MISSION: Make an "ahead-of-the-trends" repeatable pattern on paper and eventually in Adobe Illustrator that can be uploaded to Spoonflower to make your choice of fabric or wallpaper.

STEP 1: Make a series of 10 sketches--each 6” square--that seem like possible options for your swatch.

The swatch will eventually be a square 10” x 10” jpg. Each sketch must have dimension - a foreground repeatable image and a background pattern, it must have organic shapes/lines and must have an element that runs through the entire design. Also, try your best to come up with something that feels personal and ahead-of-trends rather than on-trend. Make these sketches in color and don't worry about whether the design would repeat properly. (We'll work on that later.)

Here is an article that I found helpful in thinking about repeated patterns in the design world.

Also, here are some examples of patterns that students have done the other couple of times we've worked on a project like this one:

Once we’ve narrowed your swatch sketches to just one...

STEP 2: Draw a 10" square. It's helpful to also draw a perfect line to intersect the horizontal and vertical middle. (You will use those lines later.) Design only the inside of the square at first. If you draw a circle within the square, that's the area that works best to design in this initial phase.

STEP 3: We'll do this step together. Using the lines you drew in the middle of the design we're going to cut and rotate your design. Once everything looks perfectly lined up, tape the paper together again. At this point the middle of the square will be empty, so you'll fill that part in.

STEP 4: Scan your design and begin drawing it in Adobe Illustrator.

Once your pattern is finished in Illustrator...

STEP 5: Since the file you upload to Spoonflower needs to be a jpg, gif, png, or tif, we’ll eventually import your .ai file into Adobe Photoshop for saving outside of the vector format into an image or pixel-based format.

STEP 6: Once you’ve designed the swatch, digitized it in Adobe Illustrator, and imported it into Adobe Photoshop you’re ready to upload it to spoonflower.com! You can decide whether you’d like to order wallpaper or any of the many fabrics they offer. (If you’re getting fabric, you may want to research the kind of fabric you want ahead of time. I have a swatch booklet.) You must order at least one yard of fabric or one roll of wallpaper so we can see how perfectly the pattern repeats.

Order your fabric or wallpaper at least two weeks before the deadline for the project. Sometimes orders take even a few days longer to be printed and shipped, so plan accordingly.

And in the end, you'll need to finalize the project in a three dimensional space or object. If you have an idea outside of spoonflower.com, discuss this with me far before the end of the project so that we’re on the same page.