Not the most related things in the universe, but trust me it eventually makes sense. Our in-class exercise this week had us making a multi-use pattern, by creating shapes and manipulating them in Illustrator.
Step 1: pick 4 colours – 2 vibrant, one less vibrant, and one dark.
My colours ended up being orange, light teal, grellow (green + yellow) and grey.
Step 2 – infinity: basically just make more shapes (Pathfinder tool came in handy – I seriously love that thing…) and put everything together symmetrically but vary the colours.
Note: It’s a lot easier to do this if you drag your chosen colours to the swatch panel for easy reference.
Shape combinations:
Mushroom = circle + 2 smaller circles, 1 on each side, aligned with the bottom
Teddy Bear = big circle + 2 smaller circles, 1 on each side, aligned at the top
Moon = circle (colour) + circle (white), use “minus front” on Pathfinder to make a cutout
Present = rectangle + top half of a star, use Pathfinder to cut out
**I also used the top-half of the star on the sides, as a shape by itself
Circle = self-explanatory
Ring = circle + smaller circle inside (white and cut-out)
Bottle = circle + 4 smaller circles placed close to center – 2 on each side (white and cut-out)
Wheel = circle + 4 smaller circles placed on the corners + circle in center (white and cut-out)
And the much-anticipated result:
Click through the link to see more accurate colours...
You’ll notice the pattern is repeated vertically – this was part of the assignment. I mean, I could have designed an entire A4-sized pattern…but I didn’t have to.
Bonus shape!
I really wanted to use this somewhere, but it didn’t end up fitting in with my final design. Behold, the evil teddy bear (and a field of mushrooms I also didn’t use):
Evil teddy = regular teddy + moon (ends facing up) (see above for combinations)
I’m kind of inspired by this assignment, and as long as my love affair with the Pathfinder tool continues, the pattern-making options are endless.
Experiments In Design 