning experience for me. Clearly. [laughs] I like to share that because I think it's comforting to know that your colors don't have to be absolutely perfect in order to get licensed. And that most, if not all, companies will work with you to finalize colorways. So now I want to take a closer look at these two colorways and talk about why they work. Remember if you're going to create more than one colorway, it's fine to just stick with two to begin with, and only create a third if a company asks you for one. I don't want you to create any extra work for yourself. In colorway one, I have two dark colors, the purple and the brown, that I've used throughout the collection whenever I need a really clear pop of contrast. I've got some mid-tone colors in the red-orange the gray, and these purples. Then quite a few lighter tints. I have four or so neutrals in the creams, blushes, and also the gray and brown. In the second colorway, I pretty much just used varying shades of the dark green for all of my darks. So in the beehive print, there are actually one or two more shades of green that I haven't pulled out in the color palette. There are fewer neutrals in this colorway, just the gray and blush and cream colors. But that's okay because they're doing the job just fine. I think there's also an off-white color that I don't have pulled out in the palette. That's in the deer's ears and the honeycomb. I don't really consider it as a part of the overall color palette because it's just there to provide contrast where I need it. But even with that color included, it's still only 16 colors in this colorway. The longer rectangles are the colors that are used in both colorways. It's a good idea to carry several of the colors from your first colorway over to your second. Because that will help the two colorways feel balanced and cohesive. Generally, you want your two-color ways to feel like they coordinate with each other well, while also being different. Think of it kind of like a healthy partnership or marriage. You go together well, but you're still two separate individuals. [laughs] My suggestion is to carry over some or all of the neutrals and also to bring some of the primary colors from the first colorway over to be secondary colors in the second colorway, then introduce some new colors altogether. So the star colors of the first colorway, or the purples and peaches. While the stars of the second colorway are clearly the greens. But the neutrals, golds, and peaches that are shared allow for both colorways to really look related. Now I want to bring up my third colorway again because the first and third colorways have, essentially, the same color palette with maybe one or two differences. And then certain colors are a bit more showcased in one than they are in the other. However, I do think that these two colorways are far more similar than is generally advised. I wanted to talk about it because I think it's important to point out when there are exceptions to the rules. You usually wouldn't want your colorways to look this similar, but sometimes it's okay to do this. And even sometimes full collections have just one big colorway. This lovely collection is called Blue Jean, and it's by Christopher Thompson. It features blue in almost every shade because that is a huge part of the theme itself. Something that I see new designers do quite often is they will use the same background color in too many prints. I remember one instance where someone had used the same background color in four patterns across two colorways. Four feels like one-to-many to me, especially in just two colorways. There is only one example of the same background color being used for three prints in this collection. And this is a collection of three colorways, so there's more room for that. But even with three colorways, I wouldn't include four prints with the same background color. Funnily enough, there are three of the same backgrounds in this collection as well, with the other background colors only claiming one or two patterns. Once again, my most commonly used background color in this collection is also purple. [laughs] I really didn't know I was this drawn to this plum purple before making this much artwork. [laughs] One final thing regarding color that I want to share is...if you are designing with a specific industry in mind, and if that industry uses screen printing, you want to make sure that all elements are motifs of the same color of one colorway correspond to the same elements of the other colorway. In screen printing, a screen is cut for each separate color. So having them correspond makes it so that the same screens can be used between colorways. So for example, the pink hearts on art board A correspond to the purple hearts of art board B and the white hearts of artboard C. You can reduce colors from one colorway to the next though., so in this first colorway, the hearts are multicolored, while in the second and third colorways the hearts are all one solid color. They wouldn't need to cut another screen for the second two colorways because they can still use the same screens that were cut for the multi-colored version. 11. PI: A Quick Note on Pantone Colors: First of all, if you don't know, Pantone is a global coloring system that was created to simplify coloring worldwide. In 1962 Pantone set the standard for color management through a standardized numbering system, which allows artists, companies, and manufacturers to much more easily communicate color to each other. There are two Pantone systems. The Graphic system was created for print and packaging, and the Fashion and Home system was created for textiles, apparel, and home goods. I see a lot of new designers worrying about if they need to purchase a Pantone color fan deck and if so, which one? They're expensive so you want to be sure you're getting the right one, right? Well, let me just tell you, you do not need to worry about this until a company asks you to convert your artwork to Pantone colors. If said company is a fabric company, then you will want to get the fashion and home system. Whereas if said company is a greeting card company, then you will want to get the graphic system. If you're still unsure, just ask politely and they will tell you which fan deck you need to order. All of that said, I have not yet been asked to provide Pantone colors by a company I'm licensing with. I ordered the Fashion and Home fan deck as soon as I signed my licensing deal with Riley Blake Designs because I wanted it for personal reasons and because it is pretty cool to be able to match the colors yourself and do some of the work for them. But they didn't ask me to do that. So please don't worry about it. If you ever end up needing it, you can simply order it then. 12. PII: Physical or Digital Portfolios: Is It Worth It To Send Both?: If you're not putting your work out there, you're not giving people the opportunity to find you and hire you. Remember how I landed a dream licensing deal within a year once I actually started submitting my work? Well, I managed to do so with just five patterns setup in an 11 by 8.5 inch PDF. No fancy frills, no cover image or table of contents, no physical printed portfolio sent. Just a polite, concise e-mail introducing myself with links to my website and Instagram and a PDF of five full pages of patterns. The director of design for Riley Blake Designs told me that her and the team really liked the mini collection I submitted, as well as some patterns from another collection I had on my website. So they definitely did take a look at my website, probably engage my overall body of work. But what I want you to take away from that is that they were enamored enough with just the five patterns that I shared with them initially to look into the rest of my work. So that's a nice segue into the first thing that I want to talk about regarding surface design portfolios. That is the question of physical or digital portfolios and whether or not it is worth it to send both. I'm somewhere in the middle on this. I don t think that there's a right or wrong answer here. When I first started pitching to companies in 2019, I sent both a digital and a physical portfolio whenever possible, unless that is accompany specified in their submission guidelines to only send a digital copy. As I mentioned it before, I spent quite a lot of time designing and putting together my surface design portfolio. I had two versions printed. The first in this larger format, so that I could create this beautiful handmade, fancy version with fabric printed from Spoonflower and my embroidered logo. And the second version in a more standard magazine format, which I ordered from Blurb books. I ordered about 25. I think they came out to about 7 or 8 dollars per book. I printed them specifically so that I could give them away to companies I was pitching to you and not feel so precious about never seeing them again. On Blurb, you can have trade books or magazines printed for about 3 to 5 dollars for, I believe, 24 pages. I think if I were to go that route again, I would make sure my portfolio only has 24 pages or whatever the max number of pages is so that they would be a little bit more affordable next time. So tip number one, if you plan to print a physical portfolio, look into the dimensions and pricing of various formats and sizes before you start to design your digital portfolio. That way, you can design it in this specific format you chose. And you won't have to reformat it in order to print it. I accidentally formatted one of mine in the wrong page size, so I wasted a lot of time reformatting it. I was already designing it in two sizes because I wanted my fancy book bound version to be in a different format from the magazine version. So I ended up having to format it at three sizes instead of just the two that I had planned for. So just be prepared with the correct format or formats when you go into creating your portfolio. Blurb Books is great by the way. I was really happy with the quality and you kinda can't beat their pricing. I've included a PDF with all of my portfolio-related recommendations that you can download under the Projects & Resources tab. If you're wondering what program you should use to build a portfolio, you can create the portfolio in Illustrator if you're not familiar with using InDesign. But I wouldn't necessarily recommend it because I built mine in Illustrator. And even using a computer with 32 gigs of RAM, my portfolio Illustrator document got super huge and started to lag and become really difficult to work with. If you do use Illustrator, I would suggest creating a few pages in separate documents, rather than having 20 to 30 art boards in one document with a bunch of patterns applied to them. That's a quick way to make an overly huge document that's hard to work with. So 1 to 3 or 4 pages per document is a lot more manageable. From there, you can export them as PDFs or jpegs and combine them into one PDF using the preview app on a Mac or by using Photoshop or Adobe Acrobat. I created my fancy portfolio to have something really beautiful to take with me to trade shows and to show to potential collaborators. I took it to fulfil market in 2019 and showed it to six or so companies, and it served me really well. I also gave away six or seven of my magazine format portfolios to the same companies and I sent the rest out to different companies and industries throughout 2019. I don't regret any of that. However, I have decided that in the future, I'm going to rely primarily on my digital portfolio. I spent quite a lot of money and time on printing and mailing my portfolios. And the only licensing deal that I was able to land in that time was done with a simple digital submission and a link to my website. I've decided that I would rather save some money and prioritize spending more time on creating than on mailing physical portfolios. In my experience, you are just as likely to gain opportunities through digital submissions as you are to gain them through sending physical portfolios. That said, I do like having a physical portfolio just for myself and also to show to people if I go to more trade shows, so in the future. I do plan to have updated portfolios printed from either a company called Artifact Uprising or Blurb Books again. But I only plan to have one really beautiful copy printed at a time that I won't be giving away. There's also the option of simply using a three-ring binder with your patterns and artwork presented cleanly and beautifully within. That's a really great option. I know has worked wonderfully for many people. Another benefit of doing that is you can easily take out old artwork and put in new artwork and/or curate your portfolio depending on who you're meeting with, so if you're meeting with a wallpaper company, for example, you can choose to only include the artwork that you think would fit well within the wallpaper industry. If you want to try printing cheaper physical copies and sending them out to companies, if you feel excited about that, then by all means go for it. I know that that has worked wonders for a lot of people, but just know that you don't have to, in order to be successful. 13. PII: What Should You Include In Your Portfolio?: I see a lot of people struggle with the question of what you should include in your pattern design portfolio. Is it okay to include standalone patterns and mini collections? Or should you wait until you have two or three full collections before you start submitting? Should you have at least a 100 patterns before you start submitting? The short answer is that it is more than okay to include mini collections are standalone patterns. If you love them, they fit with your style and you would like to see them licensed. It's as simple as that. You do not need 100 patterns. My portfolio only has about 30, and I think my website's still has less than 50. And remember, I landed a licensing deal with a mini collection of just five patterns. I think as long as you have, let's say ten to 15 solid portfolio pieces that you feel really good about. You have enough to start reaching out to companies. If you're someone who works in mini collections, this format of showcasing a hero print with one to two coordinates is a popular way to showcase art. Many artists package their surface design artwork this way to great success. It depends on the industry, of course, but many companies often only buy one or two patterns at a time anyway. Again though, if you're someone who enjoys working in full collections, then go for it! There's nothing wrong with that, of course. It's just not absolutely necessary. I want to share an extremely helpful piece of advice that I learned from Bonnie Christine. And that is to only include work that you would want to buy, or at least be tempted to buy if you saw it in a store. This goes for both collections and portfolios. "Would I buy this?" or "Do I feel great about this?" are always good questions to ask yourself. If the answer is no, then you should either scrap that pattern you feel unsure about or work to turn it into a yes. I waited to start pitching to companies until all of the patterns in my portfolio were yeses for me. So I waited until I felt confident in my pattern work, and even though it took me a long time to get there, I'm glad that I waited because it made receiving all of the inevitable rejections that I got, and which you will receive once you start putting your work. There's no way around that. It made those rejections a lot easier for me to handle. I think. I was able to recognize that it wasn't about the quality of my work. So much as it was about timing or taste or a company not looking for work in my style or any number of things that don't have anything to do with my worth and abilities as an artist and designer. If you love what you're creating, that is the most important thing. If I had rushed the process and started sending out my portfolio before, I felt really good about my work. I suspect that I would've dealt with a lot more doubt surrounding my skills as a designer. I still, of course, feel doubt and insecurity at times, as that is really only natural for us artists to feel. I still experience imposter syndrome. I still ask for feedback from my creative community and from my family and friends. I still often really need that validation from others. But even with those doubts, ultimately, I knew that my artwork was beautiful and I just needed to find the right people who would connect with it and recognize its potential. I knew that I needed to be patient and continue to persevere and eventually the timing would be right for me. And I was right! I really couldn't be happier with how things have turned out for me. I'm a fabric designer for one of my top fabric company choices, and who knows if that would have happened had I not waited? My only regret and I hesitate to even call it a regret because that feels like too strong a word. But I do believe that I could have gained more momentum a little bit more quickly had I started submitting as soon as I felt good about my work and not waited until I had a perfect pristine portfolio with all of the fancy frills that felt so important to me at the time. The director of design for Riley Blake Designs told me that they were interested in some of the prints in another collection that I had on my website, which YAY, was so exciting. I wanted to share though, because that collection went through multiple edits before it was finalized. They asked me to change the main print from this...to this. They were unsure of this hero print. So I changed it from this...to this, to turn it from a stripe to a much more dynamic pattern. And luckily, after I did that, they decided that they did indeed want to print it. They were interested in printing some of the blenders I had already made, asked me for one more. So I made this blender. My point is art directors will often work with you to finalize a collection. So if you feel intimidated by the beautiful, perfect collections that you see, just know that many of them are hugely improved upon through collaboration. And that artists often have helped. So whether you want to wait until you have three full collections or you put together a portfolio full of beautiful mini collections and standalone patterns. I think the most important factor is that you feel good about your work and you feel like it truly represents you as an artist. 14. PII: A Quick Note on Trends: I am by no means a trend expert, so I'm not going to speak on it in depth. But my feeling on trends is that I will only create to trend if it's something that I'm already interested in illustrating. I don't really concern myself too much with them to be quite honest. For example, I don't worry about designing to the Pantone color of the year unless it's a color that I'm already drawn to. So once Pantone announces the color or colors, sometimes, if it's a color that's already present in my work, I may try to feature that work a little bit more on Instagram or my website. But otherwise, I don't really worry about it too much. If there's a trend theme that really speaks to me then sure, I will design to it. But I probably would have already been designing to it at some point anyway. [laughs] If a company asked me to create something to trend or asks if I have any pre-existing work that's to trend, then of course, I will point out that work or work to create something for them if I'm inspired to. But my overall philosophy on trends is pretty relaxed. It stresses me out too much to think about them, so I would rather just protect my mental health and create what I want to create. It's really difficult to be on top of trends, too, especially when you're a beginner and you're trying to get your foot in the door, so to speak. Because it takes so long for products to both be printed and to actually get on shelves. It's hard to get your work on those shelves quickly enough unless you already have a preexisting relationship with a licensing company. And even then, it depends on the industry and how quickly the product can be printed. There are also a ton of evergreen trends. In other words, themes in motifs that will pretty much always be popular. Just off the top of my head, there's Christmas and Halloween, birthdays, cats, dogs, owls, florals, of course, succulents and cacti, gingham, plaids, polka dots, tropical, mushrooms, suns, moons, and stars, et cetera, et cetera. So these are themes that will always sell. People are never going to stop wanting florals. One tip I have is if you're ever feeling stuck, you can probably find lists of evergreen design trends online fairly easily with some googling. And then you can pick and choose from the list to help you come up with your next design theme. And it would automatically be on trend. There are many designers who feel differently about trends and who have experienced a lot of success by following them more closely. But I'm not one of them. So I really can't speak on it. If you're curious to learn more though, I encourage you to search here on Skillshare, as I'm sure there's plenty of teachers here that can offer more experienced advice on trends. 15. PII: How Do You Get Your Work Noticed?: So once you're ready to show it off, how do you get your work noticed? I'm going to read a couple of paragraphs from Lilla Rogers' is interview and issue 49 of Uppercase Magazine, in which Lilla gives her advice on how to get work in surface design. Quote, "Once you have a bunch of fabulous images, pop them up on your site, post them on Instagram and Pinterest, and begin to contact companies. You can find companies by turning over the products you already own, or by finding names of manufacturers. Visit your favorite shops and jot down names of manufacturers of products you love. Then research who to send your art to by going to their website. Some companies have submissions policies in their websites. Or by calling the company, simply say, "Hi, I'm an artist (or illustrator or designer, your choice) and I'd love to send work to the art director or whoever licenses new artwork." Here's the magic formula: Add all of these people to your mailing list. Keep making more gorgeous, inspired work, and keeps sending your work around. This is not an instant thing. It takes time and commitment. But if you really, really want it to happen and you follow the process above, you will get there. You will have a brilliant career!" end quote. I think this so wonderfully and succinctly summarizes this ongoing process. The fact is, you have to put the work in, but it doesn't have to be all at once. Remember if you feel overwhelm, break down your research into smaller, more manageable chunks. Try your best not to get bogged down in the overall picture and just take it one simple, small step at a time. It can feel scary to share your work online for a number of reasons. Maybe you're self-conscious and fearful of what an art director or even just a random stranger on the Internet may say. Maybe you fear your work being copied. These are all feelings that I think most people can relate with. And it's okay to feel them. But you don't want to let that fear rule you. If you don't share your work with the world, how will you ever get it in front of the eyes of the people who need to see it? I have friends who were contacted by dream companies through their Instagrams alone. This doesn't necessarily mean that you should prioritize social media over your artwork. I certainly don't, but I do use it and I do share my work pretty regularly. So take it from me. The risks of sharing your work is well-worth, the rewards. It takes work and time and courage, but with enough cultivated patience and perseverance, you will make it happen. 16. PII: Portfolio Presentation: So as I'm sure you've gathered by now, I believe that most rules are much more flexible than we tend to assume, and that there are many different ways to succeed as a surface designer. There is one set of guidelines that I do believe should pretty much always be followed though, and that is best practices on how to showcase patterns within a portfolio, whether that is on your website, in a digital PDF or in a printed portfolio. First, don't include a strike or a border around your pattern squares or rectangles. It can distract from the pattern or sometimes confuse viewers. Is it a part of the pattern itself or not? Presenting your patterns on a clean white background with no border, allows for them to be the stars of the page. And that's what you want. You want your patterns and the mockups you may include with your patterns applied to stand out on their own. If you're including a collection logo, make sure that the font or text of the logo is the star of the logo and that the motifs used, if any, are supporting the text and not the other way around. If you include multiple colorways of a collection within your portfolio, make sure that the scale and positioning of each pattern is consistent across the colorways. You want it to be easy for art directors to find the sister pattern in the second colorway. When it comes to showcasing your patterns on a website, you have a little bit more freedom because you're not constrained by the size and format of a digital PDF or physical portfolio. That said, all of the guidelines that I just talked about still apply. This is my portfolio page and this is how I have been displaying my surface design work since 2018, when I first created my Squarespace website. I have a rotating banner at the top. And then down here, the background is white. There's no border around any of the patterns and every duplicate pattern in another colorway is set at the same scale. I'm actually due for an update because there are some older patterns that I want to take out and some new ones that I want to put in. And then I may organize these by collection or theme. I haven't decided yet. That said though, there's nothing wrong with presenting your patterns like this, I just kind of want a change. But this style of pattern presentation is what I've used since 2018. And I've had a few art directors come to my website and choose more patterns of mine to license from this page. You are totally welcome to use this format if you like it. But if not, I suggest going to the websites of pattern designers that you admire and seeing how they display their pattern work. It can feel really overwhelming to build a portfolio website, so getting ideas from other artists is extremely helpful. I, myself, was inspired by the websites of multiple different artists that I look up to. Essentially, when it comes to portfolio presentation, oftentimes less is more. 17. PII: A Quick Note on Print on Demand (POD) Sites: Once again, I am by no means an expert on selling artwork on POD or print on demand sites. But I do have some experience and I wanted to speak on it briefly. I get monthly sales on Society6, whereas my Spoonflower and ArtsCase sales are more rare. And that is because I invest the most time in my Society6 store. That said, it still isn't very lucrative for me, especially for the amount of time I spend on uploading artwork. I don't update it regularly because I would rather prioritize creating and submitting my portfolio to companies I want to license with. Some artists do really well on POD sites, but it does take a lot of effort and time and personal marketing. Generally speaking, the buyers on POD sites are individuals. I have heard of companies and resellers finding artists on Society6 and reaching out to them via email to ask them to work with them. So POD sites aren't a bad option for getting your work seen. But keep in mind that there are thousands of artists on POD sites, so it can also be hard to stand out in the crowd. This is not meant to discourage you from implementing POD sites into your business. I don't regret the work I've put into Society6 and ArtsCase But just to inform you of the realities of doing so. Part of what's so great about licensing, even though you often have a lower royalty percentage than you have on POD sites, is that the company you are licensed with does a majority of the marketing for you to their usually much larger audience. And they are only selling the artwork of say, 40 to 100 artists, versus the thousands on, for example, Society6. 18. Some Words of Encouragement: "Make things because you want to, not because you have to." Bonnie Christine. Whether I'm talking about character design, caricature, watercolors or patterns. I like to gently remind my students and my creative acquaintances and friends to remember why you're doing this in first place. It's because we love art, right? We love making art. We love being creative. We want to improve our creative skills, not only because we want to make a living, but because creativity is rewarding in and of itself. In all honesty, I wish it didn't have to make a living. But unfortunately, we're trapped in a system that forces us to have to make money in order to take care of ourselves. But I won't go more into my feelings on that, don't worry. [laughs] The point is, I think sometimes we get so bogged down in all of the anxiety surrounding being creative. We get so distracted by the stress and the worry of if we're good enough to succeed, what even is success for us? This project isn't turning out how I see it in my head, et cetera. We get so distracted by all of these negatives that we forget the true why. Why are we here? Why are we following this path when it can feel so difficult and vulnerable sometimes, or oftentimes. Yes, the answer can also be that we want a more fulfilling career or we want to work from home. But the true heart of it, the core of why we're here is because we enjoy making art, right? And everything else stems out from that. Try not to lose sight of the fact that you enjoy being creative. It can be so challenging to stay motivated throughout a stressful or disappointing project. Sometimes when I'm in the middle of one of those projects, I will take a step back and say, "Okay, Melissa, remember that you actually like making art. [laughs] Calm down and take a deep breath." It doesn't make the anxiety or worry disappear altogether, but it does help ground me, and it reminds me that I can get through it, and that there's always a messy middle in every piece of art or projects that we make. Also, if something doesn't turn out how you want it to, it's not the end of the world. Move on to the next project and try again. Support is huge. And that's why community is so important to me. As I touched on already, I have periods of self-doubt and I struggle with impostor syndrome, and one of the things that helped me the most to work past those feelings is the love, support, feedback, and encouragement that I get from my creative community and/or my loved ones. Mostly though, I've reached a point that I believe you will all be able to reach as well, which is that, ultimately, I believe in myself and the power of self-fulfilling prophecy. If I say it's going to happen and I put in the effort and time, I'm going to make it happen. That's an attitude it's taken me years to cultivate and embrace. And sometimes it's still really hard to, but ever since I started embracing it, things have started happening for me. You'll get there as well. "Allow yourself to fail before you succeed" is my sort of career catchphrase mantra, what have you, because I think it is so important to remember that you will fail on your journey to success and that that's okay, and you're never alone in that struggle. Remember the four Ps: Practice, Persistence, Patience, and Perseverance. Allow for the ups and downs of your moods and doubts and confidence, and be kind to yourself about those natural feelings, but as long as you always keep those four Ps going, you will find success. 19. Thank You!: I know I've given you quite a lot to think about, so if you're feeling overwhelmed by all of this information. First of all, that is totally understandable. It's a lot to take in. But what I hope you can take away from these lessons is that you don't have to be a perfect professional who knows what they're doing at every turn in order to be successful. It's okay to ask questions. It's okay to ask for help. It's okay if your colors aren't absolutely perfect. You don't have to internalize and memorize all of this information. One, because you can download the PDFs I've created for this course. And two, because learning is a part of the process, even when, or especially when, you become a quote unquote professional. I have learned so much from practical experience that I was not aware of before I got my first licensing deal. The more you practice, the more work you make, the more you internalize this knowledge and really start to develop a sixth sense and intuition for all of what I've been teaching. So try to take things step-by-step. Focusing on each small step rather than on the overall picture is the number one thing that has helped me to not feel totally overwhelmed all the time. For your class project, all I'd like for you to do is to share a screenshot of your current body of work or a link to your website portfolio, Instagram, or Pinterest. I'd also like for you to share what your next step is going to be. If you don't have any work that you'd like to share yet, that's okay. Feel free to simply pop in a sentence or two about your next steps. And remember, these steps can be as simple as sending an email, researching one company, or sketching for five minutes. Focus on the smaller, easier tasks that will eventually lead to your larger goals. If you enjoyed this class, please leave me a review. And if you want to stay up-to-date with what I'm posting here, don't forget to hit the Follow button. You can also follow me @melissaleedesign on Instagram or sign up for my newsletter on my website. Thanks so much for joining me! I hope you found this class inspiring and encouraging. I wish you all the very best and I can't wait to see where your careers take you.