What I really love about being a pattern design artist is that I get to help out agents, manufactures and retailers by creating artwork for their everyday and seasonal products.

This is no small task for ANY of us!

Think about it for a moment:

Retailers, manufacturers, agencies, and exclusive boutique brands – they have to plan, produce, market, and sell all kinds of products for numerous marketplaces including:

• Stationery
• Home décor
• Food packaging
• Textiles
• Gift packaging
• Accessories
• Ceramics

That’s quite a few products, and they have to keep it fresh year-after-year to keep their customers interested and happy.

This is where I can come in and help.

My job is to conjure up really great surface and textile design and artwork that:

1. Harmonizes with their customers’ wants and needs leaving them cheerful and delighted,
2. Are on-trend as much as possible,
3. And then provide commercial, saleable designs – on a regular basis

I do that and love it!

Why?

Because it’s a challenge to me as an artist, and it also goes hand-in-glove with my love of research and problem solving.

Part of my educational background includes a Bachelor of Science degree where I was trained to follow the Five Steps of the Scientific Method:

1. Make an observation
2. Ask a question
3. Form a hypothesis, or testable explanation
4. Make a prediction based on the hypothesis
5. Test the prediction
Then Iterate: use the results to make new hypotheses or predictions

So I apply this to my textile design!

Observation: There is a need to create a pattern design (or many) that is on-trend, commercial and saleable for everyday and seasonal products. There are many products in the world that need to be beautified.

Question(s): How can I best appeal to the end user and make her or him smiling and happy? How will the products be used?

Hypothesis: By researching the end customer’s background including:

• Where they live
• Income level
• Education level
• Interests
• Where they shop
• Where they vacation
• Amount of disposable income
• Friends, activities, clubs

I can develop an overall picture of what kind of surface patterns, colors, textures and trends may harmonize with these particular consumers.

Prediction: By taking all of the above into account, I can make an educated guess as to what these customers are likely to purchase, enjoy, use, love, and come back for more.

Plus, by weaving in a latest trend or an upcoming trend, and using a fresh color palette, this can keep the designs I develop feeling brand new, commercial and saleable. All good things!

Test: Develop a pattern design (or a collection of them); license it (them) to retailers, agents, manufacturers and listen to the feedback.

Iterate: Lastly, tweak and start again!

So there you have it! My method to creating surface pattern design for everyday & seasonal products!

I hope agents, retailers, manufacturers, and exclusive brands can appreciate the work, thought, effort and love that I put into my pattern design work.

It’s exciting, fulfilling, and I derive a deep childlike joy from playing with color and design and making people happy!

After all, it’s really nice to have surface patterns and textile designs in your home, car, office, or anywhere else that you may spend time, that you can look at, and that make you smile, de-stress , relax or elevate your mood by loving the colors or other factors.

That’s powerful stuff and I love it!

Thanks for stopping by.

Keep In Touch!

I try and let folks know what surface designs I am currently working on here on this blog, so if you want to keep informed when I post, just subscribe to this blog by Email or RSS using the “Subscribe to This Blog by Email or RSS Feed”forms on this page!

Also feel free to leave a comment below.

Meanwhile, if I can be of service to collaborate with your business to put my patterns on your products, let me know, I am a licensing artist and live for collaborations!

Visit my portfolio – or – enter my showroom to see my entire catalog of patterns and prints – or – contact me to say Hello!

Bye for now!

Hilary Rinaldi is a nationally published writer, and an award winning illustrator and designer. She writes about Surface Patterns, because she loves being a Surface Designer, and Artist. You can learn more about Hilary on her Meet Me Page. Her goal in writing these posts is to share her love and enthusiasm for the Textile Pattern and Surface Design Industry, to learn as she goes, and MOST importantly – TO HAVE FUN!

I don’t know about you, but I like to produce original surface design ideas as often as I can

Don’t worry, I’m not a purist or a snob, I think all-computer generated art can be super cool and beautiful; I do some of that myself on occasion, but I don’t feel it’s always as original as a personally drawn surface design.

I mean, for me, who grew up at at time when there were no computers to play with (but we did have monochrome tv!) there’s something about putting pencil to paper and drawing out an idea directly from my imagination onto paper. It’s fulfilling in a deep way.

Plus, I know that brands, agents, and manufacturers are always looking for something fresh and new, and I want to provide that for them regularly to help meet their customer’s needs and desires.

If my designs and patterns can be part of the solution, that’s what I’m all about! I love to help.

In order to do that, this week I coupled a WGSN Trend with my own imagination

This week’s endeavor produced my latest collection: Midwinter Merriment.

It was super important, as always, to be as original and unique with my ideas and art as I could be, but I also weaved in one of the WGSN A/W 23/24 trends.

Here is my personal my mood / inspiration board that I made to help me out with my design process:

I believe that I came up with this surface design, Midwinter Merriment, because, even though it is April, we are still having freezing mornings and, last week, snow flurries.

As a person from warm climates I’ve never been able to fully embrace the bone-chilling outdoor winter activities, and with the prolonged winter this year, and me longing for warmer temperatures, I got to thinking:

What would my IDEAL day in the snow look like, as if I were REALLY loving it?

Midwinter Merriment captures that exactly!

I’ve shown only a small snippet of the surface design above in the header, if you want to see the entire artwork, you’ll need to enter my showroom, but you can get an idea from the above image of my little girl bear and her snowperson friend having quite a day!

That’s what’s so awesome about surface design, it let’s your imagination take over and you can be as audacious and original as you want, and you get to take the person who looks at it, with you on the ride.

How cool is that?

Do you like the snow and cold temperatures?

Well if you do, you’re a bigger person than I, and you have my sincere admiration!

For me, I’m going settle for having my design put on snugly duvet cover, blankie or other warm fabric and getting cozy next to the fireplace.

I KNOW – I’m such a WIMP! (but then again, I’m perfectly happy in 100 degree weather when cool-weather people are melting) We all have our strengths!

Anyway, thanks for stopping by.

I try and let folks know what surface designs I am currently working on here on this blog, so if you want to keep informed when I post, just subscribe to this blog by email or RSS using the “Subscribe to This Blog by Email or RSS Feed” forms on this page!

Meanwhile, if I can be of service to collaborate with your business to put my patterns on your products, let me know, I am a licensing artist and live for collaborations!

Visit my portfolio – or – enter my showroom to see all my patterns or prints – or – contact me to say Hello!

Bye for now!

Hilary Rinaldi is a nationally published writer, and an award winning illustrator and designer. She writes about Surface Pattern Design, because she loves being a Surface Designer, and Artist. You can learn more about Hilary on her Meet Me Page. Her goal in writing these posts is to share her love and enthusiasm for the Textile Pattern and Surface Design Industry, to learn as she goes, and MOST importantly – TO HAVE FUN!

Making a Visual Identity Board Can Help You Decide What Kind of Surface Pattern to Create

When starting out as a surface designer, I was bombarded with images, imaginings, crazy ideas and basically I was all over the place.

I have a naturally creative mind and I can really go off with ideas without even trying, so I realized that I needed some structure and help to organize what I wanted to create.

But some of you may not have that problem.

You may need help focusing on what you want to even start with!

That’s okay; a visual identity board can help with this too.

Find Quality Help

By taking courses through the Textile Design Lab, I was introduced to many ways to structure and focus my exuberance, and to help where to start with the creative process.

This was so helpful, but making a visual identity board, was what really helped settle me down!

It was kind of like being given a “time-out” so I could sit in my room and just really think about what I wanted to do.

This can take time, and that’s okay.

Things may change over time, you progress and grow, but what kind of designs speak to you RIGHT NOW?

Take The Time, Answers Come

The result is the image on this post. The adjectives that I came up with are: Cheery, Young, Colorful, Movement, Nature Inspired, Sophisticated and Cute.

Many of my patterns now will follow that identity. It feels natural, and organic, and really ME. Of course, that doesn’t mean I can’t stray away and do other things, of course not!

My goal is: To HAVE FUN – so I will always being doing all kinds of patterns.

You can do this too.

A Visual Identity Board Gives You Guardrails

You start by collecting images that exuded the mood, movement, texture, and quality that you really like, and that deeply resonated with you, coupled with some of your favorite patterns that you have made.

This is very satisfying, and in many ways, comforting because it gives you the guardrails to keep you on track.

By focusing on the moods, textures, patterns that really speak to you, that’s what is important to you right now, so start there.

At the end of the process you’ll now have a board to look at to gain inspiration from, and that guides you to your next pattern or project with a clear visual identity to who you are RIGHT NOW.

If you have never made a visual identity board, and have trouble settling down and finding your true, personal, unique design esthetic – I strongly urge you to make one!

Go For It

Try it out and let me know how it goes! Leave a comment below. I’d love to hear about your journey!

Meanwhile, if I can be of service to collaborate with businesses to put my patterns on your products, let me know, I am a licensing artist and live for collaborations!

Visit my portfolio or contact me to say Hello!

Hilary Rinaldi is a nationally published writer, and an award winning illustrator and designer. She writes about Surface Pattern Design, because she loves being a Surface Designer, and Artist. You can learn more about Hilary on her Meet Me Page. Her goal in writing these posts is to share her love and enthusiasm for the Textile Pattern and Surface Design Industry, to learn as she goes, and MOST importantly – TO HAVE FUN!