Introduction to Pattern Design
Learn the art of storytelling through pattern in this 4-week online course with illustrator Ali Mac.
You'll build a motif from a story prompt, construct the world it lives in, and combine hand-drawn and digital techniques using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop to build your pattern in layers.
By the final week you'll have a fully realised, seamless repeat pattern, coloured and be ready to apply this to a real product mock-up. You will have built tools and techniques that you can use again to approach creating your own bespoke patterns in the future.
This course is for illustrators and artists who want to develop a pattern design practice rooted in narrative and personal voice, rather than a purely technical approach.
Whether you're new to pattern making or looking to deepen an existing practice, you'll learn to build patterns from story and motif, using both hand-drawn and digital techniques, and leave with a finished, layered pattern applied to a real product.
Ali Mac is a US-based illustrator and fiber artist known for toothy textures and pattern work that tells a story. Her prints have appeared on products for brands like Kiehl's, Jonathan Adler, Nooworks, and more.
Her signature illustration style of chalky lines and candy hues took on a new dimension during the pandemic when she began working with sewn, layered felt. In the overly glossy age of AI, she wants the hand to be seen and the process to be felt. So imperfect lines and visible stitches are central to her visual language.
Find Ali online at alimacdoodle.com(opens in new window) and @alimacdoodle.(opens in new window)
Week 1 - You will begin by coming up with the idea for your pattern design. You'll create a short story concept based on a prompt provided, naming a motif, an object or a figure, and the world it lives in. From that concept, you'll sketch the motif and its world together, then start extracting the background and develop it as a pattern on its own layer.
Week 2 - You will return to your sketch to develop the motif further, isolating it, creating a few variations, and arranging them onto the established background.
Week 3 - Using Photoshop or Illustrator, whichever you prefer, you will combine the motif and background layers, finding ways to integrate the motif into the landscape.
Week 4 - You will explore different colourways and finish by applying your finished pattern to a real product mock-up.
By the end of the course, you will have developed a set of tools and techniques for approaching pattern design and knowledge of how to apply these designs to real products.
As the course is happening remotely, you will need access to a computer and the internet. You will need to have either Adobe Illustrator or Adobe Photoshop, and be able to share your work digitally.
The course will be delivered over Zoom and you will have access to a Padlet throughout the course for sharing work and asking questions.
We want our courses to be inclusive and accessible.
If you have any accessibility requests or questions, please email events@qbcentre.org.uk or phone 020 4524 2657.