Karolful Karolful

Eclectic Folk

This series continues to draw inspiration from a long-standing tradition of Decorative Arts. The aim being to create a modern reimagining of traditional folk motifs, based on stylised florals and botanicals. Brought up to date by using a fashionable coral palette and creatively merging diverse ornamental influences — this design offers a fresh interpretation of boho eclecticism.

This project was a part of my ongo­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion with Kidspat­tern. If you’d like to learn more about them please vis­it their web­site HERE. Alter­na­tive­ly, view the archive of our pre­vi­ous projects HERE, in which I dis­cuss in detail the his­to­ry and nature of our work.

All cloth­ing-mock­ups pre­sent­ed here are pro­vid­ed cour­tesy of Kidspat­tern and are used for visu­al­i­sa­tion pur­pos­es only.

Overview

This detailed design was com­mis­sioned for a client’s Spring Sum­mer Col­lec­tion aimed at girls (age 18–36months old). This series shares a theme as well as a colour palette with anoth­er pat­tern design (see Orna­men­tal Lace­work).  The range of corals, matched with accents of pinks was com­posed by colour and trend spe­cial­ist Kidspat­tern. Addi­tion­al­ly, this time it was con­trast­ed by an addi­tion of a space grey.

In all the pre­sent­ed vari­a­tions of this pat­tern, the three main hand-drawn ele­ments are arranged in a spa­cious, reg­u­lar man­ner whilst the com­pli­men­ta­ry small­er ones fill the space in between them. The over­all design is placed on a vari­ety of coloured back­grounds to make a full use of the colour palette and offer a vari­ety of uses.

Creative Process

Where pos­si­ble, I like to begin by putting my ideas down on paper with ini­tial pen­cil sketch­es. Typ­i­cal­ly, I then scan them in and devel­op them fur­ther dig­i­tal­ly. In this instance, the next stage involved clean­ing up the select­ed shapes and work­ing out the details of the orna­ments in black and white. I fig­ured, for the sake of sym­me­try, I could work on only half of the orna­ment and then reflect it horizontally.

Below you can view the main, final ele­ments that make up the base repeat mod­ule, which was then recoloured and repo­si­tioned in var­i­ous pat­tern options. On the side­bar, you can view the intend­ed colour palette.

Inspiration

As this series con­tin­ued to draw upon a long-stand­ing tra­di­tion of Dec­o­ra­tive Art, it offered a won­der­ful oppor­tu­ni­ty to study var­i­ous stylised botan­i­cal dec­o­ra­tions from across the his­to­ry and var­i­ous ethnicities.

Nowa­days, cur­rent ten­den­cies are lean­ing towards boho trends, which among many oth­er things, also affirms that influ­ences are con­stant­ly drawn from the mix­ing of the cul­tures in mod­ern soci­ety. Hence, this design is a sub­tle reminder for me to always stay curious.

Newborn Collection

Please browse through a selec­tion of designs pre­pared for the New­born Line of the over­all Col­lec­tion (age 0 – 9 months). This includes ideas for prints suit­able for baby hats, bibs and body­suits. Addi­tion­al­ly, these pat­terns are matched with a Home­ware Line that may be print­ed on pil­lows, blan­kets and bedsheets.

First­ly, the small leafy ele­ments are scat­tered around in a sim­ple arrange­ment, coloured in a palette of light corals to keep it neu­tral and soft.

The fol­low­ing two ver­sions were made from shapes cre­at­ed by fill­ing in the pre­pared orna­ments. Inter­lock­ing these with each oth­er in reg­u­lar rep­e­ti­tions allowed us to cre­ate this full cov­er­age design placed, as stan­dard, on a white back­ground. In this case, the focus was moved towards the pink side of the palette.

Next, these shapes were arranged in a reg­u­lar sim­ple repeat. This elab­o­rate ver­sion takes advan­tage of the full range of the colour palette includ­ing all the pink and coral shades. The com­pli­men­ta­ry, lin­ear out­line made from the same orna­ment was visu­alised on a baby jumper with a sug­ges­tion for an embroi­dery embell­ish­ment. 

Last­ly, an out­line motif was arranged into an intri­cate, del­i­cate design. Its eclec­tic influ­ences evoke damask and hen­na décor motifs. 

Dark Background

These ver­sions inten­si­fy and deep­en the palette by plac­ing the dark­er of corals as well as the space grey in the back­ground. This now pro­vides a love­ly con­trast for the ele­ments coloured in pas­tels and out­lined in white. These mod­ern, bold solu­tions were the ones to be select­ed, pur­chased and print­ed by the client.

Printed Products

Below, please view a selec­tion of quick snaps that should give you an idea of the final use of this pat­tern in print. These are our client’s first cloth­ing sam­ples, made to launch their Spring-Sum­mer col­lec­tion and to dis­play at trad­ing fairs. On the right hand-side you may see exam­ples of this print incor­po­rat­ed into their New­born Col­lec­tion as well — print­ed on items such as a bib and a baby grow.

Please note that these images are pro­vid­ed cour­tesy of the client and Kidspat­tern and are used for port­fo­lio pur­pos­es only.

I have tried to be as eclec­tic as I pos­si­bly can with my pro­fes­sion­al life, and so far it’s been pret­ty fun.

RBarthes_BioPic
Roland Barthes French lit­er­ary the­o­rist, philoso­pher, and semiotician.