Weekly musings #1

Happy Monday, pattern lovers! This is the first in what will be a weekly newsletter full of inspiration. It will contain my favourite patterns from around the Surface Pattern Design (SPD) world, any tips, informative YouTube or online tutorials I have found for SPD, and what I’m working on.

It’s 50 years since Apollo 11 landed on the moon! There are some marvellous podcasts, radio and TV programs celebrating this, my favourite of which has been 8 days to the moon and back.

With this in mind, I have been drawn to patterns celebrating the moon landings, the moon, and adventures in space. The following are Print on Demand (POD) designers:

Clockwise from left:

Vincent Desjardins design Calculating the Moon on Spoonflower https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/vinpauld

Emery Smith’s Off to the Moon also on Spoonflower https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/emeryallardsmith

Brenda Erikson’s Moon Glow on Society 6 https://society6.com/brendaerickson

And one of Dalight Design’s Moon Serenade collection https://www.dalightdesign.com/portfolio.html

Listen

I have just discovered the Honest Designers podcast:

https://www.designcuts.com/learning-hub/podcasts/honest-designers/

I haven’t caught up on this one yet but have really enjoyed episodes 86 and 87 which focus on honing your personal creative talent and ideas for developing your practice, respectively. It features a hand-letterer, a retro design expert, and an illustrator, and is hosted by Design Cuts founder Tom Ross. Listening to this podcast has already given me ideas for furthering my design work and it’s really motivating.

Back on the moon landings anniversary there is a great podcast from the BBC here. This is a 12 part series, starting from the conception of the idea and culminating in the launch and landing.

Design Tips

Whilst ironing, I like to watch YouTube. This last week after watching Elan Co Creative, I had a go at making a terrazzo-inspired pattern (as shown at the top of this post). This was really fun to do and it felt quite freeing to work on an abstract pattern. https://youtu.be/9oWd4FCN9qQ

I’m still working with a colourway from a holiday photograph that I love:

This photograph is really special because our much-loved family dog died in January this year. Using this photo to create a colour palette gives me a strong connection to work I apply it to, which flows into making something great like this bright Art Nouveau repeat pattern on Spoonflower.

That’s it for my first round-up. Have a great week and see you soon!