Pattern Design: Bring Your Artwork to Life on Products

1. Trailer: Hi. I'm Elizabeth Olwen, and I'm a circus pattern designer. In my first two Skillshare classes, I talked all about pattern designing. In this class, I'm going to talk all about how to envision that on products. I license my artwork out for all different products like bedding, rugs, stationery, fabric. One thing I've learned is that there are absolutely endless possibilities when it comes to bringing your artwork to life. So, whether you're a fine artist, an illustrator, or designer, this class is made to help you visualize your artwork, and put it out in the world in form of products. 2. Introduction: Hi. I'm Elizabeth Olwen. I'm from Toronto, and I am a surface pattern designer. Which means that I create all sorts of pretty patterns for all sorts of pretty products. In my first two sculpture classes, I talked all about pattern design, part of that equation. So, my first class is all about creating, inspiring, repeat in Illustrator. My second class is all about creating a full pattern collection as well as Spock graphics to match. In this class we are going to talk about the other side of that equation which is products, and starting to envision your artwork on all kinds of products. So, I'm thinking this class is great for fine artists, illustrators, designers. So, whether you're doing it on a professional level or you're just taking it for fun, same principles apply and I think it's like a really fun and exciting thing to see all of the artwork that you create come to life. So, a little bit of background before we dive in, I used to be a graphic designer before I became a surface pattern designer, and I always loved patterns. I've collected wall papers and fabrics for a long time, and as always really passionate about patterns. But I use them as a graphic designer in my design work, so I'd maybe integrate them into a brochure or signage and stuff like that. I loved doing that, but I didn't really see a lot of possibilities beyond that. It just never occurred to me and I didn't even understand surface pattern design as a thing. So, once I discovered that, it was like a really pivotal moment for me. I started developing patterns a lot more, developed like a huge portfolio of patterns. But still I had this like almost like a creative block I didn't understand what next, what happens next, what do I do with all these patterns. So, I was a little bit lost in terms of next steps. So, I decided to focus on self-promotion, so I started putting the patterns out into the world, and sent them out to blogs. Luckily, one of the blogs I was on an art director was looking at it, saw my work, and thought it would be great for their company. So, my first licensing agreement was with Te Neues, it's a publishing company, and they wanted to take my patterns and use them on note cards. So, this is my first licensing agreement, it was so incredibly exciting, and I hadn't necessarily pictured my artwork, I hadn't thought about it and specifically for note cards. But once I saw that someone else had a vision for that I realized that I probably have legs and it could probably go other places, so I started to think about my patterns on little girls dresses, on wallpaper, on rugs, and really started to think about the potential for where my artwork could go. So, in the meantime while I tried to secure more licensing agreements. I decided to fake it till I make it kind of thing. So, I started creating these look books where I would find photos of things that I would dream of having my products on, and I would just mock them up. So, I would love to have some bathing suits one day, so I created a bathing suit mock-up. Sort of picture it on like, outdoor furniture, on wallpaper, on bedding, on baby stuff, on wallets, on little girls clothes. This is a really, really helpful tool for me because it started to help me see my artwork come to life on all sorts of kinds of products. It's also really helpful tool because I could send it out to potential clients, and help sell them on my little dream too. So, it was really valuable exercise and I really encourage people to do this. So, fake it till you make it, all bit that. In this class I'm hoping to show you like all the potential for your artwork. So, maybe you create this artwork and you're not quite sure what to do with it either. So, we're going to talk about bridging that gap, starting to see your patterns come to life on products, and yeah, see like all the millions of possibilities there are out there for them. So, yeah without further ado let's dive into the course content. 3. Your Project: So, in this class, we are going to develop a product or a collection of products that bring your artwork to life. So, we're going to really start to go through some exercises envisioning your artwork and all sorts of different kinds of products, and ultimately work on like a product of our dreams and kind of bring it to life. I'm also going to show you how I like to "fake it till I make it" with my Photoshop mockups, and yeah, I'm just hoping at the end you've kind of bridge that gap between your two-dimensional artwork and really picturing it on something, like some kind of product of your dreams. So, let's dive in. The first unit is all about inspiration and research. 4. Inspiration: Hi and welcome back. In this unit, we're going to talk all about inspiration, and aspiration, and research. So if you've taken either my other classes, you know that I love to surround myself with beautiful things, things that inspire me and I keep lots of little things around my studio that I just think are beautiful, and I think that's really good for inspiration, but it's also really good for aspiration because I can kind of look at these things and think of my artwork in those terms and be like maybe one day I can have my artwork on a product like that and it just kind of like a kind of motivates me and also keeps things relevant in terms of what my artwork that I'm developing is for. So, I thought I do a little rundown of some of the licensed products that I have. One of my collections is called Floral Winsey, and I think it's a really good example of how your artwork can come to life on all sorts of different products. So I have licensed the same pattern out for a whole bunch of different products and it shows you the potential. So I have a license for aprons, for fabric, these little keep sake boxes, it's been on little gift bags, iPhone covers, paperweights, washy tape, this pattern has been licensed on so many different things, I really do think it shows you the potential for how far something can go on all sorts of different kinds of products. I thought also show you some of the products that I have that might have surprised me, things that I wouldn't have necessarily thought of myself if someone hadn't come to me with the idea. So did these little candles. I did a set of matches, are a bunch of sets and matches like something I'd totally wouldn't have ever thought about. I license my art for some t-shirts for a company in Switzerland. I love this little guy. This is a new product of mine and I loved that it just has this little pencil with my pattern on, that's so fun. Wouldn't necessarily thought of better but like so thrilling to see it come to life in that way. So yes, a lot of things have surprised me but just going through all of this and having a career and all this, you really start to see your artwork come to life and all these different ways and I really do look at my artwork a little bit differently like through a lens of like what products will that look good on and I think that's a really good thing started doing. I also like to have these other things around, like I was talking about things that inspire me. This is an interesting use of pattern on packaging, so maybe you want to explore that. Last year I went to London and I went to the Cap kids and store which I'll talk about in a minute and I got this umbrella which I love, went to Liberty store as well, Design pattern heaven bought this little apple pin cushion of all sorts patterns on, like who would have thought that? And I also bought this beautiful journal that I don't think I will ever use, so to keep it in my studio on a shelf that I can see it and I'm like maybe one day I can have my stuff on this. Also I have this beautiful book by Sanna Annukka, it's illustrated by Sanna Annukka, who also does a lot of work for Marimekko, and she's a such a talented illustrator and I love her work so I just keep this book on my shelf in my studio just kind of and keep me thinking like if she did this, maybe one day I could do a little book, who knows? And of course my Ehrlich Hayley plant pot, I love Ehrlich Hayley and I would love to see my stuff come to life on garden products that's nice to have that around is that kind of reminder. And this is one of my all-time favorite possessions ever, this little vintage teapot out the whole set with mugs and plates and everything and it's a beautiful thing but it also just keeps me thinking like maybe one day I can have my artwork on a tea pot or something. So it's good to have these things around, this is like a reminder of that. So the next thing we're going to talk about is the research and I really believe this is probably some of the best research homework you'll ever have to do. I think the best way to kind of get your head in this game is just to go shopping. So just go out to some shops that you love and maybe go to the mall, go to a department store, go anywhere where they sell products and just start to look at those products with fresh eyes. So I think it's really important to just go in, you're not thinking about shopping for yourself necessarily but shopping for your artwork like kind of think, look at things through the lens of your own artwork and start to picture the art work comes to life. So the Catholic instance or in London last year was like amazing for that. So I went in thinking about my own artwork and I could see her artwork come to life on so many different products that was absolutely mind-blowing and it really made me think of things that I just hadn't thought about before so you know they have like pencil cases, rulers, ceramic tins, serving ware, trays, luggage, wallets, like apparel, umbrellas, like anything you could think that store has it on a product. So I think that's a really valuable thing to go out into the world and start looking at all the different products and starting to picture your artwork on those products. And I recommend taking notes when you go or ideally if you can take pictures that stuff and kind of tracking that and kind of keeping a little catalog of images that inspire you and get you thinking in terms of products. Another thing that I like to do is if I can't go out or like I mean obviously the internet's really accessible so I do a lot of online research as well, so kind of going on websites seeing what products are out there and if I ever see anything that inspires me, I think a web loved to see my artwork on that. I just save the image and I have a folder of images on my desktop that are all about products that I love and aspire to have my own work on. So once you've kind of start to think about your artwork and all these contexts, you starting to collect your images, I think is really helpful to do a mood board and anyone who's taken either one of my classes, knows I'm a big fan of mood board, I think it's just a really good like directional thing, I like to think of it as an aspirational mood board. So I've created one for me I would love to see my artwork on garden products, so I created a mood board that has images of garden products that inspire me and keywords. Anything that's going to kind of get me thinking about my artwork in terms of gardening products and I put it on this and I'm going to use this as kind of like a directional piece to drive my project forward for this class. I'm going to supply a mood board template you can use or you can create a mood board however you like but I really do think it's like a really helpful tool to use moving forward. So once you've created your mood board, I would love to see you upload it to the project gallery and I'm excited to see all the different ideas you have for your own artwork. In the next unit we're going to talk all about the design considerations you have to keep in mind as you start developing products and envisioning your own artwork on all those different kinds of products. 5. Design Considerations: So, hopefully, at this point you're really starting to think about your artwork in terms of lots of different kinds of products. In this unit, we're going to dive into thinking about all the design considerations that go into that, whenever you really start to place your artwork on different kinds of products and all the things you need to think about. For me, a successful, like art to product relationship, that elevates the product and it adds value, so something like that or like Orla Kiely plant pot, you could go out and buy a plane one or you can go by this beautiful one, and it sells for a much higher retail price point, and so it really adds value. It also adds a lot of great style and personality to the product, and important to me, I think it's pleasurable to look at. It's just like a beautiful thing, and who wouldn't want to surround themselves by beautiful things. So, those are things that I think about whenever I'm designing products, that relationship of elevating the product. So, in terms of different kinds of products, hopefully you've got some ideas for what you want to see your artwork on, if not, I'm supplying a PDF that you can download with all sorts of different kinds of categories and products within those categories. So, it's just the starting lists to get your ideas going. This is by all means not every product that's out there, but hopefully get you started. I'm thinking about different kinds of products, and feel free to add to it. But yeah, in terms of design considerations, some of the things that I think about are; first, I think about the function of the product and the environment that it's going to be seen in. So, I really like to think about how will this product be used. How will you hold it? Is it a static thing? Is it like an iPhone cover you're going to take with you? As a wallpaper that's only going to be seen in one place? I like to think about whether it should be a focal pattern or like a background pattern. I think a good example of that is something like a bag lining. So, say you're working on designing pattern for the outside of the bag and inside of the bag. The outside one might be a lot more graphic and loud, but the inside one should really be a little bit more minimal. It's not going to steal the show. You want to be able to see what's inside your purse, if you have a chaotic pattern inside, that's maybe not the best fit. So, those are some things that I like to think about in terms of function and environment. Also if the product will be viewed from one angle all the time or if it's something that you'll move around like a rug or something like that, where you will be seen from all different sides. So, just something to think about whenever you're designing. Another thing I like to think about is scale and proportion. So, there are no hard and fast rules for scale. You can make it whatever scale fits right with you. But I would generally, if I'm ever confused about scale, I'll just pop on the Internet and see if I can get a gauge for an industry standard. So, something like a duvet cover, you can see that, generally, there are like a larger scale pattern. I think that's often because you're going to be viewing it from maybe a hallway or something you want the design to be discernible versus too small to really get an idea of what that design is. Same with a wallpaper, you notice, generally speaking, scale's a little bit larger. Something else like a quilting fabric, however, is done at a smaller scale because people are going to be cutting it up into small pieces and piecing it together, so you want to be able to get a good idea of what that pattern is in that small amount of material. Another thing I like to think about is color, and again, no real hard and fast rules for this. I would think about color in terms of things being like a long-term thing or really short term thing. So, something like a gift wrap. You're going to use it once and you probably going to discard it after, so it'll be like a good opportunity to just have a ton of fun with color. If something like a wallpaper, it's going to be on a wall. It's going to determine the palette for the room. So I would say, generally speaking, there's a little slightly more minimal palette involved there. There's also a different kind of color palette that you can use in terms of specking color, like graphic designers will be very well of the Pantone booklet, service designers are more familiar with this beautiful palette called the Pantone for fashion and home. It's got a billion colors. It's just like so many more colors in the regular Pantone books, and you can get just like this, like slightest little variation in color, and it's great. So, if you're ever like specking fabrics or any other kind of product that's not like a paper printing process, you would use this palette. Another thing I like to think about is the actual shape of the product, so is it a two-dimensional thing, or is it something that has different sides and maybe it's round. Something like this plant pot. It's a round thing, so you're going to want to think about the design in terms of there's going to be a seam somewhere maybe you want it to match up, just something to think about when you're working on that. This is another good example. So, in this product, there's lots of different sides to it, so you might have a pattern that's repeated all over. This is an all over pattern, also known as a tossed pattern, and it goes every which direction. It's ideal for something like this because if you had a one-directional print, it would go under here, over here, up this way, over, across, down again, eventually your pattern is going to be upside down in some level. So, just good to think about the shape of the product whenever you're doing your mock-ups and stuff like that. Another thing that I like to think about are embellishments or treatments, anything you can add that'll make something extra special. So, say you're talking about a pillow. Maybe instead of a printing process, maybe you could suggest the design is created in studs or maybe you want to suggest adding like applique or embroidery, anything that you kinda think about that might elevate the product, a client will really appreciate that kind of thing, thinking just off the page in terms of like a 3D thing that you're going to hold. Another thing I like to think about is demographics. So, it's important to consider this, who is going to be buying your products or who's going to be interested in your artwork on products. So, obviously, like something for a baby is going to be a lot different looking than something for like a grown man. So, thing to think about maybe it's something that's really youthful versus a more mature audience, just something to keep in mind as you go. If you get a little further down the path, you'll also want to think about manufacturing considerations. So, if you're actually working with a company and they are going to use a special printing process or something, just want to check in about that. Sometimes that will affect the designer or product. Maybe it can only be printed in two color or something like that, so it's always good to check with the manufacturer and see if there's any special things that you need to keep in mind whenever you're designing for products. So, those are some of the things that I think about whenever I'm working on designing products. In the next unit, we're going to do some exercises to get more comfortable applying those considerations to actual products. 6. Product Templates: Okay. So in this unit, we're going to kind of dive into some templates that I've created where you can start testing out your artwork and testing out the considerations we just went over. So, if you have your own artwork, I'd really recommend you bring it in and use that, I've also supplied one of my patterns that you can use for testing purposes as well. I prefer to work in Illustrator, but if you like to work in Photoshop, that totally works, use whatever software really works for you, but for the purposes of this, I'm going to dive in and kind of start using Illustrator templates. So, I've supplied a few different templates, the first one I'm going to work on is for apparel and fashion. There's also a little note here to kind of things to think about those considerations little short-form notes here for you to reference back to. So, all of these patterns currently are just filled with a polka dot pattern just as a default. So, if you want to try applying a pattern, bring your own artwork in or use my pattern which is setup as a swatch and the swatches palette, and all you want to do to kind of change the pattern is just go to your Direct Select tool here. You're just going to select the product you want to try out. So, I'm going to go up to my swatches and click on my pattern. So, if we look at this, that hoodie I think that scale is actually pretty good for a hoodie. It depends on the demographic, but if I was saying this is for like a teenage boy or something I think that would be like a really ideal hoodie. You can go a little bit more graphic like a skater style. If you want to test out different scales so you'll just drag that out of the pallets, swatches palette, re-scale it, drag it back, and test it out again. So, that would also work well for a hoodie but my personal preference I think it's good to like add some drama that's like a nice bold piece. On the other hand, we've got this little baby onesie. If we were to apply that same pattern to that, it would be way, way, way too large. That scale just doesn't work. I think it's for like baby, generally it scale down to a little to a more delicate, a little bit more kind of precious. So I would try going on a smaller scale. That works. I would actually even go smaller and something like that, and again, if you're ever confused about the stuff just like pop on the internet, see how patterns are placed in baby onesies. Are they small? Are they large? It'll help give you a gauge. I think even in terms of color palette that'll be pretty suitable for a little baby girl, but you can try changing up the colors if you want to test it out. If there's a little coordinating hat, I would say it'd probably a good idea just to make it a solid color so it's not too much of the same pattern. That's one thing you want to consider whenever you're working with patterns like go together, like different products that coordinate, is making sure there's like a nice balance in contrast within the elements. So say we're going to work on a t-shirt, I'll try applying that. That could work again for like a more youthful audience, but if you wanted to try maybe a smaller pattern, that would work really well, too, for a more mature audience. Say we're going to test out this dress, to me that's way too large, that would be a more appropriate scale or maybe that would be a more appropriate scale. Again, that's for good for women, it's got that pink color, very suitable. Then try out this little bathing suit. Again, way too large. More appropriate, that's way more appropriate right there. So, just kind of pop into these templates, bring your own artwork, test it out, and just see how things fit. So, we're going to look at this little neck tie here. Inverted U is scale like that you don't even understand what it is, that's a little too loud. I'd say even that's a little bit too big, so I'd scale that down even further. So yeah, just trust your gut on these things, what sits right. So we're going to do these little shoes here. We're going to do a pattern that's way too big. This is a little too big, still. That's a little bit more appropriate. I might even come down a little bit smaller for that. In this case, I might want to consider, is there anything special I can add? Like we're talking about embellishments or treatments so maybe for this I may add to these shoes maybe it's fun to do a little stud treatment along the borders or something. Just something, just things to consider whenever you're working on this, how to make it a little bit extra special. So yeah. That's how I would approach the apparel or fashion one. Let's dive into another one. Let's talk about decor. Okay, so we got this pattern. Let's try applying this to a duvet cover. So, I think that is a pretty appropriate scale for a duvet cover. If you go and do some research and look a duvet covers, you'll see that generally there are a little bit larger in scale. Again, I think it's so you can see it from a distance versus having to be way up close to be able to discern the pattern. So, I think that's a pretty nice scale. Say we want these things to work together as a group like the rug, duvet cover, and a rug, and curtains, you don't want them to all be the same pattern. So, for the purposes of this, I would just try, maybe just try recoloring it. Maybe you want it to match but it shouldn't be too much of the same thing. So, maybe I'll try like just a slight variation in that teal and try bringing it down a little in scale. Bring it down a little bit in scale there. Drag it back to your palettes and then test it out. That'll be an appropriate scale for a rug, you probably go larger than that. Again, just go on the Internet and gauge what you want. Say we're going to do these curtains. I'd say generally curtains are a little bit more minimal in terms of pallet and scale. They don't want to steal the show in a room. You're going to probably want something else in your room to shine a little bit more. So, I think those would be too bold and too loud. So, I might take that pattern and maybe I even just make it like a white base, that would seem appropriate to me for a living room or something like that. Try that, to make it right, maybe tone down these bold colors, and just fiddle around with the colors till you get them sitting in a good place, something like that. Let's try that. Again, I would reduce the scale for those, drag it back to your pallet and test it out. See that seems to me a lot more of an appropriate choice for some curtains. Let's test it out on a chair which would be super fun I'd love to have upholstery fabric. So that's a nice scale for that. Yeah, basically you're just going to want to test out things and see how they sit in your gut does it look right to you? Does it not look great to you? One other little thing, this lamp if you want to think about a lamp, make sure you think about the fact that it's a round thing, it's going to want to wrap around and you're going to want it to your pattern to match up at the seams. So yeah. Thinking about products in their shape. Okay. So, those are a couple of the templates that I've supplied, I've also done one for kitchen, so you can see, you can test it out some apron, some trivets, some oven mitts, tea towels and maybe some ceramics. Test that out. You can also test it out on stationary program. So, this one has like gift bags, and gift wrap, and journals, no cards, and just yeah, dive into them, test them out, and see how they fit. Try all your artwork and see what you think is a really good and appropriate match between your artwork and these particular patterns. Okay. So, now that we've reviewed, we're getting a feel for what works and what doesn't. I think now is a good time for us to start working on our own dream projects. So in the next unit I'm going to dive into creating my own. 7. Designing Your Dream: So now, hopefully, you're starting to get a feel for how pattern or artwork comes to life on different products, what sits right, what doesn't. Yeah, just really getting comfortable with it. In this unit, we're going to dive into creating the products of our dreams. So, again, in one of the last three units, we made a mood board. I have my little mood board, all the garden products, and I'm going to keep that by my side and use it as a driver for the products that I'm thinking about. I'm, also, going to bring in any kind of artwork that I want to use if I've already got artwork and I just want to test it out. You're welcome to create artwork from scratch as well for this class. But for the purposes of this, I'm going to start applying the collection I developed for my last class, the spot graphics and patterns, and then keep those by my side as well, so that I can have everything that I need to consider in front of me. Then, it's all about brainstorming and drawing. So, I want you to think really big about this, and just start drawing anything that comes to mind. Okay. So, I'm going to look at my artwork and start thinking of it in terms of these different products. I'm going to start out with maybe a garden pot. You' look at this pot and think, just what pops out at me, what seems like a good idea, what just seems like a natural transition? I like this pattern here. I think that would work really nice on a garden pot. I'm going to just start drawing all my ideas. How would this come to life? Do you want it to be a full pattern across the whole product, or you want it to be more like a spot graphic, or just a few elements from the pattern? Just start getting out all your ideas. Anything that comes to mind, draw it out. Just draw it. It doesn't have to be perfect because again, we're going to move on to the computer and use our digital artwork for this. But, yeah, just any kind of sketch that communicates the idea. So, we're just going to keep testing out, and just draw another plant pot here. What would I think would look great on that. I think maybe it'd be fun, I'm thinking of this as a little plate that goes under it. Maybe we do a full pattern on there. Maybe we have just a banner or a pattern up here. I usually just use scribbles to communicate. That would be a full-width pattern. Just keep drawing roughly, just getting as many ideas out as you possibly can. Referencing back to your artwork to see what pops out at you. Maybe you just want to do one big spot graphic. Maybe you want to take that little spot graphic we got there, and communicate that on a product. How would that look? Just testing out as many ideas as you can. This is just pure brainstorming. There are no bad ideas. Just testing it out. How would it look if we just have a full large scale pattern on that? Just keep testing everything out. Maybe you want to try a different shape of a pot, it doesn't have to necessarily be that. If there's any area to influence the shape of a pot, maybe you try something like that. Maybe you just have a little fun banner going across or something like that. Maybe it'd just be a full-width pattern going across, something like that. You want to test out all the different ones, just anything that comes to mind. I keep thinking maybe I'd like to see my artwork come together on this little thermos. You're out gardening in the yard, need a refreshing drink, how would that come to life? Maybe it'll be fun to do a big fun spot graphic treatment, not a repeat pattern necessarily, but just kind of bleeds off, and tapers. The design tapers off as it gets closer to the top, something like that. Basically, just try and get out as many ideas as you can. Maybe you want to try drawing some garden clogs. What would those look like? Maybe those would be nice as a full pattern as well. The whole idea is just get out as many ideas as you can. Okay. So I've spent a really good amount of time drawing out all of my ideas. Anything that comes to mind, I've drawn it down, written myself notes. It's just a big old brainstorm session. Just get out all of your ideas. So now, I want to review my drawings and see what's popping out. If I were to look at this one, I drew a whole bunch of plant pots, what's my favorite one, and what am I most excited about to work on? I think that this would be a really nice pot. It's got a design that tapers off going to the top. This would be a really nice one. I'm just going to make some little check marks to make notes for myself. I think those are really strong designs, maybe those I want to try creating as actual products. Here, I was experimenting with some garden art. A lot of garden art. It's old-fashioned and a bit cheesy, I think, but how could we modernize it? So, maybe you would do these dicot flowers and the center is chalkboard, and you could write the names of your herbs or something. Maybe we try doing some birdhouses, water bottle. Maybe some votives for candles for outdoor living. Maybe we would do them in metal, and we'd punch out the design. Again, I'm using my patterns as a direction. So that's one of the patterns, I would just apply it here and reference that. It'd be punched out metal. Maybe I'm going to work on some garden clubs, and watering pots, and maybe I thought it would be fun to do a little garden gnome with patterned pants or something, or little Babushka planters. That could be fun. So, I'm just going to go through everything and see what comes to mind. Just making any kind of note for myself. So, it'd be fun to do a little thermos. I think that one's really strong, so I've made a little check mark to note it to myself. Maybe a fork and trowel situation, anything that comes to mind. I started thinking of string lights in your garden, and maybe we would do little flowers around the lights or something. So, basically, any idea that comes to you, get it down, and then review everything, and see what pops out as the strongest ideas. Once you've done that, you're going to be ready to try and implement these, and bring them onto your computer. So, now that we've made a note of some of our most favorite designs that we've sketched out, it's time to move on to the computer. So, what I usually like to do, is I like to create some little templates for myself, so it's easy to fill them with pattern and test things out. I've drawn myself just in Illustrator a couple of little gardening pots here. Maybe it'll be a little bag for your gardening tools, some clogs, some gloves, whatever I want to try to test out. If I'm ever confused about a shape, sometimes I'll just use my phone. Just take a picture of my drawing and import it onto the computer to reference for shaping the artwork that I'm integrating on it, or I'll just pop on the internet and find myself a glove and trace the gloves. It takes the thinking out of it. So, I've got this little template here. It's all ready to go, so we can start testing on my artwork on these products. So, I would recommend bringing in any artwork that you want to use to test out. So, I would bring in the repeat pattern swatches that you developed, and then, I would also bring in the original artwork. So, these guys have all of the elements still maintained, so you can extract elements and create a spot graphic from those things. So, I'd bring all of that, copy it, and I would just bring it into the pasteboard of my template here. It's going to scale it down, get out of the way there. So, in referencing back to my drawings here, I'm going to pick out some of my favorite things. Maybe I want to start with some of my gardening clogs. So, I thought a full pattern would be nice for those gardening clogs. Let's try that out. Just going to select those with my direct select tool there, and I drop the pattern. That's often my pasteboard. So, let's take a look at that. That looks pretty good. I think I would actually prefer the scale to come down a little. Maybe it's a little bit bold for that. I'm going to drag it back in and retest it. I think that's a pretty appropriate pattern for it and a pattern scale. You got this gardening bag, if you want to be a super coordinated gardener, maybe you want to match your bag. So, let's do a garden bag. So, let's test out the scene pattern, and maybe it'd be fun to do these pockets in a coordinating pattern. So, I'm going to go find another pattern here, it'd be for the pockets, and you want to test out this pattern. That was my original artwork where we tested the pattern swatch. Here we go. Okay, so we got this pattern that's much too big for those pockets, so we're just going to take that, we're going to scale it down and let's test it out again. Okay, that's pretty, and maybe these little bands I created at the top, I'm going to do it in a solid contrasting fabric. So, that's nice and maybe all these elements will also be in that fabric. So, I think that looks great. I would love to have that bag, that looks great. Okay, so let's test out maybe some pattern on these gardening gloves. What do we think about that? That's way too large. Let's bring it down. That'd be really nice pattern for gardening gloves so, let's test that out. That's nice. Maybe we want to do these cuffs in a coordinating mix-and-match fabric. Very nice, again, coordinate with your lovely little clogs there. Maybe for these, a garden trowel, you might want to do- I had one drawing here where I integrated little design on the handle. So, maybe you want to test out a little spot graphic on the handle, just to make it a little bit extra special. So, try it a full pattern on that maybe. Let's do the handles in a slightly different approach. All right. Actually maybe this would be nice as a wood handle. Let's just do a solid color, it's brown, like a wood. Okay, so we've got a nice little wooden handle, and again, I think a spot graphic would be nice. I'm going to go over to my artwork here where I've preserved my art, and just going to grab that, bring it over and release the masks. I can get access to these elements and maybe I just want to copy this, and test it out on the handle. Things that'll make it extra special, really putting in the thought into the design, and a little extra miles you can go to make it just a little bit more special. Maybe that's going to be a solid color. So, something like that. Just experiment, and if you're not sure about that, I would just duplicate this and try another pattern. The whole idea is that you're playing around and experimenting, getting all your ideas out and then we're just going to create lots of variations for all the different products until we're looking at it, and we're really feeling things are working, and we've got some products we're really excited about. I'm going to try working on this thermos with a more of a spot graphic approach. I was really liking how it looked, if the designed tapered up towards the top. So, I'm going to copy that, release the mask, and start playing with it in context of this thermos. So, I'm going to place it on top like that, and I'm going to grab the shape of this thermos, and I'm just going to create a mask for the pattern, like that. Okay, so that's looking pretty good. This guy's a little bit out of place, maybe we'll delete this, and maybe I want to take these little elements and use them to taper off the design at the top. So, this whole thing is just about playing and experimenting, trying out all your ideas, as many ideas you want to try out, til things start to set right. I like these little flowers. I think those would be nice to help taper off the design. Something like this. I don't have enough red in there, maybe I want to try moving this whole thing over to get that color palette. Yes, that's working, that's looking good. Okay, so that's more of a spot graphic approach to thermos. So, I think it's nice to have a mix-and-match, a nice balance between full bleed pattern and some spot graphics to mix it up so that if you're designing a whole collection of products, they all work really nicely together. So now, I've got a ton of ideas out, I've implemented all of my favorites, I'm going to look at everything as a whole. I got a couple of gardening clogs. Do I have a favorite? Maybe I would prefer to show those ones. I've got a nice gardening bag. I've taken a couple of different approaches to showing a gardening watering can, I think that looks good. Love this little thermos, tried a few different designs, but I think the spot graphic is my favorite. Played around with those trowels and forks, did some bird houses. I'm trying to show in this idea, these are little votives, I'm trying to communicate that those would be little punched out designs. You can also just make little notes on your artwork. This would be a little punched out design, or something like that. These gardening pots, I'm going to say these guys would both be a nice choice. So, I got a great selection of products, I would be thrilled to send this out to a company to pitch it to them. Or these little garden art things here, that looks great. So, this would be perfectly acceptable to send out to a potential client. If it were me, and I was going to do that, I would like to put mi copyright information on it. Grab my logo, pop it in, just make it look a little bit more professional. So, just expand this, maybe I put some notes for them, maybe I put a nice little title on it, gardening products in a font that suits the look of your art. If you wanted, you could go through, make some notes, like this would be a little watering can, and things like that. So, go through, make all your notes, and I think that if you wanted to use this, you could send it out to a gardening company, a few different garden companies that you're interested in working with. I think it really helps communicate your ideas, and the thing is, if you were just to send this artwork out of as flat, they would've have none of these ideas. You've just created a whole program for them. I'd be really easy for them to adapt, and they can visualize it, and just taking that an extra step further, helping an art director really envision your artwork on these products. So, I hope that this exercise has really shown you all the potential. For me, I know whenever I'm working on stuff like this, it always constantly surprises me that the things that I might not have pictured If I hadn't done this exercise, I wouldn't have necessarily thought that this is a gardening program till I dove in and started trying things out. Now, I think it would be a super strong gardening program. I would be super happy to send this out, and try and get it out into the world. So, I hope that you find the same thing. I hope that you've played around, it's really expand the possibilities in your mind for where your products or your patterns and your artwork could go. For the next unit, I'm going to dive in and show you a way that you can take this and make it a little bit sexier, if you want to do more of a lifestyle, like my look book. I'm going to dive in and show you how I do my Photoshop mockups. 8. Product Mockups: So, we've created these great looking products in Illustrator and that would be totally acceptable to send out to a potential client, But I often like to take it one step further and create some Photoshop mock-ups because it really does put it in a more real context and sells the idea just a little bit more. So, yeah, I like to create. In my lookbook, I showed you a little earlier I got these photographs, I mock-up my patterns on top of them. So, I thought I show you how I like to fake it till it make it thing. So, I'm going to walk you through how I do my Photoshop mock-ups. So, if I were to take a look at the Illustrator document that I was working in, I'm going to take a look and see these clogs, I really like girl's clogs maybe I want to bring those to life in a Photoshop mock-up. So what I would do, is I would go onto a stock image website. So I really like Veer, iStock is good too and I was just like choose really inexpensive options, you can probably get away with spending like 15 bucks on an image, other people do in other ways like if you want to take your own photographs, a mock-up your patterns on top of those, that's totally fine but this is just kind the way I like to do it. So for me, I'm going to go on Veer, I'm going to look for garden clogs. Okay, and then it brings up a list of images. On Veer this little price range thing, I would pull it to the price range thereafter. For me, I'm up to $39, I don't really want to spend more than that and take a look through all of the products. I actually really like this image, it suits the look of the mock-ups that I do. I like to integrate wood and I like to be a little bit more lifestyle-based. A lot of images are also like studio shots so it's shot on white like that and that's totally cool too. But I've developed almost like a style for my mock-ups so I like to be consistent with it. So, I like this image, I'm going to go ahead and buy that image. Those little clogs are green and in the ideal world we would find white ones but sometimes it's not always possible to find the exact image that you want in the right color. So, if I wanted to show you a few other like really ideal images if you were to find them on a stock site. So, these ones I think would be really good examples. So, here's just a white box, that'll be super easy to mock-up a pattern on top of. This one is good if you can take the color out of the watering can, that will be a really nice image, that's a good image. If you want to do mock-ups in ceramic dishes, this would be a wonderful image. Maybe you want to do some stationary and take a color and a little gift box that would be a nice image as well. So those are some of my favorite ones. Those are things that I look for. In this image, I think this is a great image if you wanted to mock-up some wallpaper. But you're going to have to, I'm going to show you how I create them, this little plant might be a bit tricky. But otherwise, it would be a really lovely and attractive image to mock-ups and wallpaper onto. So, I have got my image here that I've purchased. So, now what I'm going to want to do is I want to isolate the areas that I want to apply the pattern too. So, I'm going to create a clipping path. So, for me, I used to work in advertising agencies, we had to do mock-ups like this all the time. So, I'm going to show you the technique that we use but there's probably a million different ways you can do this. Do it however you feel comfortable but again, this is the way we did it. So, I'm just going to show you what I know. So, let's zoom in on these, you're going to go over here and select this pen tool. We're just going to start clipping around the image, just basically we're just like tracing the image like this. Great thing about the pen tool is that, if you don't do it 100 percent accurate the first time, then you can go back and adjust all of the nodes and make it perfect. So yeah, you're just going to trace all the way around this little garden clog, wherever you want pattern applied to that's where you're going to trace. i'm going to finish. There you go. So, we've traced the outside of the clog, that's great. We're going to go over here, we see our little palette, we're going to want to pull up our path window here, and you can see that we've created a work path. So, you just want to double-click on that, it's almost like saying it's like a draft or something. So, if you double-click on it and you can name it whatever you want like clog outline and then it becomes more like permanence going to save that path for you. Just trust me, just do that it'll work. Then we're going to want to isolate also this black area because we don't want the pattern applied to that. So, we're going to grab him same Pen tool on the same layer here in your paths, in clog outline that you created there and we're just going to draw the inside of them. So, it'll come isolate that area as well. So, I have fully clipped out my little clogs here, if you're on your path window here and you just click option command, you can see the areas that I've traced. They're looking good and very accurate and everything like that. The thing about this image is that the clogs are green. In an ideal world, the clogs would be white because we're going to mask and multiplier artwork on top over the clog, so that green will come through. So, if you can, I really recommend just going in and eliminating some of that colour. So, with the area selected that you want to play with, you're going to go down here, this little create a fill or adjustment layer. Click on that little half circle there and go up to hue and saturation. You see they've got all these dials here, we're going to want to turn the lightness up and you can see that it's getting a little bit more white there. I'm going to take some of the saturation out and voila, we've got some white clogs that's going to be way easier to mock-up the pattern on top of, so great. Got everything clipped out, we're ready to go. So, let's test out the artwork. So, we're going to go back to our Illustrator file, I'm going to my garden clogs and I'm just going to select that element. I'm going to bring it into Photoshop and paste it as a Smart Object. Just so you can keep editing. If you wanted to place it on the clog and then you're like, "Oh, you know what, that little isn't in the right place. If you just double-click on that layer and Photoshop it'll pop you back out to Illustrator, any changes you make will then be made in Photoshop. So, it's just a handy little thing. So, I bring that in. I'd also bring the other shoe in so that whenever you scale everything it's going to be at the same size. We got that bring it to the top and rescale them to the size that's appropriate. Bring those down a little bit, as close as you can get them looking to the Illustrator document they created is great. That looks good placement looks about right on both the clogs, I am going to go back to my paths. Again, option command click on the path and it'll isolate show you that path again and we're going to go back to our layers and we're going to apply a layer masked each of these layers. Layer Mask. So, that's looking good but it does look like the artwork has just been placed on top. If you go to both of those layers and you select multiply, you can see that all the highlights and the shadows from the image below show through. So, it really does look like the artwork is applied to that product. It just makes it look a little bit more real. So, then the great thing about having this is that anytime you want to test out anything on a pair of garden clogs you've already done all the hard work, so it would be really easy for me to go back into my Illustrator file and maybe I'm like, "You know what, I'm just going to test it in Photoshop and see what this pattern looks like in Photoshop." So, I'll hide these and apply that again as a Smart Object, place it on top and go back to my paths. Select those and apply a Layer Mask and multiply it and again now you can see what it looks like with a full pattern. So yeah, it's just like this really helpful tool, now you've got this clog template. You can try it a million different designs in your clog template and use them to send out to garden companies, if that's what you're after. In terms of how I would present it, again, I do these little, I got my lookbook here with all my Photoshop mock-ups in it. Another way to do it, I did this other little lookbook here and I've got my mock-ups at the top and I got my pattern collection at the bottom. So, it's just like a really full picture at everything, all the different elements that you're offering. So yeah, I think it's really great idea to do these things against like faking it to making it and selling the dream on through. So, yeah, I hope this really has shown you how your artwork can come to life on actual real products. 9. Next Steps: Okay. So, I hope that this class has really shown you all the possibilities. There really are endless possibilities in terms of envisioning your artwork on all sorts of products. In terms of what's next, I would recommend doing something like a little lookbook like this and putting it out into the world. Whether you are going to be meeting with people in person and you want a printed copy, I just got this printed out of a little local print shop, or you can post it to the Internet and it's a great tool to send out for sharing your patterns and all your mock-ups and everything like that. If I'm approaching a new client or something, often, I will send them a few jpegs and the link to my lookbook and I think it really shows them what I do. So, that's kind of in a more professional context. If you're just kind of doing this for fun. You could send your files off to Spoonfire and get some fabric printed or there's companies that will do print on demand wallpaper and you want to maybe design your own holiday packaging or something like that. But just, yeah, there's lots of different ways to do it. You could even put your artwork on a website like Nuvango or Society6 and start selling your artwork and starting to kind of get it out into the world. I know that a lot of people are probably going to think about the more professional side of this, so I thought I kind of just do a little, give you a few tips on things that I think are really important whenever you're kind of starting out, trying to get your artwork on actual products. So, what I would recommend is really tailoring your artwork to the companies that you're sending it to. So, if you got to be cognizant of your style and making sure it's at appropriate fit for the kind of products you're pitching. So, if you're really into kind of Gothic kind of looking art, maybe like a spa products would be the best fit. Think about what would be the most appropriate thing and send it out. These are really busy people you're going to be sending it out to just be cognizant of their time and pitch things that could really come to life really nicely. So, I would go for my garden products, I'm going to research different companies that produce garden products. Then, I'm going to go try and find the name of an art buyer or an art director, LinkedIn is a really good resource for that, or just popping on the internet. Just go to the website of the company that you want to work with. Some of them actually have a place where you can submit artwork. So, those are different things that I would do. I would also be prepared to be really persistent. The thing is, again, busy people you're submitting your artwork to and you might send it out to them, may love it, but they just don't have an opportunity for you right now, so keep sending it. If it's a good dream of yours, just keep after it, be persistent, submit like crazy to as many companies as you can that seemed like a good fit for your work and just keep trying to put it out there. I think, it's also really important to really hone in on your personal style and you really get that down. So I think, one of the best things is if you can put your artwork out into the world and somebody can look at it and say, "Oh, I know where that came from. I know who the artist is." And if you do that, you're in a really good place. So, those are some tips if you're kind of thinking about taking things to the next level. So, whether you're doing this for fun or professionally, I hope this class has really opened up all the possibilities and I can't wait to see everything that you've envisioned for your own artwork in the project gallery. So, here's to faking it till you make it and I hope that you have much success getting your artwork out into the world. 10. 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