Designing a Pattern Collection from Start to Finish: How I Bring My Ideas to Life

Last week, I shared my collection planning process with you where I came up with a theme and loosely jotted down thumbnail ideas for each pattern.

This week my focus was on bringing those thumbnails to life with more detailed sketches. This is the part where I start to get into a groove and see something tangible forming.

My goal was to sketch out at least 15 of the 20 thumbnails I previously created. I got to work, and 12 of them resulted in designs that I felt confident bringing to finish. Here’s a peek at a couple~

Note: Sometimes I add a little color to separate the elements and get a better view of the composition though these likely won’t be the final colors.

If you’re familiar with design tools and are curious about how I created these, I love using Photoshop’s Pattern Preview feature. I can sketch directly into it and see how each piece will repeat on a larger surface as I go.

Everything inside the blue square is where I draw and what makes up the repeat block. Outside the blue square is where it repeats.

I feel great about the 12 designs I have so far and next week my focus will be on inking them and designing the finalized motifs.

This is my favorite part of the process because all of the hard work is done. I’ve already made the big decisions and now I get to focus on cleaning up what’s in front of me and making it presentable.

I’ll share more about how it turns out next week!

~Rachel