Essential Surface Pattern Design Resources #3 Bowie Style's Print & Pattern

I'm not really sure where to start when talking about Marie Perkins' (aka Bowie Style) contribution to the world of surface pattern design - it's really quite amazing. A designer in her own right, committed blogger and curator of all things bright and beautiful in the printed pattern world, her influence and inspiration is huge. She is the go-to to for what's hot and happening, not just on the high street but also at the desks of up and coming new designers. 

Her blog posts happen at 8am UK time every weekday. I know this because it's usually the first thing I look at whenever I get online and I return at least once in the day! There's often more than one post at a time - with a vast amount of images and it's nice and concise textually (unlike me) - Marie lets the pictures do the talking. I wonder if Marie ever dared to dream that her blog would be so successful - I doubt very much that it was started with the motivation of garnering a huge audience. It perhaps started as a personal resource that now we're all thankful for! 

Marie studied Graphic Design and Illustration - her own work is bold and balanced, simple and clean - a style not easy to achieve. There's a profile of her here and a few examples of her own work. More examples can be found here. I don't think this blog is updated any more but there's lots of lovely examples of her style. Here's a few I picked out. All images from inkjet designs blogspot

Designed for Robert Kaufman fabrics collection

Designed for Robert Kaufman fabrics collection

The Print and Pattern books, published by Laurence King (AMAZING books!!!) are simply wonderful. From cover to cover they are a feast for the eyes and are so inspiring. They're the perfect size for the bedside or coffee table and handbag. I pretty much leave my collection of them lying around everywhere so there's always one to hand. Even non-designer types have been known to thumb through them.

So if you haven't discovered Marie Perkins/Bowie Style... WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?! And if you have, I'm sure you'll be as thankful as I am for her Print & Pattern books and blog. She really does give new starters a lot of inspiration and exposure with the opportunity to be featured on her blog beside established designers. Now go and immerse yourself in the world of Print and Pattern! 

Thank you for reading,
Frankie x