Progress #2

Greetings!

This 'Progress' post is a reflection on my week's work. I'm hoping that it might be helpful to other new starters... or if anyone more experienced wants to give me any advice/feedback it would be received gratefully! It's a bit heavy on text but I'll try to stick to the point!

Ironic that I have started this post on progress with the word 'greetings' since this is where I seem to be having the most trouble and the least progress! I mentioned in an earlier post about how I had this idea for personalised greetings card boxes - I was full of energy and excitement about it and I launched my personalised card service locally to a small audience. I did get some orders for my cards and I also began to approach people individually. It has been met, on the whole, with positivity. But somewhere along the way I have lost my enthusiasm. I just don't feel so excited about it anymore and keep 'forgetting' to do anything associated with it. I've not gone as far as letting customers down or anything, I just haven't helped it to grow.

This week I am going to have to decide whether I am willing to put in the time and effort to build this side of my business or shelve it as something that just isn't for me. I know it's not the designing that's the problem - I suspect it's because there's a lot more customer focus and end product involvement to it than designing my pattern collections and my true dream is to have my patterns licensed to products/fabrics rather than being involved with the making of the actual end products. 

I'm not a craft person which I think is quite unusual in the textiles/arts/pattern design world. I seem to come across more people who are into sewing and making things and I sometimes feel a little inadequate as I've never developed these skills. It's one of the reasons I took Fine Art instead of Textiles at uni. Despite my interest in fabric I've just never had the inclination to make things with it - I just like to look at it. I was a painter for a short time at uni, big scale stuff with acrylic on canvas but I just don't seem to get on with the mess very well! I prefer gouache and watercolour pencils these days. I've also spent a lot of time on the move, living in cities in cramped, shared accommodation with minimal space so have adapted to this. I sometimes have a little envy for people who collect things - vintage toys, books... lovely inspiring objects adorn the shelves of their studios. Even now with the space and my own studio, apart from essential books,  I'm still just collecting inspiration digitally through Pinterest etc ... but this is also due to keeping an eye on finances too!

My pattern collections are starting to grow though, which is great. I'm currently working on 3 collections at once and after listening to 'Do the Work' by Steven Pressfield I've decided to apply some of his strategies to my work routine. 

He advocates working quickly with very little research at the beginning and then working out the underlying theme of what you are you doing and reminding yourself of this throughout the work in order to stay on track. So for example, I started with a design I'd done based on the Strawberry Thief by William Morris. I'd decided to build a collection around this design but couldn't seem to come up with anything that felt right. After listening to Do the Work I realised that I hadn't pinned down the theme of the collection. It had to be about more than just a study of the strawberry thief and a couple of co-ordinating patterns. So, I jotted down a list of words I associated with the pattern - English, June, summer, country garden, etc and decided that the collection would be called Midsummer and the patterns would be good for dining and kitchen products - I particularly like the idea of them being for al fresco dining products - melamine plates and the interior of picnic hampers! 

My Strawberry Thief inspired print

Working within this theme I created a square art board, called it 'collection', divided it into 9 subsequent squares and quickly doodled some pattern ideas down to fill 8 of the squares - the middle square being saved for the name of the collection. I started to build a vision of what the complete collection might look like using doodles and words. I've since done that for 2 more collections and I feel like it's a great way to work - it just feels more directed and more structured. I'll let you know how I get on with it this time next week.

First ideas for a new collection

So, in brief....

Highlights

• Postcards for Peace selecting and sending my design to print
• Using Laura Coyle's lessons to find a new technique for creating some exciting new palettes (more on this next week) 
• Entering the Make it in Design/Print & Pattern ABSPD scholarship contest. I never win anything but I really had to try for this!
• Doing a class on lettering on Skillshare - Mary Kate McDevitt is brilliant!
• Getting organised with my workflow when creating collections
• Spending more time at my drawing desk than I have done for ages

Challenges

• My personalised greeting card boxes idea is stuck
• Sometimes wish I had a bit more contact with other designers

Looking forward

• See what progress I make with my collections this week using my new workflow technique
• Decide what I am doing with my card business
• See if I can make more connections with other designers online
• Work on the latest Tigerprint competition

In the meantime I am going to start reaching out to other designers in my blog to ask about how they work. If you would be interested in participating in this feature, please get in touch with me through twitter @ilovepattern or email me: ilovepattern@yahoo.co.uk . I am looking for beginners, experts, known and unknowns - my intention is just to create a space where we can share our experiences of learning about the wonderful world of surface pattern design!

Thanks so much for reading and have a wonderful weekend,
Frankie xx