Posts Tagged ‘pattern’

The Trend Effect

Wednesday, September 7th, 2011

I’ve been living on Pinterest since I first signed up and I am constantly getting a first hand look at some great trends in action. With Pinterst you see all types of images that members are bookmarking across the internet, from fashion, interiors, to graphic design. It allows you to get a first hand look at what’s popular and new.

There is always a trickle effect in design trends. I’ve said it before, that what you see in fashion effects the world of interior design and finally touches on graphic design. These effects can be seen through color, pattern, shape, balance and even texture. Keeping up with the trends in all three areas is important. It allows us to see design trends from a different angle and lets us evolve our own designs.

On Pinterest you may need to do some wading, but there are definitely some great current trends that you can pick up on. Below are a few trends I’ve been noticing in the fashion and interior realms and how these trends may effect design choices for current graphic design.

Industrial: Industrial design is everywhere in interior design. It’s a mixture of clean lines, heavy metals, warm woods and simple shapes. Industrial is all about form and function without any fluff.

How it translates to graphic design: Minimalist designs, heavy gritty textures, shiny and smooth surfaces, dark moody grays, taupes and blacks, chunky slab serif and modern serif fonts, simple icons, and geometric forms.

Industrial Design

Pattern: Geometric, tribal and Southwest patterns are all over fashion and interior spaces. Patterns are generally a wonderful mix of rich vibrant colors combined with neutrals like soft gray, white and black.

How it translates to graphic design: Exciting geometric designs, bright colors and contrasting neutrals. Subtle patterned backgrounds and unique color pallets.

Mod/Mid Century: The 60s are coming back with tailored clothing, contrasting stripes, warm leathers, rich wood tones, and pops of vibrant color paired with charcoal grays and blacks.

How it translates to graphic design: Bold geometric shapes. Vibrant mix of muted warm colors paired with strong dark neutrals. Heavy use of typography and a mixture of font types.

Romantic / Organic: Softer shades are emerging. Dusty Rose is back in along with nudes, taupes, and creams. Gauzy fabrics, organic materials, tufted furniture, velvet, reflective mirrored surfaces and elegant shapes and lines.

How it translates to graphic design. Heavy use of neutrals, soft organic shapes and textures. Hand drawn calligraphic fonts. Light and subtle textures. Thin lines, natural shapes and soft curves.

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Tutorial: Subtle Web Backgrounds Using Photoshop Texturizer

Wednesday, June 8th, 2011

Subtle web background textures are extremely popular in current web design. They can be used to give a site depth and and add richness in a way that isn’t too overwhelming. I’ve been really into using these subtle textures in my web designs and I’ve been on the hunt for how to create my own textures from scratch. Today I’m going to share one way to create these patterns for your own web designs.

In this tutorial I’ll show you how to create a repeatable pattern in Photoshop and then use Photoshop’s texturizer to make a unique subtle and repeatable web background (as seen on the left). The texturizer’s great, because it allows you to add texture to an image without altering the image below. If you’ve already got a repeatable texture, you can jump down to section B to get started with the Texturizer!

A. CREATE A REPEATABLE TEXTURE

1. Find a Photo. Start with finding a high-res pattern image. I choose to work with a great fabric texture found here, but you could easily use a different photo or create your own.

2. Convert Texture to Grayscale and Resize. Bring your texture into Photoshop and convert to Grayscale. To do this go to, Image > Mode > Grayscale. Resize your image as necessary. I scaled mine down to create a more subtle look. Go to Image > Image Size to adjust the scale of your pattern.

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Color Trends: The Economic Effect

Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010

Earlier this year, Pantone named Turquoise as the color of the year and it can now be found all throughout the fashion, interior, and graphic industries. The color was chosen because it “evokes thoughts of soothing, tropical waters and an escape from the everyday troubles of the world, while at the same time restoring our sense of well being.” Color trends for all areas of design are most often chosen based on our current economic and social trends. We have been living in a world economic crisis and it’s no wonder a color was picked to represent an escape from our everyday lives.

The current economy continues to haunt us and that translates into a desire for the better days of the past. We are saving money, and trying to go green by repurposing, recycling, and reusing the materials available around us. For 2011, with money on the back-burner, there will be a foreseen focus on family and preserving and exploring the past. What does this mean for design? Picture old, heirloom colors, distressed finished and earthy hues of brown, green and blue. We’ll seek styles that bring us comfort, reminiscent of our heritage and roots. Trend analysts are forseeing a large interest in patterns, textures and colors that have a global influence. Renewed Aboriginal, Tribal and bold geometric patterns will be set off with amber tones, tomato reds, and sea blues, balanced by earthy neutrals like putty and sand.

To keep money in our wallets, we will also crave to keep things simple. Tones of gray and white will be the hottest neutrals and will be popped with warm butter yellows and taupes. To keep things sophisticated, understated washes of gold and champagne metallics will make their way into this upcoming 2011 season’s pallet. We should find all of these trends reflected in paint and fabric, and we will probably find overlapping in graphic design, by the use of simple and warm-colored hues, printed textures, and a mixture of patterns throughout collateral. Curious about how this might look? Check out these examples below of how this may effect design in the upcoming year:

Reference:
 Pantone Unveils Color of the Year for 2010:PANTONE 15-5519 Turquoise
Pantone Must-Have Colors for 2011
Interior Design Trends for 2011
Interior design trends for 2011 will reflect on ancestry

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Solving Problems with Patterns

Friday, May 28th, 2010

Pattern Tap pattern collections

Designers are big problem solvers. We hunt down solutions to make a layout not only eye-catching, but also functional for a viewer or user. When designing for the web, we often come across common usability problems, such as deciding on what navigational format will work best, button style, background type, etc. For insight and help solving these problems, we can look at design patterns—general solutions solving common and reoccurring problems of interface design.

Of course, there are always various ways to approach these problems, and designers before us have explored multiple solutions to resolve them. Reusing these functional patterns can help avoid unwanted issues with the usability of our designs and give us awareness of best practices, inspiration, and real-world examples of how people are solving these issues. This way, we can design the best solution for our project needs. There are a variety of websites out there offering great pattern libraries with examples from everything from sign-in box style to table design. I definitely would suggest giving these sites a look, especially if you want to see a large variety of a single web element without racing around the web to see examples of how something is used. Below is a list of my fav’s along with a few new finds. Enjoy!

Pattern Tap
UI Patterns
Design Snips
Yahoo Design Pattern Library
UI Pattern Factory
CSS Bake

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Personal Patterns off the Runway

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010
Designing Patterns

Project Runway pattern design

Spoiler Alert.

I hope everyone already caught last week’s episode of Project Runway, and if not, you should run and watch it now. On the latest show, the designers were put to the challenge of creating their own signature fabric prints to incorporate into a finished look, representative of their personal aesthetic. The designers had one whole hour (I’d like to see what they could have come up with in more time) to draw out their prints on a HP All-in-One desktop PC. Some were hideous (Check out Mila’s rainbow mess), and others were a success with the judges (check out Emilo Sosa’s graffiti styled brand pattern). After creating the patterns on the computer, they were then printed digitally onto fabric. The idea of printing my own fabric made me green with envy. I’m a nut for interior design, so getting to further personalize my home using my own graphic design prowess excites the banana’s out of me. Unfortunately, the task seemed way out of reach.

As luck would have it, I wondered across this gem of a web site that let’s you upload your artwork and purchase your very own fabric masterpiece. Best part is, that it won’t break the bank and there is no minimum! I think it’s time to start getting creative. Need help creating your own patterns? Check out this post on creating seamless patterns in illustrator.

FYI, (for those in the know) I hope I never have to hear “T.G.” used as a nickname ever again. You’re killing me Mila.

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