Surface Pattern Design: Key Principles for Making Outstanding Patterns

1. Welcome: [MUSIC] When I started my pattern design journey, I often wondered what exactly makes a good pattern design. I would look at beautiful patterns made by artists I admire, trying to figure out their secret recipe. I wanted to know how they achieved that almost effortless harmony that I was drawn to, and then I would create my own patterns, observed a final repeat, and I could see that something wasn't quite right. But what? What went wrong? How can I fix it and improve my work? Hi, my name is Nina and I'm also known as Di Ujdi. I'm an illustrator and pattern designer based in Belgrade, Serbia. In this class, I'll share with you my recipe for creating outstanding pattern designs. To put it simply, this class is a full circle journey that will take you from better understanding your work and improving it, to creating your pattern design and finally getting it ready for clients. In first part of the class, I gathered all my experience as a pattern designer into a set of key principles that will guide you through your design process and help you better understand your work and improve it. I organize these principles into three main chapters. We'll cover what makes a cohesive pattern, what makes a good repeat, and what makes a professional pattern design. In the second part of the class, you'll put all this into practice and create a pattern design that you'll proudly place in your portfolio and license to clients. I'll show you two ways of doing that. One is using only Procreate, and the second one using Procreate and Photoshop. Not only that, but once you finish your pattern design, I'll show you how to showcase it to potential clients, and what kind of file you'll be sending after you sign the licensing agreement. I would recommend this class for intermediate or intermediate beginner levels. It is important that you have at least some experience in making patterns so that you can now take all that to the next level. Very glad you're here, so let's get started. 2. Class Guide: [MUSIC] I made this class to be your go-to resource for creating outstanding patterns. Here is a preview of what you'll learn and also guide on how to watch this class depending on what design programs you're using. I also created a PDF class guide that you can download from the project and resources section. The first part of the class is where you'll learn about key principles for making great pattern designs. These are Lessons 4, 5, and 6 where we'll cover what makes a cohesive pattern, what makes a good repeat, and what makes a professional pattern design. These are not rules that are set in stone, but rather foundations that will guide your design process. By being aware of them, you'll have a guideline on how to observe your work critically and understand how to improve it. Besides just talking about it, I'll provide many different examples that will help you visually see the difference. The second part is where you'll put this new knowledge into practice. The way you're going to watch this part depends on the program you're using. I wanted to be as inclusive as I can because I know a lot of you only use Procreate and some of you use Photoshop or combine Procreate and Photoshop. If you're only using Procreate to make your pattern designs, you'll watch lessons 7-10. If you want to learn how to combine Procreate and Photoshop, you'll watch lessons 7-9 and then 11-13. This gets us to the final third part, which includes lessons 14 and 15, where we'll talk about the next steps. You've just finished your beautiful pattern design and now what? I'm going to show you how I prepare my pattern designs so that I can showcase them to clients. We'll also talk about what file you'll send to clients after you sign a licensing contract. 3. Project: [MUSIC] Your project is to create a pattern design following the key principles you'll learn throughout this class. My recommendation is to start with a pattern design that has a variety of motifs so that you can practice various valuable design fundamentals we'll talk about. It doesn't have to be too complex. Just start with something you're comfortable with, and then make gradual progress. Once you're done and ready to share your artwork, go to the project and resources section of the class and click on "Create Project" button. Share with us how your final pattern looks in a repeat and how you prepare the promotion-ready designed that you'll be sending to clients. I'd also love to hear about your process and what you learned as well as if there was something you struggled with in the past and now we're able to improve. Last but not least, if you're not quite happy with your final pattern and there are some areas you're not sure how to improve, I'm here for you, just point them out in the project comments, and I'll give you my best advice on how to work on them further. As I always say, the best way to learn is to do it, and the best thing about Skillshare is that you're not doing it alone, so let's start. I cannot wait to see what you'll create. 4. What Makes a Cohesive Pattern?: So what makes a cohesive pattern design? In this lesson, I'll cover some of the most important principles that will help you create beautiful and balanced prints that look unified. These are scale of elements, harmony of elements, element arrangement, color arrangement, color balance, and consistent style. Remember, these are only principles, fundamentals. But you as an artist are the one that creates your own internal roles depending on your preferences, style, or type of design you're working on. I like to think that a pattern design is a natural ecosystem. Take as an example a simple apple tree. When you look at an apple tree in early Autumn, you won't see gigantic apples next to small, undeveloped apples. You'll see a variety of different sizes but in a determined natural scale. When you start making elements for your pattern design, try to think about many ecosystem you're creating. Each type of flower, leaf or branch will exist on a determined scale and only on that scale they'll have a variety of different sizes. Once you've established that, the key thing is to keep it consistent while arranging these elements in a pattern repeat. If you find yourself in a situation where there is not enough space and you get a tendency to scale some elements down drastically in order to squeeze them in. Instead of doing that, go a few steps backward and rework the whole pattern composition. This one goes hand-in-hand with the scale of elements but now you're looking at how old these different elements are going to behave next to each other. When you place them together, will they compliment each other or overpower one another? It's like creating a flower bouquet. You might pick big flowers as the main focal point, support them with leaves, and add delicate branches with small webs of flowers as details. The best way to approach this is to sketch the elements together and get the feel of the composition. Sometimes what can break the harmony is the size of elements. For example, the main flowers are too small and the leaves are too big or vice versa. So play around and see what kind of elements create balance and harmony when placed together. Let's talk about element arrangement. Here you can ask yourself, what kind of element arrangement you want to achieve? Is it minimal, moderate, or clustered? But no matter what you decide to go with, observe how you arrange the elements in the first pattern sketch and follow that decision. I suggest to constantly check the overall arrangement as your work and ask yourself how much breathable space you need to leave in-between the elements. What often goes wrong and it happens to me as well is that you start in one way but as you progress and keep adding elements and arranging them, you lose that initial field and you start clustering or scattering them which ends up in imbalanced element organization. The best thing to do is to stop focusing on one part of the pattern and remind yourself to zoom out from time to time and look at the bigger picture. Also when you're testing out the pattern repeat squint your eyes and observe the overall pattern. In this way you will slightly blur everything and you'll be able to easily spot any element arrangement floss. Just as with element arrangement, color arrangement is something that can make your pattern look balanced or imbalanced. Our goal is to arrange different colors evenly throughout the pattern so that when you look at it from a distance it has a beautiful color flow and there are no color clusters that stand out and look like an error. What helps me is first of all, limiting my color palette. A minimal palette made out of 4-5 colors and a maximal palette of eight to nine colors. Besides that, I also like to determine how I'll spread the colors. In case of a complex floral pattern, I'll use three colors for big flowers and bugs. I'll keep the leaves in one color in order to keep that part simple and solid when compared with colorful and playful flowers. I'll use one more color for details and it will nicely shine throughout the pattern. Now, you might have nicely arranged colors but still the overall repeat doesn't look cohesive. One of the problems could be the color imbalance. When I'm working with color palettes, I mostly trust my visual experience to see what works and what doesn't. I just play around until the colors I picked feel-good. With that being said, color palettes are pretty subjective until they're not. When it comes to color balance, watch out for color contrast and color saturation. In the example of these three flower colors, one of them is not working. In comparison with these two, the purple color is too vibrant and creates too much contrast and when the pattern repeats it becomes the most prominent element. If I lower the saturation for that color, all the flowers will look cohesive. It doesn't have to be bland, it just needs to work together. For some other parts, contrast is what you actually need, like in the case of these leaves. This pale yellow is very similar to the background color and therefore it gives no definition to the leaves and on the other hand it cannot support the colors I've picked for the flowers. If we want to make it look more dynamic and interesting we can pick some other color and add more contrast until we find a good color balance. Style is something that belongs to you. The way you're expressing yourself visually, the way you're experimenting and trying different things or techniques. You might use lots of details, shading, line work, and textures, or you'd like to keep it minimal. What's important at this step is that you determine where and how you're using these stylistic expressions and that you stay consistent with that decision throughout the whole pattern design. Once again, your goal is visual unity. For example, you could determine that flowers will be flat and leaves will have some texture and you'll apply that to each mini floral composition you're creating. What could go wrong and break that unity is that you give different stylistic attributes to the same group of elements or you add too many details to particular elements that are not supposed to be in focus. If you're struggling with consistent style just know that this is something that naturally comes with practice. Just be determined and intentional with your approach and you will achieve it. 5. What Makes a Good Repeat?: [MUSIC] Let's talk about what makes a good pattern repeat. If you think about it, the biggest excitement and magic of designing a pattern is when you see it repeating endlessly. It's as if that little square you've been working on for quite some time, got a new life and it can now multiply as much as it wants. To make a good repeat means to visually hide the repeat and turn it into an effortless flow of elements. Here are the key principles we'll talk about in this lesson. Cohesive pattern design, correct repeat method, element alteration, variation of direction, and curves and angles. This includes all the key principles I've talked about in the previous lesson where I covered what makes a cohesive pattern design. As we approach our new pattern design, we should see it as a world of its own and in that world, as artists, we're the ones who create rules of how our design elements look, how they co-exist and how they interact with each other. Each deviation from the harmony of this system we've created will result in something that looks like it doesn't belong there. Once we repeat a pattern swatch that is not cohesive, the repeat will multiply the error and the viewer, instead of gliding through beautiful flow of elements, will keep focusing on the parts that are not fitting well together. This one is pretty simple, but it also depends on the type of design you're making and also how you're arranging the elements in the pattern swatch. There are two main pattern repeat methods, a full drop and a half drop repeat. My rule of thumb is if you have lots of different elements and you're able to make the variation in the arrangement inside the pattern swatch, you can go with a full drop method. Sometimes you'll be working with simple designs that don't have many elements and the arrangement is not complex or for example those elements are bold and eye-catching. In that case, I'd go for half-drop because it can introduce that variation you're lacking and therefore trick the viewer. To put it simply, choose a pattern repeat method that will hide the repeat the best. Whenever I'm creating patterns, whether they're simple or complex, I always tend to introduce element alteration. Even if I'm using 10 similar flowers, I will actually draw each flower individually and even if they look similar, they're not the same. It's a very subtle technique that will achieve great results in the final pattern repeat. One way designers try to achieve that in a more time efficient manner is to draw three elements, for example, copy paste them and make a variety by flipping and rotating them. It can work to an extent, but it can also fail. If you ask me spending time to do this manually and starting your pattern with lots of different elements will make a huge difference later. You can see this in an example of my complex floral pattern, where none of the elements are a copy paste or in this rather simple geometric pattern where each star is slightly different, which adds some interest. In this part, I want to talk to you about the variation of direction. As I mentioned before, a good repeat has an effortless flow. Think about what your eyes are doing when you see a lovely pattern repeat, your eyes are never fixed at one point, it almost feels like a gentle water current is taking them from one part of the print to another and so on. Your goal as a pattern designer is to provide that experience to the viewer. One way to do that is to arrange your pattern elements, especially the ones that are elongated like branches, flower stems, or leaves, in a way that they point in different directions. You can think of them as navigation arrows that will help the viewer glide across your pattern without noticing repeats. This principle is quite similar to the previous one, to create a natural flow besides just pointing the elements in different directions. We also want to curve them and place them at an angle. I like to avoid creating very straight elongated elements or placing them at a straight angle. Because even if you have just one element like that positioned on a straight horizontal line, for example, when you repeat the pattern, you will see that it creates a very prominent visual stripe that brakes the flow of the overall repeat. Now the viewer, instead of gliding across the elements, is instantly drawn to it. But if I change it, curve it a bit and position it at an angle, the pattern once again, has a beautiful flow. To wrap it all up, making a good repeat means using these key principles to achieve a visual flow that will trick the viewer and shift its attention from noticing the obvious to seeing everything as an endless unity. 6. What Makes a Professional Pattern?: Now imagine this, your entire pattern design is a house. The key principles we talked about in the previous lessons will make that house look beautiful and worthy of admiration. But what lies beneath is a professional pattern file, which is a strong, solid base of a house and also how straight. If you want to have a good, long-lasting house, one cannot coexist without the other. In that way, you can renovate the house many times without building it from scratch and it can have many new owners that will know how to work on it further, the bottom line is, investing the time to work on a professional file will help you out in the long run when it comes to making changes to the design, licensing it, and working with clients. In this lesson, we'll talk about these key principles, size and resolution, editable pattern file, and neat layer organization. When it comes to vector programs and files, it's simple because you don't have to worry about size and resolution. Vectors are mathematical calculation and they retain the quality of your art no matter how much you scale them up or down. But when it comes to the rest of programs like Procreate or Photoshop, size and resolution matter a lot. The rule of thumb is to play it safe and think in advance, which means always working in a bigger size that you might need. Even if you're just making illustrations or making pattern elements, you always start bigger because you can later scale it down without losing the quality. I mostly work in 18 by 18 inches or 24 by 24 inches artboards with a resolution of 300 DPI but for smaller size repeats, I sometimes my goal would 12 by 12 inches. Now, you might be asking, what happens if you worked on a smaller art board, but now you need to scale it up. Well, it happened to me and it's not all lost. Just think about it. You spend the majority of your time setting up a pattern repeat, sketching, creating the elements, and arranging them to fit perfectly. Once you have all that already done, you can simply redraw the pattern on a bigger Canvas if necessary. Before we move on, let me just quickly address one ever-present misconception that you can only license vector patterns. I've heard this so many times and it creates a lot of confusion for new pattern designers. The truth is, there are many, many clients in this whole world, and most of them accept both raster files as well as vector files. The only thing you should worry about is choosing a program that works best for you and your style. To have an editable pattern file means to work in layers, you should keep everything separated, at least by color or position. The biggest mistake you can make is to have a file where different colors, textures, or elements are merged and flattened together. Even though working in layers and separating everything might take some time and it could be boring it is something that makes your work professional and sustainable. Creating an editable file means planning for possible changes, whether you're the one making them or there is something that a client requires. These could be color changes, tweaks in the arrangement of elements, removing or adding textures, and so on. This is all possible when you have everything separated into layers. For example, sometimes a client will take the file and will do test prints on fabric or paper. Since the colors on your screen are not calibrated to that particular printer, they might need to change and adjust them until it all looks good on the printed products. Last but not least, let's talk about a neat layer organization. If you're a messy person like me, this might give you headaches at first, but it's an important part of the work as well because when you send that final file to the client, it needs to be presentable. Before I double-check my file and how all the layers are organized, I think about a person working in the design department of the company I'm collaborating with. Well, since that person will open my file and probably work on it further, I want to make sure that it's easy for them to understand what I did and if you've collaborated on design projects before with someone else, you probably know how fun it is to open a massive file that you spend hours decoding. The bottom line is, organize your layers. You don't have to do it while working on the design if it distracts you from the creative process, you can do it once you finish. Neat layer organization includes naming the groups and layers, deleting unnecessary hidden layers, and even putting the additional info in the layer name. All in all, each design file will have a different structure and logic. The best rule you can follow when organizing your file is to ask yourself, what can I do to make this file clear and understandable for another person who will open it and see it for the first time? We've covered the key pattern design principle in these three lessons. We talked about what makes a cohesive pattern, what makes it good repeat, and what makes a professional pattern? If you haven't made notes in the class guide PDF, you'll find everything we talked about made into a brief reminder list. Now, before we move on to the second part of the class where we'll create a pattern design I want to suggest a great practice that you can do. Use a list, use your notes, use everything you learned, and imagine yourself as an objective art critic. Take some of your previous pattern designs you're proud of and by following these key principles, try to pinpoint what's great about them so that you can intentionally do it again. Also, take the ones you're not that proud of and try to pinpoint your weak spots to determine the areas you need to work on and improve. With that fresh insight, you'll be ready to start a new pattern design and elevate your work. 7. Pattern in Procreate: [MUSIC] Now is the time to put into practice all the key principles we've talked about in the previous lessons. As I mentioned in the class guide lesson, the way you're going to watch this part depends on the program you're using. If you're only using procreate to make your pattern designs, you will watch Lesson 7 to 10. If you want to learn how to combine Procreate and Photoshop, you'll watch Lesson 7 to 9 and then 11 to 13. Before we start drawing, I want to address a few important things related to Procreate and Photoshop. My current go-to method when making professional patterns is combining Procreate and Photoshop. But before I used only Procreate to design many patterns which I also licensed. If you're only working in Procreate right now and don't have access to Photoshop whether it's because the subscription is something you cannot afford at the moment or you don't have a computer that can handle large Photoshop files, just know that it is possible to make professional files in Procreate, but you do need to be aware of the problems you might encounter and learn how to resolve them. The first one one is a limited number of layers. If I'm using Procreate for pattern design, I will now use an 18 by 8 inch Canvas in 300 DPI, which will have only 14 available layers. Since my style is rather simple and in a limited color palette, that's possible for me. But if you start with 12 by 12 inches in 300 DPI with 36 layers, that is also okay. The second problem is the significant loss of quality when rotating elements. If you are making patterns by duplicating elements and then rotating them and moving them around, when you zoom in, you'll see that each step like that will significantly lower the quality of your elements. To avoid this, you can always start with a sketch or a test pattern where you can duplicate, rotate, and fiddle around with elements as much as you want. Then once you have that sketch base, you can start working on the final pattern design without moving things around a lot. The third problem is that everything you place on the Canvas edge in Procreate gets cut-off, which is something that takes away from the pattern file editability. In case you need to rearrange the elements on the border, you won't be able to simply move them around. But again, it's not all lost, you just need to spend more time on it, go few steps back and redraw those elements again. 8. P - Full Drop Custom Actions: [MUSIC] Before I start working on my pattern design in Procreate, I want to show you how to create full drop custom actions that will make the process of arranging the pattern swatch a lot easier, faster, and more precise. By the way, in my previous class, Half Drop Patterns in Procreate: Complex Elements and Custom Actions, I showed you how to make custom actions for a half drop repeat. Check that out if you're interested in that method as well. I will open a new canvas in 18 by 18 inches and 300 DPI. If you need more layers, you can also go with 12 by 12 inches and 300 DPI. I'll turn on the drawing guide. Go to edit and set the grid size to max. Once I've done that, I'll drop color in one layer, select it, and then snapping, I'll make sure that snapping and magnetics are on. I'll grab this color block and drag it down until it's placed in the middle horizontal line. These yellow guidelines that appear indicate that I've placed it correctly and I can now deselect it. I'll open a new layer and drop some other color. I'll select this color block and position it in the upper half of the square. Just as before, I'll make sure it snaps in place and deselect it. I can group these two layers that will later become horizontal custom actions. Then I can duplicate that group and rotate it by 90 degrees. Layers in this group will become vertical custom actions. I'll turn one group off for now and open the other one. I'll select the first layer and tap on it to access this pop-up menu where I'll tap "Select." In the lower menu, I can now tap the "Heart" icon for Save & Load, and tap the "Plus" icon to add my first selection, which I'll use as a custom action later. I'll deselect it by pressing the "S" icon on the top and do the same thing for the next horizontal rectangle. Tap on the layer, select, Save & Load, and add the second selection. Once I've done that, I can delete this group and turn on the vertical group. I will simply repeat the same process for the two vertical rectangles. Once I'm done, I can delete this group as well. Now, when I go to the selection menu, Save & Load, you can see that I have saved four different custom actions. These actions will only belong to this particular canvas. That's why I like to use it as a starting base for the patterns I'm making in the same canvas size. I'll rename it and preserve it as it is. Then just duplicate it whenever I'm starting a new design project. Let me quickly show you how these custom actions work. I'll make a very simple dotted pattern. I'll fill the canvas without crossing the edges. Once I'm done, I'll create a color layer, then I'll place underneath the artwork. It will serve both as a color background, but most importantly, it will serve as a placeholder for custom actions. Without it, the custom actions will not work correctly so don't forget about it. I'll now group these two layers and select the group. I'll press the "Selection" icon, go to Save & Load and tap on "Selection 1." Now I can tap the "Arrow" icon for transform, and flip the selection vertically. To deselect it, I'll tap the arrow again. Let's do the same thing for the other one. Group is already selected. I'll tap "Selection", "Save & Load", "Selection 2", transform and flip it vertically. Now I have this empty space in the middle of the canvas that I will fill in. Once I've done that, I can use the two other custom actions. I'll select the group again, tap the "Selection" icon, "Save & Load", "Selection 3", transform and flip it horizontally. I will do the same thing for the other one. All that is left to do is to fill this empty space in the middle and my simple pattern swatch is done. Let's test it out. I'll duplicate the group and flatten it. Now I can duplicate that image three times because I need four images in total. I will select each layer and scale it down into a quarter. I'll make sure they all snap in place correctly and the pattern repeat will appear. At this point, I like to check to see if the repeat has any errors. This will indicate whether custom actions were made correctly. It looks pretty good. We're now all set and ready for the next lesson, where I'll start making a sketch for my pattern design. 9. P - Pattern Sketch: Now is the time to start working on a pattern sketch. The pattern I'll be making is a complex floral pattern that has a lot of different motives that are forming mini floral compositions. You can see now how the final design will look. This is a little glimpse into the future provided to you by filming and editing. But at this point in time, I'm pretty much facing a blank canvas, but I do have a solid idea of what I want to achieve and I'll do it by following all the key principles we've talked about in the first part of the class. Right away, a little note, I know a lot of pattern designers like to illustrate the pattern elements and then use them as a collage that they will move around to arrange the pattern swatch. When it comes to these types of complex floral patterns, I personally like to hand draw the whole pattern swatch manually because in my experience, that method works best as it allows me to create diversity and a very natural connection between the elements. I'll start by duplicating the custom actions canvas and renaming it. As a reminder, this is an 18 by 18-inch canvas in 300 DPI. I'd like to begin by positioning the most prominent elements first. In this case, the big flowers. Creating this as a base helps me a lot with the overall element arrangement and composition. Then I'll start introducing the secondary elements, leaves, and branches. I'll assess the overall composition and tweak it as I go. At this point, I'm thinking about various things at once. I'm thinking about the scale of elements and how they fit with one another. Everything needs to look balanced and have a cohesive flow. I'm making sure that branches and leaves are curved and pointing in different directions. I'm also looking to create diversity by placing different elements next to each other. Even though I've made so many patterns before, this first step always feels new and challenging. You have the knowledge and ideas of what you want to achieve. But once you start drawing, it all becomes an interesting game. It feels like creating and solving a puzzle at the same time. With experience, you only become more aware of the obstacles you need to solve and a bit faster to find solutions on how to solve them. For me, the sketch phase is the most important part of making pattern design, and it naturally takes most of my time. It consists of a lot of rethinking, erasing, redrawing, scaling up or down, moving the elements, and so on. That's why I keep my sketch rough and unrefined. I know I'll make many changes as I go until I achieve the desired result. Since this rough sketch feels less precious in comparison with final illustrations, I don't mind deleting parts of it and changing them entirely if needed. Once the whole canvas is almost filled without crossing the edges, I'll focus my attention on the overall composition to make sure the space in-between the elements is uniformly spread out and that everything has a nice and cohesive flow. I'm pretty happy with this initial sketch, and now I can use the custom actions to flip the canvas and make space for new elements. I'll open a new layer and drop the color. As I mentioned before, this color layer is a placeholder for custom actions and they won't work correctly without it. I'm placing it at the bottom and I can create a group. The group is selected and I can use the first custom action, Selection, Save & Load, Selection 1, and flip it vertically. I will do the same for the other one. Save & Load, Selection 2, and flip it vertically. I can now go back to my sketch layer and continue drawing. As the patterns slowly progresses and you add more elements to it, the whole process might become a bit constraining. It may feel like you have less space and less freedom to work out a nice composition. It's good to remind yourself that you're not actually constrained to the small empty space because you can always erase or rearrange the other existing elements until it all fits nicely. Once I fill that part, I'll use custom actions again. I'll select the group, Save & Load, Selection 3, and I'll flip it horizontally. I'll do the same thing for the Selection 4. I'll fill the central part with another floral composition. I think it will fit nicely with the rest. I will redraw the elements around them to achieve a continuous flow. As you can see now, I'm left with some empty space in the upper and bottom parts. Because of that, I'll use custom actions once more. This time I'll use Selection 1 and 2 and flip them vertically. The pattern sketch is almost finished. I just need to fill this small gap in the center. Once I'm done, it's time to see how everything looks in a repeat. It's the ultimate test and we'll show any errors. Just like I did with the pattern test in the previous lesson, I'll duplicate a group, flatten it, duplicate the image so there are four in total. Then select each one and scale it down into a quarter while making sure it snaps perfectly in place. Now that you can see the sketch in repeat, take the time to observe everything as a whole. Is the overall composition good? Is there something that doesn't feel right? Squint your eyes and observe. Try to see if something is grabbing your attention and taking you away from a nice unified flow of the repeat. When I spot the error, I open a new layer, pick a distinctive color and circle it. I want to change it. This is a pretty obvious error in just one spot and it will be easy to find it when I go back to the main pattern sketch. But if I had many different errors in different parts, it wouldn't be that easy to keep track of them, so this is what I would do in that case. Once I circle the error, at least in one quarter, not in all four like I did in this example, I'd first merge these four pattern images and group them with the layer on top where I made my purple marks. Once the group is selected, I can tap Transform and press one corner to change the size. My goal is to get a pattern repeat test with error marks to the original swatch size. Since we scaled down to test the repeat will scale up to get it back to how it was. I'll double the size instead of 5,400, I'll add 10,800. Now, when I turn off the pattern repeat image that we used for the test and turn on the main patterns sketch group I've been working on, you'll see that a purple mark is clearly showing the part I need to change. As I mentioned, if you have a lot of different errors, this technique will come in handy. I will now erase it and rework that part of the pattern until it all fits correctly. I'll just make another test just as we did before. I'm quite happy with this one. It feels a lot better. Now I have a really good and solid base and I can start creating the final pattern. I've said it before, and I will say it again. Stay in this sketch phase as long as you need, it's your safe zone and nothing is precious. Go back and forth, erase and delete and make as many changes as you need until it all works out. By the way, if you're using only Procreate for this pattern design, in the next lesson, we'll start working on the final pattern. If you're combining Procreate and Photoshop, it can jump to Lesson 11 to continue. 10. P - Final Pattern in Procreate: [MUSIC] In this lesson, we're going to create the final pattern swatch. The sketch base is set, and I can now start illustrating. To keep this file professional and editable, I'm illustrating in layers. Each color is in a separate layer. Layers are arranged by the position of elements. Having a solid sketch base as a starting point makes everything a lot easier. In the sketch phase, I solved many created obstacles and created a framework that I can now take to the next level. Most importantly, I'm not getting overwhelmed with everything at once. I can now refine it further and focus on illustration details. Flowers will have a subtle weekly outline, and leaves and branches defined shapes. I'm also focusing on color palette and color arrangement. I want to create something soft and subtle, but still colorful and playful. I'm using three different but similar pastel colors for all the flowers. I want them to be visually unified. I'm also thinking ahead about how to scatter them out evenly to get a balanced color composition. Perfectly, the main flower will never be next to another in the same color in order to avoid color clusters. I'm keeping the leaves and branches in one green color that has a nice contrast with flowers and provides a good base, but doesn't overpower them. Even though the leaves and branches are in one color, they're not at all floss or boring. What makes them interesting are these beautiful shapes and curved lines arranged, so they point in different directions. In a repeat, their provided good flow and movement while still holding everything together in a balance. On top of these colors, I'll introduce yellow details that are spread all over the pattern. I'll fill the center of the flowers with it, use it for buds of my smaller branches and also fill some empty spaces in-between the elements with it. It's a nice detail, a pop of color that has good contrast and can shine throughout the pattern and add more playfulness. I'll finish everything by adding line details on leaves. Once everything is done on the first Canvas, I'll use custom actions to flip it. As you will notice, your custom actions will rotate depending on how your canvas is rotated. It makes no difference. They work the same. You can choose whether to use Selections 1 and 2 or Selection 3 and 4 depending on what part of the pattern you want to work next. I'm still using the same color layers and I'm making sure everything is correct. Once this part is finished, I'll use another set of custom actions and just continue in the same way. You can see that I have only one leaf at the bottom that needs to be finished. I'll use custom actions once more to reach that part. That's it. The pattern swatch is completed. This is definitely the best part of the whole process and it never gets boring seeing the finished pattern and repeat. Since I cannot duplicate all the layers to create the test image because I don't have enough available layers, I'll just save this as a JPEG and add that saved picture. I'll duplicate it, so I have four in total. Then, I can select each one and scale it down into quarter, making sure it snaps in place correctly. I'll turn off the guides and you can see the final repeat. It's really beautiful. Everything worked out so nicely. Later on, I might play with color palettes to see what I can come up with. But I also like it as it is now, and that's how I'm going to keep it. In the next lesson, I'll show you how I combine Procreate and Photoshop and explain why I love using them both for patterns I create nowadays. If you're not planning on using Photoshop in the near future, you can skip those lessons and jump right into Lesson 14, where I'll show you how I prepare my pattern designs so that I can showcase them to clients. 11. Pattern in Procreate & Photoshop: [MUSIC] Let's quickly talk about Procreate and Photoshop collaboration. In Lesson 7, I talked about Procreate and some obstacles it has when you're using it for pattern design. I also provided you with creative solutions to those problems, because it is possible to make even complex pattern designs using only Procreate. But if you're able to invest in a Photoshop subscription and a computer that can handle these types of files, I say go for it. If you already have it, that's great because in these lessons I'll show you my Procreate and Photoshop workflow. Before we start, here is how and why I'm combining Procreate and Photoshop. I'm using Procreate, an iPad basically as my drawing tablet. If I'm working on simple repeats like this one, I use Procreate to sketch and illustrate individual pattern elements, which I later place in Photoshop to arrange the final repeat. Now if I'm creating a complex floral pattern design like the one I'm working on right now, I like to manually sketch the whole pattern repeat in Procreate so that all the elements naturally fit with one another. Then I can make final pattern illustrations in Procreate and place them in Photoshop. In that way, my file becomes more professional and easily editable. I can make additional changes and adjustments if needed. I can easily create pattern tests, and also make a neat layer organization. All in all, with Photoshop I have more control and flexibility in these final steps. Also Photoshop solves all the Procreate obstacles I mentioned before. It can work in bigger sizes and resolutions. There are no limits on the number of layers you're using. If you decide to rotate and duplicate elements and move them around, quality loss will be present, but compared to Procreate, it's significantly lower. Finally, the elements you place on the border of the canvas to make a repeat are not going to be cut out. Plus, Photoshop has some incredibly useful features like Pattern Preview, which lets you arrange the pattern so that we're looking at the overall repeat in real time. I covered Pattern Preview in my class Storytelling in Pattern Design: Illustrate A Narrative Pattern. If you're interested in that, go and check it out later. 12. P&Ph - Pattern Elements in Procreate: Now that the patterns sketch base is set and done, I can start illustrating elements. Instead of finishing the whole pattern here in Procreate, we're going to make final pattern elements in a few separate canvases that we can later send as PSD files to Photoshop. To keep this file professional and editable, I'm illustrating in layers. Each color is in a separate layer, and layers are arranged by the position of elements. Having the solid sketch base as a starting point makes everything a lot easier. In the sketch phase, I sold many creative obstacles and created a framework that I can outtake to the next level. Most importantly, I'm not getting overwhelmed with everything at once. I can now refine it further and focus on illustration details. Flowers will have a subtle wiggly outline, and leaves and branches define shapes. I'm also focusing on color palette and color arrangement. I want to create something soft and subtle, but still colorful and playful. I'm using three different but similar pastel colors for all the flowers. I want them to be visually unified. I'm also thinking ahead about how to scatter them out evenly to get a balanced color composition. Perfectly, the main flower will never be next to another in the same color in order to avoid color clusters. I'm keeping the leaves and branches in one green color that has a nice contrast with flowers and provides a good base but doesn't overpower them. Even though the leaves and branches are in one color, they're not at all flat or boring. What makes them interesting are these beautiful shapes and curved lines arranged so they point in different directions. In a repeat, they'll provide a good flow and movement while still holding everything together in a balance. On top of these colors, I'll introduce yellow details that I'll spread all over the pattern. I'll fill the center of the flowers with it, use it for buds of my smaller branches, and also fill some empty spaces in between the elements with it. It's a nice detail, a pop of color that has good contrast and can shine throughout the pattern and add more playfulness. I'll finish everything by adding line details on leaves. All the elements on this canvas are finished. This canvas is my first element group, and I want to preserve it as it is. Before I start using custom actions to flip things around, I will go back to the gallery and duplicate it. The second canvas will be my second element group, and that's the canvas I'll continue working on now. I'll select the group and use custom actions to flip it just like I showed you before. As you will notice, your custom actions will rotate depending on how your canvas is rotated. It makes no difference, they work the same. You can choose whether to use Selection 1 and 2 or Selections 3 and 4, depending on what part of the pattern you want to work next. Before I start illustrating the new group of elements, I have to make some order in layers. Since each separate canvas will have a separate group of different elements, I will merge previous elements together in one layer, and I will only keep the sketch layer on the top and the background layer at the bottom. The layer with previous elements can be now set to lower transparency and serve as a simple reminder of what was already done. Just like before, I will now continue illustrating these new elements in new separate layers. Once this part is done, I'll make sure everything is correct. Once again, go to the gallery, preserve this canvas, and duplicate it. I'm now making the third element group that I can work on. Just like before, once I'm in this new canvas, I will bring back the transparency of the element Group 1 and merge all the layers together except the sketch and the background. I can now select this group and use another set of custom actions to flip it. I will again lower the transparency for the layer with previous elements and start illustrating new elements in new separate layers. When I'm done, I can once more go to the gallery to preserve this element group as it is. I will duplicate it and create the fourth and final element group. I will repeat the same process again. I'll bring back the transparency for the layer that contains previous elements and merge it with the other elements I created. I'll select the group and use custom actions to flip it. You can see, there is just one leaf in the center that needs to be illustrated. I'll lower the transparency for the merged layer, and illustrate the remaining pattern element. That's it. All the pattern elements are finished. When I go back to the gallery, I have four different canvases containing four different element groups that I can place in Photoshop where I will arrange the final pattern. I will go back to each group, export it as a PSD file, and send it to my computer. In the next lesson, I'll show you how I create a final pattern in Photoshop by using and arranging these elements. 13. P&Ph - Final Pattern in Photoshop: The PSD files from Procreate are on my computer and I can now start arranging the elements and creating the final pattern swatch in Photoshop. I have these four PSD files in one folder, and I'm going to open each one of them in Photoshop. Once they've done that, I can open a new Canvas in the same size as my Procreate pattern Canvas, which is 18 by 18 inches in 300 DPI. First, I will go to pattern Elements 1 and select all the layers, copy them, "Command C", and go back to my main Canvas and paste them, "Command V". I will quickly rename this group and then take the sketch out of the group and place it on the top and lock it. This sketch will help me arrange the rest of the elements so you want to keep it separated. I will also take out the color layer, place it at the bottom and lock it as well. The next thing I want to do is go to this burger menu in the layer window so I can change the preview of all the layers. I will select Panel Options and set the thumbnail size to medium and thumbnail contents to layer bounds. The preview of layers is a bit bigger now, which makes it a lot easier to see which element is in which layer, especially because I haven't named them. Next on my to-do list is to check each layer by using the selection tool. You can activate it by pressing "V" on the keyboard. I'm doing this because of a little discrepancy that happens when you place a Procreate PSD file in Photoshop. It sometimes occurs and some other times it doesn't. I still haven't figured out why and when, so always make sure to keep this discrepancy in mind and correct it if needed. Anyways, you can clearly see it in this example. When this layer of yellow dots is selected, the selection is not closely surrounding the elements, but it's actually covering the whole Canvas area. Therefore it includes a lot of unnecessary empty space. To solve this problem, I have to press "L" to access the Lasso tool and make a loose selection of all the elements in the layer. In this case, yellow dots. Once the area is marked with the Lasso tool, I press "Command X" to cut and "Command V" to paste. Now, if I press "V" for the Selection tool once more, you can see that the whole selection is surrounding only the group of yellow dots, and not the whole Canvas area. In this way, I'm going to check each layer with the activated selection tool. I'll use the Lasso tool to create a path around the elements and then cut and paste them. By the way, I just have to loosely select with the Lasso tool. It doesn't have to be precise. I'm only making sure I get a bit further away from the elements so I don't accidentally cut off some parts. The main reason for doing this is to have a neat workspace. If I'm selecting and moving elements or later creating a repeat, these huge selection areas of empty space will get in the way and it will become very messy. This is all done. I will now change the size of the Canvas so you can easily see what I'll be doing in the next steps. I'll go to image and select Canvas size. I can now see my Canvas size in pixels. It's 5,400 by 5,400. I will memorize this number or write it down because I will need that information later when I start building the pattern swatch and also when I decided to bring back the Canvas to its original size. To make it bigger, I'll go with 10,000 by 10,000 pixels. You can do this as well. It can be helpful when arranging the elements on the borders because you'll have a better view of what's going on. Therefore, you'll be able to make a better element organization plan. I'll now go to pattern Elements 2 and grab all the elements without the sketch and the background layers. We don't need them anymore. I'll copy and paste this into the main art board. I'll rotate the elements, press "Enter" to place them, and then "Command G" to group all these new layers. I'll rename the group and position it underneath the sketch. This now becomes a puzzle game. We need to fit the missing pieces. This group will be on the right side of the swatch, but I need to flip it first. I'll go to Edit, Transform, and flip it horizontally. Now, I can position it correctly following the sketch lines. Before we continue, I'll just quickly change the background color so you can clearly see the patterns swatch area. By the way, if I open this group and select each layer with the selection tool on, you can see that the selected areas are correct. They are closely surrounding the elements and there are no empty spaces included. This means I don't have to deal with the same selection problem as I did at the beginning. Now let's go to the pattern Elements 3 to copy the new elements and paste them in the main art board. Just like we did before, I will rotate them. Press "Enter" to place them, group, and rename the group as well. Now, you can see that this one cannot be positioned as it is. One part will fit on the left side while the other part will fit on the right side. Nothing strange about it. It's because of how we flipped the patterns swatch in Procreate using custom actions. To fix this problem, I'm going to open the group and use the Lasso tool to separate this into two groups. I will start with the leaves. Lasso the parts I need, and cut and paste, which will create a separate layer. I'll do the same for all the layers. Once I'm done, I'll go to the Layer window and select all the new cutout layers I created and press "Command G" to group them. Let's name these elements 3.1 and place them outside the group. Now, I can swap their places and position them correctly. There is just one element missing. I'll go to Elements 4, select and copy the leaf and then paste it into the main artboard and position it correctly. Instead of grouping it on its own, I'll add it to the Element 3.1 group where it belongs. Now I finished placing and positioning all the pattern elements correctly, but that doesn't mean I'm done. At this point, I want to focus on how to logically organize all these elements. What I mean by that is I want to arrange them so that I can easily repeat the elements on the edges and complete the pattern swatch without making it confusing and complicated. On the other hand, I want to make this logical element arrangement in order to create a professional pattern file that has a neat layer organization. There are two main approaches I use. The first approach is to grab a Lasso tool and separate each element into its own layer. Then I would place these elements into small logical groups. In this case, groups of small floral compositions. This is the approach I would use if I were building the whole pattern arrangement in Photoshop. In that way, I'd have more freedom to move and rotate individual elements or groups until I find a good repeat composition. This is also something I'm showing in my class storytelling and pattern design illustrate and narrative better. If you're interested in that approach, go ahead and watch that class later. But for this particular pattern and all the patterns that I've made in Procreate as finished repeat swatches, I'm using the second approach. Since I have the entire sketch and completed element arrangement, I know I won't be moving elements around or drastically changing their position. I might only make a few tweaks if necessary. Instead of wasting time, cutting, pasting and separating the elements beforehand, I'll just organize everything into bigger logical groups. In this case, the first logical group will be the one that is in the center, and I will start by renaming it. This one will stay as it is, since none of the elements from that group are crossing the Canvas edges. Then I can focus on the right side of the pattern swatch. When I turned to group elements two on and off, you can see that it covers most of that right side, but it doesn't include all the elements on that edge. These two leaves should also be a part of it. Not only that, I also want to duplicate them and place them on the top right edge. Only then the entire right side will be completed, and I'll be able to duplicate and repeat it on the left side once they started building the pattern swatch repeat. But first things first, I'll rename this group to Right, and then I'll find the leaves I showed you. I will separate both leaves and outlines into new layers with the Lasso tool and drag these two layers out of the group. Now, I need to copy these layers and move them to the upper right edge of the swatch. By the way, the only reason I'm making a copy of this particular element, and I will not do this for any other, is because these leaves are the only element that is crossing all four borders of the pattern swatch. I really hope that makes sense, but if it doesn't, don't worry, very soon you'll see how everything will fall into place. Both layers are selected, and I can now duplicate them, "Command C", "Command V". While the duplicates are selected, I can move them to the upper edge. Since I need to do it precisely to make a correct pattern repeat later, I'll use the transform tool by pressing "Command T". In the upper left corner menu, you can now see x and y axes. If you've made patterns in Photoshop before, you already know this tool because it's indispensable for making a repeat swatch. But here's a quick reminder of how it works, X is the horizontal axis. By using minus, we can move objects left, and by using plus, we can move them right. Y is the vertical axis. By using minus, we can move objects up, and by using plus, we can move them down. In this upper left corner, you can see that x and y already have some numbers. Those numbers indicate where the object I selected is currently located. Since I want to move it correctly on the pattern swatch edge, I need to use the size of my original Canvas in pixels. In this lower left corner, are the numbers of my current and large Canvas, which I don't need. But if you remember, before I made the Canvas bigger, I memorized and row down the original size of my pattern Canvas, which is 5,400 by 5,400 pixels. So these are the numbers I'm going to use. In the y-axis, I'll type minus 5,400 and just press "Enter". As you can see, the leaves are positioned perfectly. I can now select both of these leaves and add them to the right group. Now, the group on the right has all the necessary elements, but it also has a few additional ones. This yellow dot belongs to the central group, and this green branch and blue flower belong to the down group. I will do the same thing as before. I'll use the Lasso tool to cut and paste these elements into new layers. Then I will drag them out of the group, select them, and without making duplicates this time, I'll press "Command T" again for the transform tool and in the x-axis type minus 5,400, the branch is positioned. I'll now do the same thing for the yellow dot and place it in the center group. Let's organize the elements that are at the bottom edge of the pattern swatch. I have these two elements that are on the right side and it should be placed on the left. First of all, I will ungroup all these old element groups. I don't need them anymore, and just like I did before, I'm going to cut and paste these elements into new layers and reposition them. Once that's all done, I can group all the layers at the bottom and name the group down. As you can see, now I have three logical groups down, right, and center. I'm almost ready to make a final pattern swatch. But before I do that, I have to tidy up a bit. The layers inside the groups are a bit messy, and before I duplicate or move anything, I want to create a neat layer organization. I will go to each group and merge the same layers together. So for example, this single yellow dot I moved here before will be merged with a group of other yellow dots. It's important to note that I will never merge different layers together, only the same layers in the same group. The easy way to do this is to select one layer, hold "Command" and select another layer and so on, once all the layers you're merging together are selected, just press "Command E" to merge. At this point while making a neat layer organization and merging the same layers together, I'm also making sure that everything is positioned correctly. Leaves are down and flowers are up. Once I'm done, I can start making a final pattern swatch by repeating the elements on the edges. First of all, I'll change the color fill to my original background color and delete the previous color layer. Now, I can go to Image, canvas size and convert this canvas to the original pattern swatch size, which is 5400 by 5400 pixels. Since I've spent time organizing everything into logical groups, finishing this pattern swatch is going to be incredibly easy. I have center group which will stay where it is, and I have down and right groups that consists of elements on the edges and I will now duplicate them and move them in order to fill the left and upper parts of the canvas. I'll select the right group and duplicate it, "Command C" and "Command V", and I'll rename this duplicate to left. While it's selected, I can press T for transform, and in the x-axis, type minus 5400. That part is done. I will now duplicate the down group and rename it to up, transform, and in the y-axis type minus 5400. I can now delete the sketch to get a better view of the final pattern swatch. You can see that in this upper left corner, I have the wrong positioning of elements. These leaves should be underneath the flower and not like this. But the problem is that the leaves belong to the center group, which is on top, and if I put it at the bottom, it won't fix the problem. Because now the wrong positioning of layers is visible in other places. So what I'm going to do to resolve this issue is to divide the center group into two parts. One part will be flowers, there'll be on the top, and the other part will be leaves, that will be at the bottom, and that's it. The pattern swatch is finished. Everything is placed correctly, the layers are neatly organized, and I will now go ahead and save this pattern. In the pattern window, I'll select a group and press this plus icon to add this pattern repeat. The only thing left to do is to test it out and see how the overall repeat looks and make sure it doesn't have any repeat errors. I like to test patterns on a new canvas. I'll close these previous PSD files so they don't get in the way. I'll open a new file in A4 format. You can really use whatever you like. I will now open a new layer, click on "Create new fill" icon, and press "Pattern". I can now select my new pattern repeat and scale it down. It's good to test out your patterns on a smaller scale so you can get the sense of the overall repeat flow. But then make sure to always zoom in to see if there are any errors, especially the ones that can occur on the swatch edges. Everything looks good here and I'm pretty happy with the results. The pattern is beautiful and everything worked out nicely. I might play with different color palettes later, but I also like how it looks now, so I'll keep it as it is. In the next lesson, I'll show you how I'm going to prepare this pattern repeat, so that I can showcase it to clients. 14. Promotion Ready Design: The pattern is finished, the creative part of the work is done. You made a beautiful pattern repeat that can potentially work on a variety of products. Whether it's fabric, wallpaper, or perhaps stationery products. The question is what next? What I always do is archive my finished pattern for my portfolio and at the same time prepare it in a way that I can showcase it to clients, and that is what I'm going to show you in this lesson. In the projects and resources section, you can download a PSD file called Template Pattern Promotion. I will now open it in Photoshop. As you can see, this is a very basic template that you can use and adapt however you like. In this clipping mask layer, you can insert your pattern and it will stay inside the borders of this rectangle and you can also use the other text layers to add your own info, pattern info, and also change the fonts. To add the pattern repeat, I will select this layer and then I can use create new fill or adjustment layer and tap on the pattern fill. In this new menu, I'll select the pattern repeat I've already saved in the previous lesson, and I can adjust the scale. I don't want it to be too big or too small, I want to show the overall repeat while still showing details. The scale will mostly depend on the type of pattern you have. While you're still in the pattern fill mode, you can simply select a pattern and drag it until you find a good position. Once you've done that, you can type the name of the pattern and if it belongs to a collection, you can include that as well. Make sure to add your website and e-mail so that a client can easily contact you and on the right side, write your name or brand name. You can really customize this bar to fit your own needs. some designers don't write pattern names, they just use a certain combination of letters and numbers, which is also a great idea for efficient classification. Now I can save this template. I'll go to File, Export, and Export as JPEG image. The most important thing when it comes to images you use for promotion is that you save them in a lower resolution. The main reason is very practical. When you send those image files through e-mail, you want them to be in a smaller size. Most often, instead of just one pattern image, you'll send a few, so you don't want to overload the email with huge image files. Another reason is production, whether you're uploading your work to social media or sending it as a promotional material to potential clients, it's good to do it in a smaller resolution. I will set the quality to four, this canvas has an already fairly small size. If I keep the quality on four, my final JPEG image will have a bit less than 200 kilobytes, which is pretty good. This resolution is low but not too low, so the final image will look nice without being pixelated or blurry. Now I can simply tap Export to save it and that's it. By the way, here's how my original template looks with all the info and adjusted fonts. All right, we can now move on to the next lesson where we'll talk about what kind of file you will send to clients after you sign a licensing agreement. 15. Client Ready File: [MUSIC] In this lesson, I want to talk to you about what happens in these final steps. You created the pattern, you promoted it, a client liked your print and wanted to license it. You discussed what needed to be discussed, you found the middle ground, and you signed the contract you're both happy with. Now the question is, what kind of file should you send to the client after signing the agreement? Also, how should your file be organized and prepared for the client? First of all, I never send final files before I sign the agreement. But once I sign the agreement, I always send PSD files. There is this reoccurring misconception among the new pattern designers that comes out of fear of file misuse. They're not sure whether they should send the final PSD file or protect their art by sending a high-risk PNG or JPEG image. The answer is, after you sign the agreement, you always send a final editable PSD file. The relationship between you and a client is determined beforehand at the time when you discussed the price, the terms, and the overall agreement. Once you both sign the agreement, your relationship is established and you should be both working together. You're providing your art as an editable PSD file so that a client can take that file and make additional adjustments. They might adjust the colors, change color profiles, or make a different pattern scale. Sometimes it can happen that you license only an illustration and the client will take that illustration and turn it into a pattern repeat. Now, let's talk about how that final PSD file you're sending is supposed to be organized. In the lesson on what makes a professional pattern, we already talked about the main qualities that a professional file should have. It needs to be in a good size and high resolution. It should be editable and also it should have a neat layer organization. Throughout the class while creating my pattern, I followed all these principles. This file is in a good size and resolution, it's editable because everything is in layers, and it can be adjusted and changed. These two are pretty obvious and clear to follow. But when it comes to neat layer organization, it can be a bit confusing because it depends on the kind of file you're working on. As I mentioned before, the main rule you can follow here is to ask yourself, what can I do to make this file clear and understandable for another person who'll open it and see it for the first time? When it comes to layer organization for this pattern file, I decided not to name the layers because it's pretty clear what's going on there. Instead, I organized everything into logical groups and I named those groups. To make a little comparison, I want to show you two different layer organization examples for files that I already licensed. This one is a licensed pattern design, in this case, a diamond repeat. You can see that I made a very similar logical group organization. It's just slightly adjusted for this kind of repeat. I have a separate group for the flower elements because of how they repeat and then I have a group for the central composition which is again divided into subgroups depending on the position of the motif. In this file, I also didn't name the layers because it's pretty obvious to understand what's going on. The second one is a licensed illustration. This is a great example of a more detailed layer organization with additional info. Again, I have groups, one for leaves and one for flowers. Inside the groups, layers are named. Besides naming them, I also specify the blending mode for this one and named it leaves multiply to indicate that it needs to be kept in that specific blending mode. The same goes for the flower group. I indicated that the flower layer will stay in normal blending mode. You can see these two additional layers at the bottom. If the background color layer is white, they are not at all necessary. But if the client wants to change the background color, they are very important. These base layers create a nice white misprint effect on the edges when the background is colored. If this layer didn't exist, the blue layer in multiply blending mode would have a different color which is not something I want to happen. By adding this additional info, I'm just trying to prevent any possible confusion. To wrap it all up, there are many approaches to layer organization, but the most important thing is to keep it easy to understand. 16. Final Thoughts: [MUSIC] Well guys, we're at the very end of this class. It's been quite a journey and I just wanted to say thank you for spending time with me and following along. I hope this class becomes a pattern-making guide that you can come back to whenever you're in doubt. I hope it provided you with new knowledge and examples that you can follow when improving your work. Finally, I hope you feel encouraged and empowered to complete this full-circle journey by sending your patterns to clients and getting your artworks licensed. With this all being said, whether you're just starting your pattern design career or have a few years of experience, know that learning, improving, and discovering new things and techniques is a never-ending process which makes our work pretty exciting. I'm looking forward to seeing your projects and hearing about what you've learned. The class projects section always ends up being this wonderful place where we can showcase our art and celebrate each other. By the way, I would love to hear what you think about this class so make sure to rate and review it. As always, if you have any questions or something I was doing and wasn't clear, feel free to ask anything in the discussion section of this class, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. To get notified of my next classes, follow me here on Skillshare. You can also keep in touch with me on Instagram @DIUJDI. I'm sending you lots of love and good vibes. I'll see you in the next one.