Have you started your design yet? What are you waiting for? Spring is here, and inspiration abounds!
In case you are just tuning in, SPDG has issued a challenge to its members: create a surface pattern design using the palette shown below. And do it by May 14!
Why May 14? Because that’s our next meeting! Bring your new design for show-and-tell. We’d love to hear about your inspiration and process.
And for all of you non-local members... you can participate too! After our May 14 meeting, we’ll be asking everyone to post their designs in our members-only forums so we can all share!
Are there any other requirements? No! Designs can be any style for any market...just use the palette we’ve provided!
Can’t wait to see what you come up with!
~ Sarah (the original Design Challenge post is here).
 Congratulations to Wendy Lin! She is our May Featured Member. Stay tuned to our site to see Wendy's promotion launch next week!
If you missed the chance to enter into our May Featured Member drawing, please watch for the next call for entry at the end of next month.
 Image from http://www.michaelharding.co.uk I bought a dress shirt for my husband, and the saleslady said, "Hope he enjoys this navy stripe shirt!" I said, "Wait, what? I thought it was a black striped shirt!" "Sure!" she chirped, "a lot of customers mistake it for black, but it's blue!" "Well, it sure looks black to me," I replied. "I'm not gonna argue with you!" she fairly sang. She was clearly enjoying the argument. I still say it was black stripes.Have you ever had a dispute over color like this with friends, family, or spouse? As designers, it cannot be overstated how important our color vision is, and how sensitive we must be to nuanced differences in shades and hues. Some designer positions even require color testing. Correct color perception can make all the difference as to whether your design grabs your target customer, or gets passed over. The number of hues that the human eye can see is disputable, varying from 100,000 to 10 million. Nevertheless, it is our job to have a trained eye in distinguishing colors. One of the standard color vision tests requires the subject to arrange 15 colored discs in order through the spectrum. The colors are identical in value, however, so the subject must be sensitive to the different hues. Here's an online version to the test.Wanna take this to the next level? Try your hand at distinguishing among 100 different hues at this website.Then, challenge your friends, family or spouse, and see who should be buying the striped shirts in your household.Best,Wendy
The call for our May FEATURED MEMBER is on! Is it YOUR turn for some exposure this month?
The SPDG Featured Member program is a monthly promotion in which we display swatches of a member's surface pattern design work throughout our web site in the header, along with a credit and link to his/her online portfolio or personal web site. We also dedicate a page on the site to further spotlight him or her, including additional samples of work and an interview.
If you would like us to include your name in our drawing for May, please reply in the comments section of this blog post by Friday, April 27, 2:00 PM Pacific Standard Time. We will select at random from the list of entries and announce the lucky winner later that day on the blog.In order to qualify for this promotion, you need to be a member of SPDG and you must be able to provide a minimum of 8 different digital images of your surface pattern design work to choose from in order for us to build your feature. If selected, you will be contacted with further information and instructions.Being the SPDG Featured Member is a wonderful way to gain exposure for you and your work. Let us help promote you!Kiera
Cue space age lounge music…
Hello and welcome to the second installment of your fabulous 50s surface pattern design education! In our previous lesson, we learned a fun doodling technique to help create lots of simple motifs. Let us now turn to the Shapes and Space Divisions section of Commercial Art and Design, a booklet from 1953 that I scored at an antique shop, for an exercise in working with "panels" to create more complex, geometric motifs.
The booklet defines a panel as a shape in which you place a motif. I think another name for a panel could be a tile. Shapes like circles, squares, and triangles can be used as basic panels, or tiles. These shapes can be combined or tweaked to create more unusual ones (see image below). Try taking some basic shapes and overlapping them, cutting into them, and manipulating them into new ones. | |
Now that you have several panels to work with, try adding motifs inside them. It is recommended in the booklet that the motifs you use to fill your panels should compliment the overall form. I say, try that first to see what happens and then start getting crazy and break that rule. Why not?
The image above shows two different ways to build panels with motifs in them. One approach is to work inside out, starting with building a motif and then outlining it with a panel shape at the end. The other way is to start with a panel and then build a motif moving from the outside in. Either way, you should end up with some fun geometric motifs in panels (tiles) that can be then used to form an overall layout.
Okay everyone, crack open your sketchbooks and get started!
-Kiera
 Image from www.ignitiate.com |  Image from www.treehugger.com |
Gregory N. Polletta and Sung Jang, of iGNITIATE’s designed this living topiary facade overlay, called “Topiade,” for an existing Louis Vuitton store in Paris, France. Louis V’s ubiquitous monogram pattern is replicated using blocks of real plants, complete with water and nutrient delivery systems hidden behind each block.
Like a living roof, a living wall could utilize wasted or unused space, possibly reduce storm water runoff, mitigate the urban heat island effect, and help absorb air pollutants.
Just imagine the surface pattern design possibilities...
I would love to see topiary facades pop up on unadorned walls everywhere!
-Ruby
Rare Japanese Silk Paintings are on display at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., as part of a celebration of the centennial of Japan’s gift of cherry trees to the nation’s capital. The exhibit is entitled Colorful Realm: Japanese Bird-and-Flower Paintings by Ito Jakuchu (1716-1800) and will be on display until April 29, 2012.
Get a glimpse at these rarely seen works in this interesting video:
 Project #4 from The Sellable Sketch: Karin was asked to envision her client.  Karin's final project from the course. | If you’re a beginning student of textile design, as I am, you might enjoy the short online class I took recently. “The Sellable Sketch” is offered through Pattern Observer. During a five-week whirlwind, you’ll be walked through a system for defining who you are and who your ideal customer is (both the manufacturer you’ll sell to and the customer who will ultimately buy your work) AND you’ll create a collection for that customer. Five weeks is a very short time to do this well if you’re a newbie, but the teacher encourages you to download the workbook and chat sessions so you can use this system over and over.
One of the things I loved about the class was the focus you can achieve. As a freelancer, you can see so many interesting directions to explore that it can be difficult to choose one path and stay on it. For this one collection, you’ll really understand how to focus. There are assignments each week, with a forum where students post their work and request feedback from the teacher, a designer who’s active in the industry (mostly fashion). Questions on any aspect of the industry are welcome, and information and feedback are shared freely.
There’s an intro to the class here that’s worth a look if you’re interested in an overview of how to create a collection, or, as the website describes it, “a step-by-step guide to developing an irresistible surface design collection.”
Hearing from different people in the industry how it all works is invaluable for beginners—I appreciate the varying points of view and I’m getting a fuller picture of what my options are by hearing different approaches for selling work. There’s also interaction between students, who were from countries all over the world (some people had to listen to the chats at 3:00 am) and who could comment and talk to each other on the forum provided for the class. People were connecting with each other in the forums and, if they chose, by joining a LinkedIn group set up just for The Sellable Sketch.
The next session starts May 7th. I highly recommend this class!
Karin C. |
 Palette and Photo from Design Seeds, 12-20-11. Click on the image to link. Don’t you just love this palette? We do too! So we are issuing all of our members a challenge! Create a surface pattern design using the palette shown in this post. And do it by May 14!
Why May 14? Because that’s our next meeting! Bring your new design for show-and-tell. We’d love to hear about your inspiration and process.
And for all of you non-local members... you can participate too! After our May 14 meeting, we’ll be asking everyone to post their designs in our forums so we can all share!
Are there any other requirements? No! Designs can be any style for any market...just use the palette we’ve provided!
Get your creative juices flowing and show us what you’ve got!
The Sustainable Furnishings Council is hosting a free hour-long sustainability webinar on Monday, April 16, at noon, EDT. The Sustainabilty Essentials Webinar will be covering topics such as indoor air quality, toxic waste, water conservation, and climate change as they relate to the home furnishings industry. The presentation will also cover GREENleaders, a first of its kind sustainability training certification for the industry.
Sign up for a spot in this important webinar here.-Kiera | |
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