A big thank you is owed to the Guild's very own Jill Turney and Sarah Schwartz for the informative Illustrator and Photoshop tutorials that they presented at last week's meeting. Those of us who were in attendance were impressed by your knowledge and grateful that you took the time to prepare and share that valuable information with us!If you were unable to make it to the meeting or you just want to see the presentations again, the videos for the tutorials are now available for member access. You can find a list of links and passwords to access the videos in our Google Groups. In addition, Jill prepared handouts for her tutorials and they are available for you in our archives.Thank you again Jill and Sarah! We look forward to more tutorials in the future.
| Want to learn some techniques that help make repeats faster and easier? Does color matching on your printer plague you? Or, are you still stumped on how to make seamless overlapping motifs on the computer?
Join us for our next meeting on Thursday, April 18 from 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm to learn some Photoshop and Illustrator tips and tricks!
| |
| Want to learn some techniques that help make repeats faster and easier? Does color matching on your printer plague you? Or, are you still stumped on how to make seamless overlapping motifs on the computer?
At our next meeting, SPDG members Sarah Schwartz and Jill Turney will take you through several techniques in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator that will boost your digital surface pattern design skills.
Sarah will be demonstrating a way to help make creating repeats faster, easier, and more accurately. She will also be showing us a technique to achieve a quick, accurate color match on printers.
Jill will be giving a demo on how to use the masking tools in PhotoShop to create seamless overlapping motifs. This is a great trick to use with loose designs and watercolors. And, as an added bonus, she'll share some cool effects that she's been able to apply to her motifs using the "puppet" tool.
You should never stop learning, so be sure to join us next Thursday for some continuing education!
| |
Here is a photo I took while walking on a nature trail. I really liked the shape of the snow between the small rocks—I was sure I could do something great with it! Using Photoshop, I started to apply filters to my photo. I wanted to focus on the abstract shape that the snow was forming, so I tried a couple different filters until I found one that created a shape that I was happy with—the cut out filter. The shape looked great, but the filter gave it a texture I didn't like so I made it a flat object. Problem solved! I then cut off one end of the motif that was too spindly. The shape finally felt just right to use in a design. See my first attempt at a pattern below. Next up: a modern looking Jacquard with this funky shape from nature.Jen T.
 Morris & Co. Wallpaper. Printed between 1915 & 1917. Have you ever wondered how wallpaper gets printed? There are tons of traditional methods:
- Block printing;
- Flock;
- Pan (Trough) Printing;
- Surface Print;
- Flat-bed Screen;
- Rotary Screen;
- Flexographic; and
- Gravure.
| | Hey vintage surface pattern design lovers! Here's another post in my series of lessons from my 1953 educational text Commercial Art and Design. Today's exercise involves working with straight and curved lines. This section of the booklet takes inspiration from our humble alphabet. It makes sense, because after all, aren't letters just different combinations of simple straight and/or curved lines?
Let's get started. First, study the following alphabet and numbers that the booklet has printed in this elegant vintage font. Take note of where the lines meet in each letter and digit, as well as the positive and negative spaces. | |
| Now have a look at the various ways that letters and numbers have been combined to create the logos shown on the right. Try to observe the shapes they form rather than reading the actual letters. Again, look for the positive and negative spaces that have been created.
| | | | Okay, now your turn! Open up your sketchbooks. Pick out a letter and start pairing it with other letters or numbers, or repeat it and see what you get. Overlap them, stretch them, squish them, line them up, flip them—whatever you feel like doing! After you try creating several new shapes with your letter/number combinations, have a go at creating a pattern. You can also make interesting border designs with letters and numbers. On the left are some examples to help get you going. |
Don't stop 'til you fill a page . . . or two. Have fun!
-Kiera
We love to be connected. People are attached to the internet all day long. Businesses without websites may as well be non-existent. And images have taken a leading role in selling products and services.
Fabulous! We love it!
But....
For artists, there’s a catch. Along with ease of ability to browse images, there is an equal ease of ability to copy images, frequently without the owner’s permission, essentially undermining the artist’s livelihood. So what’s an artist to do? Not post images and be virtually invisible, or post images and risk having one’s work copied?
To this, there is no easy answer. But I’ve created a set of guidelines so that if you do post, you are putting yourself in the best possible position.
Understand that if someone wants to steal your images, they will. But by and large, most people are honest — just ignorant. For instance, a large portion of the population believes that if an image is on the internet, it is free to copy. As an artist, you know that as soon as you create an image, it is protected by copyright laws in the U.S., regardless of whether it has the © symbol and regardless of whether you have registered it with the Copyright Office. Nonetheless, a large portion of the public is unaware of this fact. BUT, when they see the © symbol, they become aware of your rights and may be deterred from copying.
So...
 Watermarked, cropped, and low-res. Step #1: Put a watermark on all images you post. Your watermark should include the © symbol and your name at a minimum (© Sarah Schwartz). A proper copyright notice under the US copyright laws also includes a year of publication (© 2012 Sarah Schwartz). It’s also wise to put your website or other contact information in your watermark so that someone knows how to get in contact with you in the event that they are interested in your work.
Step #2: Use low resolution and cropped images whenever possible. If you’re posting images, you may be thinking that you want to post high-res full-size images to show your work in the best possible light. However, posting high-res images just makes life easier for the would-be copier. Having low res images makes it much harder to physically copy your work. Think about it: it is much easier for a copyright infringer to download a high-res image right into photoshop or illustrator, make a couple modifications and claim it as his or her own than it is to download a low-res image where one would actually have to redraw the design.
And if you can, don’t post your full-size image. Just post a cropped version showing only a portion of your image. If someone is “inspired” by your work, at least they can’t copy the whole thing.
Step #3: Apply Metadata. What is metadata? Metadata is basically information about the image that is invisible when viewing the image, but it is stored in the image file. Using metadata is a way to embed copyright and contact information into your image.
It is very easy to use Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, or Bridge to apply metadata. I like to use Bridge. In Bridge, open an image in the viewer. Under the Metadata tab, enter your contact and copyright information.
 Metadata in Bridge. Click to enlarge. In Photoshop and Illustrator, you can do the same thing going to File>File Info and then entering information under the “Description” and IPTC tabs. Note, that you do not need to fill in every bit of information.The copyright information and a website or email for contact is the most critical. It is up to you if you want to provide additional contact information like an address or phone #. The more you provide, however, the more ways people can get in touch with you about the image or your services, and this is especially useful since over the years email addresses and other contact info change.
Now that you’ve applied your metadata, that data should travel with your image. Your metadata is readable to anyone who opens your image in image editing software (like Photoshop or Illustrator). So if someone ever finds an orphaned copy of your work (e.g., someone copied it and maybe even cropped it!), it is still traceable back to you.
 But be warned. Do not rely on metadata exclusively. Some social media sites strip out the metadata information (that’s why you need to make sure you have a watermark too). Reasons for removing this data include protecting personal information (e.g., some people are sensitive to having their address and phone numbers published). Removing the data, however, may be a violation of the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act).
Many photo sharing sites remove this information, including Pinterest and Facebook. For information about which sites strip metadata and which don’t, visit Controlled Vocabulary which has preliminary survey results studying which social media sites are stripping metadata. If you want to test an image to see if it includes metadata, visit Jeff Friedl’s Online Metadata Viewer - a tool to view image metadata. Directions to use this tool are also on the Controlled Vocabulary site.
Step #4: Register with the Copyright Office.
Although you do not need to register your images with the Copyright Office to have copyright protection in them, it is always a good idea to do so. First, you cannot sue someone for copyright infringement until you register. Second, there are many benefits conferred if you register early, including the ability to collect statutory damages ($750-$30,000 per infringement). Registration doesn’t prevent someone from copying your image, but it may help you feel better if you have to sue someone!
Let’s face it, even if you take all of the above steps, the unscrupulous individual is still going to copy your images. But short of burying your work in a closet, it is a risk that every artist takes for any image shown in public. But by following the above steps, you have moved yourself a long way down the path toward minimizing that risk and keeping your images traceable to you, while maintaining the visibility that is so critical in today’s connected world.
~SarahImage Attribution for "HTTP" internet image at top of post: By Rock1997 (Own work) [GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons (image link)
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
 Ladies and Gentlemen, let us travel back in time and open the surface pattern design vaults of yesteryear for a little educational exercise. Our guide today will be "Commercial Art and Design: Design and Decoration" by Art Instruction Inc. of Minneapolis, Minnesota, an art education manual from 1953 that I found at an antique store.
This booklet was a major score for me. Not only am I a surface pattern designer who is always on the lookout for new sources of education and inspiration, but I adore mid-20th century design! And, where can I find a more appreciative audience with which to share my second-hand find than right here on the SPDG blog? Excuse me while I do the Snoopy dance . . .
Let's get started with today's lesson.
As most good instruction should, this manual starts out with a definition.
"Design: the adaptation of forms to space, objects and materials; artistic invention."
To help us turn our wheels of artistic invention, we are presented with the following fun little challenge. Begin by creating a very simple mark, like the arrow that is pictured in the image below. Copy that mark at least ten times, then add different types of lines around and over each of the original marks to create entirely new motifs.
Be sure to use one color for the original mark and a second color for the added lines so that it is easy to follow your progression. It is also recommended that you snug your new lines in close to the original shape, so as to prevent them from looking "stringy" or "vague." My advice from 2012: play with it. Do both and see what happens! Either way, you should now have at least ten new motifs on your page that you can then arrange into an even bigger, super-motif or a pattern.
This concludes our brief sojourn back to the Fifties. There is more to share from this art instruction booklet, so stay tuned to the SPDG blog for the next installment. Now, off to doodle!-Kiera
Did you miss our meeting on Monday? Well fret not! Videos of the live tutorials have been posted in the members-only archive available from our Members page. In addition to the seven live recordings by Monday’s presenters (Sarah Schwartz, Jill Turney, Ben Corrales, and Ruby Geisler), there are two bonus videos from Will Tait. PLUS there are some supplemental notes too!
If you don’t remember the password that was emailed to you when you joined, please email info@surfacepatterndesignguild.org
If you have additional questions about the techniques demonstrated, please use the members-only Forums to ask the presenters.
~Sarah
|
RSS Feed