Surface-Pattern Design

Creating my Create, Explore, Inspire Design

This post contains affiliate links. This means that if you click on the link and buy certain items, I will receive a small commission (at no extra cost to you) to help keep the lights on in the studio.

Create, Explore, and Inspire is the motto for my life and business. I thought those words might resonate with others, so I created a new design.

I found one of the Art Cards I made a while ago and decided it was perfect to use as inspiration for my new design.

Create, Explore, Inspire, color palette and motifs.

I hand-drew the doodles and patterns, scanned them, and traced them in Adobe Illustrator. For the color palette, I used the Art Card colors and added some darker ones for the text.

Completed Create, Explore, Inspire design. — The Final Design

You can tell the world that you Create, Explore, & Inspire with all kinds of products in my Redbubble shop.

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Creating My Yellow, Coral, and Gray Floral Designs

Creating My Yellow, Coral, and Gray Floral Pattern

My Yellow, Gray, & Floral designs started as an exercise in Module 2 from Make it in Design. The brief was to create elegant coordinated patterns for a stationery collection.

I decided to use this stylized flower I had sketched in my art journal as the basis for the designs.

Color palette and motifs for my yellow, coral, and gray floral pattern

For the color palette, I started with one of my favorite color combinations: yellow and gray, and then added the coral. I hand-drew the flowers, scanned them, and traced them in Adobe Illustrator. I use the rectangle tool to create the diamond shapes.

Concept board for my yellow, coral, and gray floral pattern on stationery

I added color to the floral motifs and used them and the diamonds in different combinations on each piece of the collection.

The yellow, coral, and gray floral pattern

For my Redbubble shop, I changed the name of the collection to Yellow, Coral, and Gray Floral Designs. I tweaked the design from the letterhead to fit the products better. I will be adding the rest of the stationery designs to the shop in the future.

Yellow, coral, and gray floral pattern on products in my Redbubble shop.

The design is available on wall art, phone cases, home decor, stickers, and magnets.

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Creating My Tropical Birds Pattern

I created my Tropical Birds pattern for Make it in Design’s Winter School 2021 Exotic Canopy brief. The brief asked for a moody, warm, and elegant design inspired by the tropics.

I decided to use tropical birds and ferns in my design and created this mood board.

I created the color palette from my mood board photos and drew the bird, fern, and leaf motifs by hand. I then scanned them into Adobe Illustrator and traced them to create vector shapes.

I created this final pattern for Winter School 2021, but decided I did not like the color palette.

Tropical Birds pattern with revised color palette

I tweaked the color palette and think that this version is more “me”.

I added the revised pattern to my Redbubble shop and added it to all sorts of products.

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If You Suddenly . . .

“If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it.” ~Mary Oliver

Creating My Circles & Squares Pattern

I created this Circles & Squares pattern for Winter School 2021 by Make it in Design. This Geo Pop trend brief called for a bold, vibrant, geometric design.

Rough sketches of layout possibilities for Circles & Squares

I didn’t make a traditional mood board for this challenge because I woke up one morning with a pattern made of squares and circles in my head. I grabbed a piece of paper and a pen and made several rough sketches of my ideas.

Circles & Squares color pallete and motifs

I drew a zig-zag pattern to use as a texture. Then, I created the geometric shapes in Adobe Illustrator and used the color palette was provided with the brief.

Here is the completed pattern.

Products with Circles & Squares pattern.

Finally, I added the design to products in my Redbubble shop.

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