Psychedelic Succulent Motifs

07 Tuesday Jun 2016

Posted by Alice Frenz in pattern design, pixels

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active wear, floral, mood board, motifs, pattern, psychedelic, succulents, textile design, trend

This mood and motif board is for my Op and Pop trend observation and corresponding leaf and flower motifs. I photographed succulents in my garden and drew the leaf and flower motifs in India ink pen in my sketchbook. I then selected my favorites, scanned them, cropped and retouched in Photoshop, then assembled my board layout in Photoshop.

My idea is to combine the current popularity of succulents with a poster style reminiscent of Peter Max, in bright psychedelic colors. I also would like to incorporate some Op Art curving stripes into my final pattern inspired by the work of Op artists such as Bridget Riley.

To me, the current popularity of succulents, Mason jars, and hand letter reminds me of the 60’s and ’70s popularity of mushrooms and snails motifs, organic typography, and the psychedelic neon color posters everyone hung on their walls. I think it’s something about their curvy shapes and casual beauty. Though I don’t recall snails and mushrooms being a decorating theme at any weddings I attended back then…

I had so much fun putting this board together! I hope you enjoy it.

See my colorful Psychedelic Succulent design
created using these motifs here.

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Motifs for Boho Borders

06 Monday Jun 2016

Posted by Alice Frenz in pattern design, pixels

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active wear, Adobe Illustrator, Boho, floral, mood board, motifs, women's

I’m working on motifs for women’s active wear for a trend I found in the Vogue runway fashions for Fall 2016. I’m calling the trend Boho borders. I found designs that interested me in their pieced together look of multiple ornamental borders.

I’m trying to build the sense of zigzag stripes and diamond shapes composed of the small flower buds and leaf shapes I created. I will probably combine these motifs with curved or angled abstract stripes, and linear textures to increase the feeling of empowerment and energy for the active wear market.

I first drew the flower bud and leaf shapes in pen and ink. Then I manipulated scans of my drawings with Kaleidomatic by Stuffmatic to generate ideas for different arrangements and combinations of the smaller shapes.

Then I redrew the motifs I liked best in Adobe Illustrator as vector shapes. This allowed me to compose most of the motifs by reflecting and rotating copies of the vector shapes. I also composed the mood board in Adobe Illustrator.

I have some very different flower and leaf motifs for the other trends I found and hope to get them organized to post tomorrow. It was such a great treat to take time out to spend with the flowers and leaves in my gardens working on my sketchbook.

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