Collection

Spoonflower Bootcamp: Creating a Collection

July 22, 2015

Today's Bootcamp post goes hand-in-hand with our current SpoonChallenge content. While working on your collections, as instructed by Bonnie Christine, you'll want to upload them to Spoonflower and add them to a collection in your Design Library. Here, our help team walks you through the step-by-step process of doing just that!

Why put designs in collections?

Creating collections is a simple process that allows you to keep your designs organized and grouped together based on color palette, theme or even season.

SpoonChallenge: Designing a Focal Print for a Collection

July 13, 2015

Last week you gathered inspiration and prepared for the design process. This week, Bonnie Christine shares tips and tricks for creating your collection's focal print. Gather your drawing supplies or digital design tools and get ready to get creative!

One of my favorite parts of designing a pattern collection is the sketching phase. This is where a collection really begins to take form and come to life. After spending plenty of time gathering inspiration, it's time to put pen to paper. It's always fun to see what actually comes out when you begin sketching!

SpoonChallenge: Gathering Inspiration for a Pattern Collection

July 6, 2015

Today we’re so excited to kick off our summer SpoonChallenge–Creating a Fabric Collection. We’ve teamed up with Bonnie Christine, a spectacular designer based right here in North Carolina, to bring you all the tips and tools you need to create an expertly coordinating textile collection. We kick off this series with Bonnie’s thoughts on gathering inspiration. Stay tuned over the next three weeks for tips on designing a focal print and coordinates, and completing your collection by creating a portfolio!

Pattern design can be one of the most fun and fulfilling ways to express yourself as an artist. Coloring your world with prints and patterns you’ve designed yourself truly allows you to express yourself in a unique and joyful way. Possibly the most important step to take before beginning a pattern collection, is to gather lots of inspiration.

Taking plenty of time to gather inspiration for a pattern or a collection will help make the design process run smoothly. It will also help give your entire project focus and direction! Clearly outlining your vision for a collection will give you a guide to follow, something to reference and a definite starting point (which is often the hardest part!).

For me, the inspiration phase for a pattern collection usually takes about 4-6 weeks. There are several possible phases and options to this stage, and I’m happy to share my favorites with you below.

Fabric8 Finalists + Advice For Creating Fabric Collections

May 10, 2012

We're very excited to announce the top eight designers from a pool of 100 semifinalists in the F abric8 competition from Spoonflower and Robert Kaufman Fabrics. Close to 7,000 people from all over the world voted for their favorite designs among the semifinalists.

The Fabric8 are:

View the Fabric8 on Spoonflower

All of these designers are being asked to create a collection based on their winning entry. The collection will include seven additional fabrics, and in the final voting round the world will have a chance to cast one vote for their favorite collection of the eight starting on June 7, 2012.

As the Fabric8 get ready to undertake the challenge of creating their own collections for the first time, we asked the creative team from Robert Kaufman Fabrics to provide a little guidance and advice on what they look for in a collection. For all of the talented designers who competed and didn't make it to the final round, we thought it would be worthwhile to share these tips from the professionals:

Guidelines For Creating a Fabric Collection

Your collection should consist of eight different patterns in total, including the design you've already submitted. A loose formula — from which you are free to depart — for an effective coordinated print fabric collection (especially for the quilting market) is to include the following:

A focal design (large scale, multicolor, complex, often includes a combination of motifs from the rest of the line)
A secondary design (medium scale, multicolor, often includes some of, but not all the same motifs as in the focal)
Small-scale multicolor coordinate (often isolates one motif found in the focal and makes it an all-over pattern of the single motif or single type of motif)
Tonal or two-tone or tone-on-tone coordinates (can be any scale – perhaps offer several)
A mix of geometric motifs and organic motifs (ie, florals and polka dots or stripes)

The prints should feel related to one another, which is most easily achieved by repeating motifs throughout the different designs, but can also be achieved through color alone, with otherwise completely unrelated patterns.

There should be a variety of scale amongst the patterns.
There should also be a variety of value amongst the patterns.
Offer a variety of ground coverage, which means that some patterns should lean towards the full coverage end of the spectrum, with motifs overlapping and covering as much of the surface as possible, and other patterns should be more openly spaced with more ground showing through between the motifs.

When we go into commercial production on a collection we usually run designs in several color-ways and often create several cohesive color stories, but your final collection for this contest should tell just one color story. It should be cohesive and coordinated, while still offering variety.

[To see all of the 100 semifinalists, see our previous blog post.]