Whilst in Colombia as well as painting florals i also looked at how these could be changed into secondary and blender designs. One of these was of some green swirly aliens and this i have chosen to develop.

Initially i wanted to image trace these aliens in illustrator so they would be vectorised. Once the aliens were vectorised i could make them as big as i liked without fear of them becoming pixilated.

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Once image tracing the aliens i then brought them into photoshop where i used the paint bucket to change them into hues from my colour pallet. Out of all the hues i found the dark pink and green stood out the most against my selected purple background so these i chose to develop into a repeat.

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Although these hues initially looking like they did stand out, once printing out the repeating structure the aliens were almost invisible and it was only really the eyes that could be seen.

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To rectify this i decided to have all the aliens in one hue and then edit the hue, brightness, contrast, saturation and levels. Although it may have been nice to have a second hue within this design i felt it was only the pink that was strong enough to really stand out.

Overall this new pink hue does stand out a lot more than my previous experiments. At a later date it may be nice to revisit this design and add a second hue; however, i will see which fits in best with my collection.

Using the florals from my hero design i decided to develop another blender design. For this i initially experimented with a tossed repeat with the florals facing all different directions and in different scales. Despite this being some what pleasant the repeat was too evident and the stems of the flower made the overall repeat very angular.

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Instead i tried to line all the florals up to create a striped repeat. Initially i experimented with simply repeating the motif across the page and then mirroring it. Out of the two i found the non mirrored repetition to be the best as this had the most organic look.

From here i then tried many different repeats trying to create a striped effect. Out of the three bellow i feel the first is the most successful as it has a very clean and crisp look.

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However, i wanted to still see if there was more i could do with this motif so started to repeat the motif by overlapping the design. Despite liking the stripes of colour o found the first design too linear so decided to start to experiment with this on a diagonal axis. However, i found because the hues were so densely packed this once again did not work.

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After a while i started to wonder if i could use the line of flowers as a border design and cut out the petals to fill the rest of the negative space. Despite this initially seeming like a good idea, when cutting out the petals i felt they looked much more like eggs than flower petals.

After much experimenting with placements i soon thought a boarder design may be the most appropriate. However before making a final decision i wanted to have one last experiment and use the colour block effect. Despite this working to some extent, like this i do not feel the florals are resemblant enough of flowers so i decided to stick with the original coloured florals.

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Out of all the designs i came up with i feel the boarder design is the most appropriate and also fits in best with my collection so far. Despite this i am still keeping the striped design as an option in case this works better with my final collection.

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After making so many blender and secondary designs i thought it was about time i bit the bullet and made a hero design. For this i have decided to create a placement design as i felt this would allow me to be really experimental with my imagery and scale.

To start with i simply started to manipulate imagery into different positions. I started by using one of my boarder blender designs as inspiration to create a forest as i had wanted to develop this further. From here i built up imagery around this playing with placement and different aliens until i found something i was happy with. Despite being fairy happy with the progress i was making i realised a background which wasn’t just a flat hue could bring so much more life into this design. For this i decided to bring a liquify element into my hero design as i felt this would make a nice background but also tie in with some of my blender liquify designs.

Initially i went into illustrator and drew a very simple plan of what i wanted to distort. Knowing this would be completely changed with the liquify tool this allowed me to be really free and experimental with the shapes i was creating. Once happy with my basic layout i then brought this outcome into photoshop where i started to experiment with the liquify tool. Overall i feel this worked out really well and also allowed me to bring more textures into my designs. Initially i was thinking of a purple sky as this is the most similar hue to blue i have on my colour pallet. However, i soon thought in a child’s imagination there is no reason why the sky would necessarily be blue so decided to make it pink.

To add in some imagery which was not alien i then started to play with an idea that i got from a secondary design. For this i placed the aliens in two different clover shapes and then started to experiment with filling in the middle. I really liked the textures of the water colours and wanted to keep this within this new imagery so tried filling in the clover with the clone stamp tool shown in the second image bellow. Although this was filling the gap i was not able to achieve the textures and fill i wanted to decided to try something new.

Following this i then brought these alien structures into illustrator where i used them as a template and filled them in with hues planning to go onto developing them with the liquify tool much the same as i did with my background. However, this shown in the third image was not as successful as it was previously so i decided to scrap this idea for now and try something new.

This is where i feel i really cracked it and was able to start to develop some flowers. Using my daffodil alien i cut the key floral shape out and then used the clone stamp tool to remove the brown line where the eyes were. To make a stem i used the body of the alien which i was previously experimenting with and cut off the eyes and legs. Despite being happy with this floral i wondered if i could develop it into more hues so there would be a nice selection within my hero design. So for this i selected the flowerhead and then played with the hue, saturation and brightness until i had a range of hues that reflected my colour pallet. Overall i am really happy with these florals and would really like to create a blender design out of them. As well as this, seeing how easy they were to make out of preexisting imagery i already have, it has definitely inspired me to be more experimental with ideas such as this in the future.

Overall i am really happy with the progress i have made today with my hero design. Despite being happy with its structure i feel once i get more inspiration i may want to return to it to add more imagery and develop it further.

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For my final blender design in this collection i started to look at other ways i could extract elements from the same alien that i did in the previous blender design.

Once removing the head i started to look at if i could rotate this to create a flower design. Despite this working to some extent it did not have the delicate element i was particularly looking for. When this did not work for me i then went about cutting up the head further and removing the pink petals. Once these were removed i made a somewhat circular shape out of them and then used the orange hue from the head to fill the centre. Despite this working, it did not have the delicate feel i was looking for and it felt a bit messy.

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However, it was when dissecting this floral form that the idea came to me to turn this into stripes. To create the stripes i simply used the three petals and rotated them 180 degrees each time so they joint. Once creating a line, for the next i decided to make this slightly smaller in scale so there would be some depth to the image and it would not just be one flat outcome. Once having three lines of different widths i then repeated this across the page. I tried to experiment with introducing negative space between the stripes so the pattern would not be so dense; however, the pattern with less negative space has a bit of an illusion to it where some of the stripes don’t look quite straight despite the fact that they are.

Overall i really like this blender design and feel it will really attract my target demographic.

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For my next blender design within this collection i initially started by experimenting with imagery to see what structures i could create for another secondary design. For this i spent a vast amount of time trying to make the forms work together in some simple way; however, was not getting very far. After a while i realised that the legs from one of the aliens could make a nice blender design so this is where i decided to totally change my ideas.

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To create the strips i simply cut the arms and head off the alien in photoshop and started to mirror and repeat the structure until it was as long as it needed to be. Initially i was planning to create a checked design with these; however, once rotating them on an angle i realised how pleasant they looked in a diamond formation which i felt would appeal even more to my target demographic. Overall i am really happy with this outcome and think it would make a lovely blender design for my collection. As well as this, if i have time i think a pink and white version would also look very pleasant.

Since making this design i have also created it in a variety of colour ways. For these i have decided to stick to the same soft hues as i wanted the design to still have a very girly feel. To change the colour of the imagery i used a colour overlay in photoshop and experimented with a variety of hues. As well as this, i have also presented one design in a negative version. It may be the case that all these colour ways do not make it into my final collection; however, this will be dependent on how well my collection comes together as a collection and which really fits in with this. The product i intend these designs for would be wallpaper or curtains. As they are very simple in structure and imagery this will mean this design could easily be paired with others which have more colour, texture, pattern and imagery.

After being happy with my previous liquify experiment i wanted to try and push this further to see if i could develop it. To fit in with my mirrored and rotated designs i decided to do the same with this outcome.

To create this liquify experiment i followed the same process i have previously of creating a very basic image on illustrator, then repeating it and using the liquify tool on photoshop. For this experiment i initially used a green background as i felt this went best with my collection so far; however, now reflecting back i feel i should have used pink to make it more girly.

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Once happy with my initial liquify outcome i then selected a small section and mirrored this until it was mirrored along both axis. Overall in green this outcome does look very mature and i do feel for my market pink would be a lot more beneficial. Once completing some more designs this is yet another i want to return to just to experiment with hues.

After completing some more designs i revisited this outcome. Instead of the green, i have used the hue and contrast adjustments in photoshop to replace this with one pink and one purple design. I feel these hues make this design a lot more appropriate for my target market and the pink and purple designs will also become one of my alternate colour ways. As the design is very light and does not have a huge amount of contrast i think this design would be very suitable for a wallpaper. Because of the lack of contrasting hues this will mean the wallpaper is not overwhelming and can easily be paired with other designs.

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For my second collection of designs i decided to build off my family brick repeat. Despite not being fond of it myself i have had some good feedback from it and feel i could develop it further.

For what will become a secondary design i started to look at how i could repeat imagery to create a pattern. Overall this did take me a vast amount of time as the form of the characters are all so different so do not easily blend together. What i was trying to achieve was a good mix of scale and imagery whilst creating a seamless interlocking pattern. For this i experimented highly with different rotations and repeating structures trying to find a way for each motif to link together.

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Eventually i found this design would be better if it had two different repeats going on within it rather than just one structure to help break up the evident repeat. Despite being somewhat happy with this outcome i feel it could still be developed further. I hope that when coming up with a hero design for this collection it will give me some ideas so i can return to this outcome and make it stronger.

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For this blender design i have selected one of my liquify experiments. When looking at this collection of four designs so far i felt it needed something to draw it all together which was less busy in terms of imagery. I decided to select the liquify experiment with contrasting purple and green hues as i felt these hues were embedded throughout the rest of my collection and helped to draw it all together.

Now having worked on some more designs and printing them out as i go along i’ve realised the hues within this design are not really strong enough. As the tone of this design is so light the design its self is not clear, so i have decided to play with the brightness and contrast to make the tone stronger.

Initially i went all out and played with the brightness, contrast and levels; however, as shown in the first image bellow i felt i pushed this too far and the hues are no longer representative of my colour pallet. Once realising this i removed the levels adjustment and i feel the second design is a lot stronger as the hues and textures are now more clear, whilst still being representative of my soft colour pallet.

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I spired by what the tutors mentioned within my interim presentation i decided to start to remove parts of my aliens and turn these into repeats. To create this forest like design i simply removed the legs from my daffodil alien and repeated them around the border.

As the legs were initially brown which is not appropriate for my target market i wanted to change the hue of these so started playing with the hue, saturation, brightens and contrast settings in photoshop. Despite trying a variety of hues and tones i could not find one which would match my previous blender design so decided to once again use a colour overlay. Overall i feel this worked very successfully at making this design more appropriate for my target market; however, i am not totally happy with this boarder design for my collection. I feel i could get so much more out of this design if i developed it into a placement design. For now i will leave it as a blender design within my collection; however, once coming up with more designs and ideas, hope to develop it.

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After developing some more designs for my collection i returned to this design to edit it. Despite the square shape working with the design i started to question, other than square cushions there isn’t really much i can do with this design. Instead i decided to revisit it and rework the art to fit a single duvet cover. Overall i am a lot happier with this new shape as it is more appropriate for my products.

As we are developing such a large collection i feel it is important to have a range of colour ways to provide the potential for more connections between each design. As well as this, if a customer does not like e.g. purple which i originally developed this design in they may be more keen on yellow meaning i will be able to boost sales of my collection.

For these alternate colour ways i mainly experimented within my colour pallet; however, have also included a darker green as many of my other designs feature this shade within its imagery. Not only is this offering customers choice; however, also reaching out to a wider market that may prefer stronger and brighter hues.

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