- Jen Lorentzen | Clutched Key Collective

Pattern Report | Dark Crystal

Alexander McQueen | Lanvin | Carolina Herrera | Peter Som |Fred Flare | Andy Lifshutz | RoandCo

Minerals, gems, rocks, and crystals are having a big influence on prints. Who doesn’t love a little sparkle? With all the new digital print techniques and the use of photography opens a whole new worlds to capture all the subtle nuances we find in nature and put them into prints.

-Schatzibrown

Adding to our e-books and trend reports, our newest offering includes photo packs especially tailored for the surface designer. As print designers, we know how difficult it is to find the right source of imagery or inspiration for creating designs. This first pack, Spring Florals, features over 250 high resolution photos of the many flowers that pop up in the lush Northwest Spring landscape, including tulips, crocuses, daffodils, poppies, camellias, lilacs, iris, magnolias, dogwoods, and many more. We’ve captured a range of angles—with full flowers shown—so you can create theme-based prints using the same flower type. These images are copyright free and yours to use as you wish once purchased. Use the photos as is or simply as inspiration for your many projects.

Designer Tools | Spring Floral Photo Pack*
$19.95

Buy Now

*After you click Buy Now, you can enter your paypal or credit card information. Once that is entered, you will receive an email with a link to your download. If you are using your paypal account, the link will be sent to the email address associated with that account.

**This download is over 500 megabytes, so please be prepared for a longer download

More information:

Flower varieties include:
Camellias
Clusters
Crocuses
Daffodils
Daisies
Dogwood
Euphorbia
Hellebores
Hydrangeas
Iris
Lilacs
Magnolia
Mock Orange
Poppies
Rhododendroms
Tulips
Viburnum

This pack also includes a contact sheet useful for finding the images you need. Below is a sample page:

Designer Tools | Spring Floral Photo Pack*
$19.95

Buy Now

*After you click Buy Now, you can enter your paypal or credit card information. Once that is entered, you will receive an email with a link to your download. If you are using your paypal account, the link will be sent to the email address associated with that account.

**This download is over 500 megabytes, so please be prepared for a longer download

Thanks to our facebook fan Justin Kent, I’ve discovered something truly remarkable; the Widmanstätten pattern. Curious about how these three-dimensional looking structures formed, I turned to Wikipedia, which told me this: Widmanstätten patterns, also called Thomson structures, are unique figures of long nickel-iron crystals, found in the octahedrite iron meteorites and some pallasites. They consist of a fine interleaving of kamacite and taenite bands or ribbons called lamellæ. Commonly, in gaps between the lamellæ, a fine-grained mixture of kamacite and taenite called plessite can be found. Cool! (I think.)

And the mouthful of a name? In 1808, these figures were named after Count Alois von Beckh Widmanstätten, the director of the Imperial Porcelain works in Vienna. While flame heating iron meteorites,Widmanstätten noticed color and lustre zone differentiation as the various iron alloys oxidized at different rates. He did not publish his findings, claiming them only via oral communication with his colleagues. The discovery was acknowledged by Carl von Schreibers, director of the Vienna Mineral and Zoology Cabinet, who named the structure after Widmanstätten.

However, it is now believed that full credit for the discovery should actually be assigned to G. Thomson as he published the same findings four years earlier.

Now we all know!

-Claudia

CRYSTAL COLLAGE:  desktop wallpaper     iphone 4 background/screensaver

KALEIDOSCOPE CATS:  desktop wallpaper     i-phone 4 background/screensaver

CRYSTAL FLORAL:  desktop wallpaper     iphone 4 background/screensaver

WOOD QUILT:   desktop wallpaper     i-phone 4 background/screensaver

SUCCULENT GARDEN:  desktop wallpaper     i-phone 4 background/screensaver

If you like these patterns, check out our society 6 page, where you can order iphone cases/skins, laptop cases/ skins as well as prints.

Dream Downtown Hotel

Design | Handel Architects

Stadtmuseum Rapperswil Jona Extension

Lightmos Thonglor

Fretwork is nothing new when it comes to external architecture, but the hole punch affect puts a different spin on the more traditional look. The most recent display comes from the newly renovated Dream Downtown Hotel in NYC which uses punched stainless steel and port holes to create “floating bubbles” when the light hits it just right.

Other designs in Switzerland and Thailand are less regimented with different circular combinations, positions and sizes to keep the eye wandering. The Stadtmuseum Rapperswil Jona Extension in Switzerland is my favourite with folded, punched bronze holding it’s own next to 13th Century stone.

- Siobhán McGurrin

Instagram Photoshoot by Nick Knight | Roses by Nick Knight | Galaxy |  ‘Hovering Over the Water‘ by Michael Cina | Sportmax S/S 2012 | Editorial Two by Yihua Li | Photo Paper Stripes, 2011 by Colorgram

- Jen Cheema

Pattern Report | Aztec Influence (part 3)

Element | Mara Hoffman | ASOS | Rebecca Minkoff | Antik Batik | NastyGirl | Theodora & Callum

Aztec Influence ‘part 3′…this really could go on for months, there is just so much out there in this genre! From high to low and from head toe you could be dripping in tribal prints : Aztec nails, iphone cases, leggings, bags, bikini’s, and shoes! Incase you missed ‘part 1′ or ‘part 2′ please check it out here and here !

-Schatzibrown

Jenny Kee’s first collection  in over twenty years  is by far the most exciting and original line from Sydney’s fashion week. In the 60′s, Kee sold ethnic and retro clothes, cast-offDior, and Indian embroideries to the bohemian crowd of the Swinging London and London Underground scene.  After appearing in some films and on a talk show, in which she claimed to have had a brief sexual encounter with John Lennon, she returned to Australia and opened the fashion boutique Flamingo Park with fashion designer Linda Jackson.  The two also collaborated on a line of wool knitted jumpers with emblems, one of which was worn by Lady Di.

This new collection seems to encapsulate her life and career, with ethnic bohemian prints alluding back to wild 60′s/70′s textiles and imported fabrics favored by the hippies. However, the line has a very modern feel with updates on color and interesting draping methods.

-Claudia

Modern Love AW11

1. Tell us a little about yourself. How did you start designing prints?

I trained in woven textiles and then when I finished university I got an agent and started to design embroidery and surface design…really print was another way of creating a design and I started to research different print methods…I didn’t have a clue about screens and repeats, I started to research digital print and taught myself to use illustrator…as soon as I understood the possibilities I was hooked! Color is my obsession and digital printing  allows the use of endless color combinations and huge engineered panels.

2. Plants seem to have a big influence on your work. Do you have a favorite and why?

Hydrangea – its flowers are like lace, its colors range from white to almost fluorescent pink and blues. Its very old fashioned and beautiful. Fatsia Japonica – I love the leaves and the berries that change from white to black, I use the leaf all the time in my designs.

Summer Garden Design with Fatsia Japonica & Hydrangea

Modern Love | Summer Garden Design

3. There are so many magical gardens in Britain. Is there one in particular that inspires you?

Nymans , Great Dixter, Lost Gardens of Heligan and Trebah Gardens….Sorry I couldn’t do one favorite!

4. What’s your tool of choice when designing?

First off my sketch book, I carry one around with me always and sketch and write notes that I can use when I come to start a new design. I then move on to my faithful Mac…I use a combo of illustrator and Photoshop. I draw in illustrator and then use layers in Photoshop to finish the composition of the design/illustration.

Petal Design

Modern Love AW12 | Petal Design

5. How did the collaboration between you and Kim Hunt for Modern Love come about?

Kim and I have collaborated on work for years together. Her background is fashion. She was a stylist and fashion editor so it makes a perfect combination.

6. Describe your design process for the Modern Love collection. Were the silhouettes created first and prints second or simultaneously?

I work on shapes and patterns simultaneously, moving backwards and forwards between the pattern and the shape. Each dress has its print designed for the garment. I scan in pattern pieces and map them out in illustrator so I can get an idea of the placement. I have always been able to sew and I think understanding how the garment goes together and how the pattern is laid out  is invaluable for the print design process. For the prints I collect things/ideas/photographs  that inspire me and pull together mood boards and color groups then I start to divide the ideas into prints and then I just start experimenting…i always create a narrative for each print…it helps and inspires me to create the composition.

Modern Love AW12

7. We love the original Biba too. Do you have any pieces you’d like to share with us? 

I always love the fact that the Biba store had a roof top garden…I love looking through the vintage photos on Barbara Hulanicki website. My faves are the Cosmetic counter, The Roof top garden and Leopard Mirror Girls. I only wish I had gone there myself!. I grew up in Zimbabwe till 1975…the year Biba shut. Barbara Hulanicki did go to the same art college as me in Brighton and I was lucky enough to meet her when the previewed the Film ‘Beyond Biba” at Brighton university a couple of years ago.

Biba Counter

Biba Girls | Biba Gardens

8. If you had to select four objects to represent yourself what would they be?

A mac vintage red lipstick, a pair of ridiculously large sunglasses, my red shiny shoes and my Holga camera.

9. Do you have a favorite print design? 

I wouldn’t know where to start Sonia Delaunay, Josef Frank….one favorite prints of mine is jungle from Spring Summer 2012

10. What’s your perfect play list to design to?

I just can’t listen to music when I work …..it distracts me so I listen to audio books and films…these are my current favs…

The Red Shoes
High Society
Synecdoche New York
Blade Runner
To Kill a Mocking bird
The Life and Times of the Thunder Bolt Kid

_________

To see more of Sarah’s beautiful designs, visit her site here.

– Jessie Whipple Vickery