Deb Dewhirst Designs

Impossibly interested in all things, intensely dedicated to just a few. Designer and photographer with a deep love of all the arts and a particular passion for pattern design. Minds are like parachutes - they work best when open! Email: [email protected]

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Vote for your favourites!

Voting is now open on the latest Front Row Society design challenge. The theme is Art Deco patterns for bags - and there are many fabulous designs on display by some very talented people.

Here are mine - please vote if you like them! To do that, click on the images below to go through to the relevant entry page, scroll down and click the button that says "I love it". Thanks! :-)

Lotus Lattice

Citrus Sky

Synthia

Sound Shell

Geo Plait

Leadlight Portholes

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My Ever Emerald collection in the ABSPD Module 2 Showcase

My Ever Emerald collection is featured in Part 1 of the ABSPD Module 2 Showcase! Here is a list of links to all the featured designs:

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Context: I completed a course recently called "The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design". Aside from learning some really useful stuff, I really enjoyed being part of a large community of talented designers who were also very generous in sharing tips and information. A great experience that I'd highly recommend!

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Two designs in the top 100!

Tigerprint has just released the top 100 picks for their Female Surface Pattern competition - and two of my patterns have been included:

"Floral Flurry"

and

"Ikat Overlay"

How exciting to be placed in the top 100! Winners will be announced sometime next week, I believe. Good luck also to my talented ABSPD classmates whose designs were also selected!

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Life is not always "a walk in the park" and we are living in "interesting times" as the Chinese curse puts it, but late this afternoon during the golden hour was a great time for a walk in the park. London in springtime is very pretty and it goes without saying (but I will anyway): lots of lovely design inspiration.

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Here's my entry for the Fabric8 Geek Chic design contest - wish me luck!

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Designer Interview: Eryn Carlisle of Zeryndipity

Today I'm very pleased to share with you an interview with Eryn Carlisle, a wonderfully talented 29 year old surface pattern designer who I've been enjoying getting to know as a fellow student of the Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design. As well as her obvious design talent, Eryn's energy, enthusiasm and dedication to her work shines through and is very inspiring. The world needs more people like her!

Eryn currently lives in Maryland, but was born and raised in Oklahoma. She has been working towards a career in pattern design for the last few years and designs under her own label Zeryndipity, launched in November 2011.

Eryn, I love the name Zeryndipity – how did that come about?

"Zeryndipity was inspired by three of my all time favorite words – zeal, serenity, and serendipity. It combined my enthusiasm for my business, my goal to always be at peace with my decisions, and the development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way. Oh and I snuck my name in there!"

That's really clever and very memorable! How long have you been a surface pattern designer?

"December 2012 is when I started pursuing surface pattern design strongly, but I’ve been working on it in my spare time the last few years after I did an internship during college with Working Class Studio. I just didn’t see how I could transition into a career in surface pattern design and kept talking myself out of it. What’s funny though is that as a kid I used to make little houses out of popsicle sticks and then fill them will paper furniture and wallpaper with “designs” I had drawn on everything!"

Fabulous, an early sign! I think that's a message to parents everywhere – watch your kids at play so you can help them identify possible careers they didn't know they were already interested in! So when, or what, made you decide surface pattern design was what you wanted to do?

"A few months after I found out I was going to be a mother. I’ve heard people say that becoming a mother shifts your drive and it’s completely true. When I found out I was going to be a mother I was thrilled, but it made me look at myself deeper. I knew I wanted a career that allowed me the freedom to be there for my daughter, and I knew I wanted to be an inspiration to her to follow her dreams. I had made the decision to pursue surface pattern design seriously and had decided to enroll in the Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design for guidance when a month later my husband and I experienced tremendous heart break and learned that we had lost our baby girl, Aria, six months into the pregnancy. It devastated me and she will always be remembered. I set out to inspire her and yet, somehow she has inspired me. My first collection after the loss, the Sweet Pea Collection, was inspired by Aria, and is still a work in progress."

Eryn, I'm so sorry for your loss. It must be one of the most difficult experiences there is. I admire the way you have chosen to remember your little girl by creating beautiful things in her memory – that's some powerful inspiration. Who else inspires you?

"Aria will always inspire me because I want to make her proud. Other designers though... I have a HUGE designer crush on Amy Butler. LOL. I’m still exploring other designers and have a lot yet to discover; I’m a fan of Khristian A. Howell and Jessica Swift though. I’m a fan of watching interviews on Monica Lee’s website, www.smartcreativewomen.com because she continually introduces me to other designers and I love to hear the stories of other designers' journeys."

I discovered Monica Lee last year and I'm a huge fan as well. Aside from being a great interviewer, she's always so positive and upbeat and I always come away from her site with those feelings too, as well as a whole new appreciation of the design community! How do you keep yourself inspired?

"A big one for me is watching/reading interviews of other designers, but also looking for different design briefs because it gives me a topic for my mind to start brainstorming about. In another effort to keep myself inspired, I’ve recently started #365motifs on Instagram where I pick out a topic for the week and then I try to sketch out a motif everyday so I’m in the habit of creating everyday... I’m not quite there, but I do pretty well with it. Sometimes I go for drives, or I take a walk and take in the beauty around me. I’ve found that being aware of the details around me keeps me continually inspired. For instance, the weekend before last I went to Florida for a trip with my friends and we were out at the beach and I noticed birds flying overhead and the simple lines of their bodies inspired a pattern. It was in the blink of an eye, but I think it will be a beautiful, simple pattern."

I love how those fleeting moments and scenes can be great inspiration to create art that shares your memory of it, with your own unique interpretation. On the subject of uniqueness, how does your personality/where you’re from influence your designs?

"I definitely see influences in my work from growing up in Oklahoma. I lean towards Folk Art influences as well as Native American Art and country. I’m also extremely influenced by nature because I spent most of my childhood outdoors and there’s a lot of open space in parts of Oklahoma. I will say though that I prefer a more modern approach because I want my designs to feel clean, fresh, and bold. I think maybe I picked up those last three influences up from the diversity I experienced during my college years in Savannah, GA.

Growing up I was very shy, and surrounded by traditional home décor and styles but over the years I’ve become more and more outgoing and introduced to many more styles. When I moved to Savannah, GA for college there were a lot of bold personalities and bohemian styles and I believe those have influenced me as well. I’m very easy going, up front, and optimistic and I like to believe that shows in my designs."

I do see that strong nature influence - Oklahoma sounds like a great place to grow up. I love your big and bold floral patterns and the colour palettes you've chosen for those! How do you pick your color palettes?

"This is a process I’m still refining, but currently I search online to find images that have a look or feel to them that fit with what I’m creating and I will select colors from the images. Usually I’ll narrow it down to around 3 or 4 images that I pull colors from. I also will take pictures with my phone if I’m out somewhere and spot color that inspires me. Again, this is a process I’m still working on and seeing what works best for me."

What is your design process?

"It depends a little bit on the project, but I think it may be easier for me to give an example. Most recently I’ve been working on a design for the Fabric8 contest with the theme “Geek Chic”. I start with research, so I first looked up the definition of the word geek and looked at all the synonyms for it and then I did the same thing for chic so I would have a clear understanding of what these words really mean. I then turned to good ol’ Google and searched what was out for this theme already and what has been on the runway. I created inspiration files, similar to inspiration mood boards and took notes as to what stood out and what felt right to stay within my style. I then started drawing a lot, keeping to my notes. I drew and drew focusing on different elements that I felt fit with the theme and my style. I drew for about a week straight and I gave my mind time to try and connect the dots. I had a general idea by then of the direction I wanted my design to go and then scanned in all my drawings and started playing with how the different elements would come together. I played with the elements for about three days until I got a design that felt right to me."

This will be very helpful to anyone interested in pattern design and is a good example of the amount of time, research and effort that can go into a well constructed design – but all this effort can be quite a lot of fun too, especially when you are pleased with the outcome!

My last question today is: What are your big dreams for your business?

"Oh geez... I have so much I dream about for my business! Currently I’ve been selling handmade items on Etsy and I’m working towards a juried art festival for June, but I’ve decided to move away from making handmade items because I feel it takes away too much from my time to work on designs. I may open a shop on Zazzle.com to replace my Etsy shop though. My biggest goal right now is to become a professional surface pattern designer by licensing my designs and picking up freelance design briefs. I also have a very strong desire to help women in achieving their dreams and giving guidance so we’ll see where that leads as well in the future!"

I'm sure you'd make a wonderful coach or tutor if you decided to add that service to your business. Thanks for chatting to me today Eryn, it's been really interesting to hear about your life as a pattern designer and what led you to this exciting career choice. I wish you every success and I'm looking forward to seeing more of your wonderful creations!

You can find Eryn at these locations:

Zeryndipity website Pattern Journey blog Facebook page Twitter Etsy Instagram

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BBC Radio 4 - Technicolour

Just discovered this fascinating BBC radio series on colour - well worth a listen. Thanks Poppy and Kay for the recommendation!

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Spot or Process Colour?

This is a question that has come up a lot lately and not everyone understands the difference. I've had some print industry experience, so it's a good topic for a blog post. Printing can be quite technical, but today we'll just discuss spot and process colours as they relate to pattern design. Feel free to leave a comment, or contact me with any questions: [email protected].

Colours from any palette or swatch library – whether Pantone, or RGB, or CMYK – can be specified in software by the designer as either "spot" or "process". These are terms related to printing. When preparing artwork used to create plates for a printing press, a “process” colour is actually made up of a blend of dots of any combination of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black; this is called four colour process printing). This requires four plates for which “colour separations” are made, splitting them out into C, M, Y and K. This gives the freedom to have any and all colours you like using only four plates.

So, an area on a page that is filled with a process colour may be represented on two or more plates; for example, a light purple colour may be a combination of dots on the cyan and magenta plates, or a darker purple may be cyan and magenta, but also have some dots on the black plate. Some shades of purple might even contain a hint of yellow. If you've ever looked really closely at a printed magazine, you'll know what I mean.

For the most part, process colour works quite well and is the cheapest way to produce the highest number of colours. However, sometimes you need a solid colour which provides more dense crisp output; or you can only achieve the effect you're after by "overprinting" with an additional plate.

Another reason is when only two colours will be used – for example, printing a two-colour letterhead – so you’d just have two spot colour plates made, one for each of those two colours because it’s cheaper to produce and run two plates than four. This is why for many years small businesses with limited printing budgets would restrict their logos to two colours (this has all changed now with digital methods like inkjet and laser printing).

So essentially, when you specify a spot colour, you’re telling the printer they must make a separate plate specifically for *just that colour*, for which the ink is then physically mixed to a recipe before it goes in the machine – which is why the Pantone Matching System (PMS) was invented, so printers could mix inks accurately.

In Illustrator, you can set the property of any colour swatch to either “spot” or “process”. Just open the Swatches panel and double click on the swatch, then select the Color Type as Process Color (the default), or Spot Color.

So the next time someone requires you to produce artwork using a Pantone spot colour – you first need to choose your Pantone colour from the Pantone library and then, in addition, you also need to change that swatch’s colour type to “Spot Color” in your software.

If you really want to get into the science of printing, Wikipedia is a wealth of information but I warn you – printing (both old and new methods) can be a very technical subject! I hope my short blog post has lessened the pain a bit by providing just enough information to explain the terms without an explosion of potentially irrelevant (for most of us) information! :-)

Click here to download this post in a PDF file.

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Illustrator tutorial - Recolor Artwork

Do you need to convert to Pantone swatches when you've already used standard RGB or CMYK swatches for your artwork? The Recolor Artwork feature of Illustrator makes it incredibly easy.

It's true the dialog box seems intimidating at first, it looks like there's a lot going on, but really there are only two essential steps that once you know them, are surprisingly straightforward.

I've created this PDF tutorial based on Illustrator CS5. If you have version CS6, I'd be interested to know if it's different in any way.

Rather than just click on the PDF link and have it load in your web browser, right click the link here and choose "Save Link As" (or whatever the equivalent is in your browser of choice) to save a copy to your computer. It's quite small at 2.5mb.

I recommend full screen view for doing the tutorial, but the first time you open the PDF, disable full screen so you can get to the attachment to download it (click the paperclip icon in Adobe Reader or Acrobat). I used this example file in the screenshots for the tutorial and it's also the working file I created for my entry in the Kleenex limited edition box competition (see my previous post).

I hope you find this tutorial helpful and I'm really interested in your feedback - do leave a message in the comments, or email me: design [at] nzdeb.com.

Enjoy!

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Here's my entry for the Kleenex design competition. Thanks to everyone who helped me decide which design to submit - it wasn't an easy choice for me to make. Please click through to the entry page here to vote for me!

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New pattern design - 'Meg'

Trying something a bit different with this one - what would you like to see this pattern on?

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The lovely Eryn Carlisle (Zeryndipity) interviewed me for her blog and it's now online here. I really enjoyed answering her questions and I hope you enjoy reading my responses. Thanks Eryn!

While you're there, take a look at some of Eryn's fabulous work - I love the detail in her floral designs and her colour palettes are so fresh and bold!

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I'm really liking this colour combination - it reminds me of Neapolitan ice cream!

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Just stumbled on these wonderful illustrations - aren't they cute? (Click the image below or the link above to see more)

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Pattern Showcase: ABSPD Module 1 (Dec 2012)

My pattern "Hazy Daisy" is featured alongside the work of other classmates in the Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design Module 1 Showcase (Part 1 and Part 2). It's great to see everyone's lovely work featured like this, and wonderful to see so many different styles. I just completed Module 2 and I'm really looking forward to starting Module 3 on 29 April!

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I'm in shape. Round's a shape.

Garfield, comic book cat created by Jim Davis

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Facebook privacy myths!

Regarding the messages frequently circulating on Facebook about changing settings by hovering over friends' names and unchecking things in Settings like "Life Events" and "Comments & Likes" to ensure privacy - please be aware these are usually hoaxes (see example here: http://www.snopes.com/computer/facebook/timeline.asp). All you are doing by following those instructions is hiding that person's activity and it does nothing to protect your own. If you are worried about your likes and comments on other people's posts becoming public, you can check the audience of the post you're liking or commenting on BEFORE you take action - it's the little symbol next to the timestamp and location of the post. Just hover over it with your mouse to see what the setting is. For example, a post of mine with a setting of "Deborah's friends" means those are the only people the activity is shared with. If it had "friends of friends" you can't stop it from being public since it will propagate across multiple people's groups of friends ad infinitum, so if you didn't want to be publicly seen, you would have to refrain from liking or commenting on that post. Of course a post designated "Public" is viewable by anyone. Also, it never hurts to check all your Facebook privacy settings: https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=privacy Please DO share this message to stop the hoaxes from propagating, and give everyone the correct information!