Karolful Karolful

Vines of Clematis

This pattern design series was inspired by the resplendent blooms of clématis, a trailing plant grown for ornamental purposes. Its flowers are meant to symbolise the beauty of ingenuity and the trait of artifice.

These interpretations are due to its seemingly clever ability to climb around trellises and walls, and as such, it is admired for its resilience.

This pat­tern design 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 pat­tern design series of flo­rals were com­mis­sioned for a client’s Autumn col­lec­tion addressed to girls aged up to 36 months old. It was imag­ined in a colour palette com­posed by Kidspat­tern from pow­dery shades of rose, café au lait and warm taupe. This taste­ful selec­tion of hues was then con­trast­ed with a full-bod­ied wine maroon.

The tech­nique employed to cre­ate the illus­trat­ed ele­ments used through­out this design involved a unique mixed-media devel­op­ment. It is an inter­est­ing result of a bespoke combination.

The base was made from manip­u­la­tion of pho­to­graph­ic mate­r­i­al, which was then topped with an addi­tion­al lay­er of dig­i­tal draw­ing. This pat­tern design was com­mis­sioned to be a dig­i­tal print, hence this print­ing method allowed to ful­ly exhib­it the water­colour effect and the tex­tur­al gradation.

Starting Point

This first base pat­tern is pre­sent­ed in a medi­um size on a light, creamy background.

The use of the full spec­trum of this rich colour palette con­tributed to this design being bold and dis­tinct. How­ev­er, a reg­u­lar arrange­ment and a fair amount of spac­ing in between the ele­ments pro­vides an off­set balance. 

Monochromes

Here, the focus was shift­ed to the neu­tral aspect of the palette, which makes this pat­tern feel more nos­tal­gic, in tune with lit­ter fall colours from this autum­nal palette. It now also fea­tures an addi­tion of white to stand against the medi­um blush back­ground. Each flo­ral was recoloured in a mono­chro­mat­ic shade.

More­over, the arrange­ment of the ele­ments changed to be more irreg­u­lar, which adds fur­ther to this design’s spac­ing. These adjust­ments pro­duced a calm and pared down ver­sion rep­re­sent­ed in a larg­er scale as an over­sized place­ment print.

Dark Background

The last design is suf­fused in a blan­ket of warm, soft, milk choco­late hues. Soft­ly blend­ing with a dark­er back­ground, all the ele­ments were merged and recoloured into one mono­chrome white artwork.

This result­ed in a ghost­ly neg­a­tive of the ini­tial ful­ly coloured strik­ing option, which makes this one a great com­ple­men­tary pat­tern. This ver­sion is the most sim­pli­fied, yet charm­ing­ly sub­tle and sophisticated.