Soda Nation - 59 Bottlecaps of the U.S. National Parks

This week's Spoonflower contest theme is 'National Parks'. I have always wanted to do a print using bottlecaps, so I took this opportunity to make up a whole bunch of 'fantasy' soda pop brands and flavors--59 to be exact! One for each of the national parks in the U.S. Here is how the design looks on a fat quarter of cotton fabric (21" x 18").

And here are closeups of the caps. I had a great time researching each park to come up with appropriate soda names and flavors, and enjoyed going back to my graphic design roots! If you like the design, your vote would make me 'bubbly'!

Update: Surface Pattern Design Guide

It has been over a month since I last posted, so I thought I would update my last post about the Uppercase Surface Pattern Design Guide, with a picture of the spread on which my work appears.

You'll see familiar patterns in the first column on the right-hand page. I spent last weekend reading the whole magazine cover-to-cover, as I usually do, but this particular issue is especially beautiful and jam-packed with inspiration. Single copies of the issue are available from the Uppercase website, if you're not sure about subscribing. I'll be spending my freetime this week checking out the websites of all my faves from the Guide!

Playin' with the Queen of Hearts

This week I made my first little Flipagram animation for my Instagram feed, showing the designs in my new Queen of Hearts collection. I'm trying to focus for awhile on making smaller prints, which I'm hoping could be useful for a larger variety of projects. Let me know what you think! The collection is available on fabric, wallpaper, decals and gift wrap from Spoonflower, and totes, pillows, cards, and iPhone cases in my Society6 shop. (By the way, I can see this Flipagram thing becoming an addiction!)

It's a Mod, Mod, Mod, Mod World

Before I get to the main subject of this post, I want to say a big heartfelt THANK YOU to all of you who voted for my Geek Chic design in the Fabric8 contest! All of the 100 semi-finalist entries were amazing, so I am honored to be in the Top 8.

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The past few days I poked my head above the water of the ocean that is Geek Chic coordinates to take a quick breath and design something completely different for this week's Spoonflower contest: Mod Wallpaper. When I hear those two words together, I immediately think of flowing geometric designs from the '70s, in oranges and yellows...remember when groovy wallpaper was even printed with silver foil, so some of the elements were mirror-like? But 'mod' can also refer to the mod culture of the '60s, with coffee bars and jazz...and even perhaps a bit in line with Midcentury Modern and TV's "Mad Men".

There is a specific 'rule' in this contest: Use only three colors, and optional black OR white. I had an idea of the motif I wanted to do and tried it in more of a late-'60s, early-'70s color palette and style, but found that it worked better using a more late-'50s, early'60s palette. I chose GOLD (D49F11), PINK (E9B8A7), and GRAY (C8C6C5), with the optional BLACK. One thing I love about the computer is the ability to try different orientations and palettes in just one or two clicks. The final pattern I chose was not at all what I had originally envisioned, and I love that! Although now that I think about it, having so many options can also make it difficult to choose a favorite.

I think there will be a wide variety of patterns in this contest, as the term 'mod' can be interpreted so many different ways, but I can't wait to see them all! You can vote for your favorites starting Thursday, May 23, 2013, here.

Above: Choosing a color palette. I will probably do all of them eventually--which one is your favorite?

Geek Chic: Dorky But Cool

It's that time of year again: time for the Robert Kaufman Fabric8 Contest. In this competition, the judges from Robert Kaufman Fabrics and Spoonflower pore over hundreds of designs (one entry from each designer) and choose 100 semi-finalists. Then the general public votes, and the top eight designers then create a collection around the original design. The general public then votes again on the collections to determine a winner, who will be given a contract to work with Robert Kaufman!

The theme for this year's contest is "Geek Chic", so I went back to my '80s roots and focused on fashion and hobbies of the hipster dweeb, naming the collection after the term coined by Judd Nelson's character, John Bender, in the ultimate '80s flick "The Breakfast Club". Using hand-drawn illustrations, as if doodled in a notebook or *gasp!* on a desk, the collection features cameras (perhaps thrifted for 25 cents before the obsession became mainstream), calculators (everyone turned into a nerd when the calculator became a necessity in the trigonometry classroom), record players, Swiss fashion watches, combs we'd put in our back pockets, hi-top sneakers, and of course, "The Cube". All of these things have become "cool" again, perhaps even more so, some 30 years later. The ultimate revenge for those of us who have always been geeks at heart!

The first design shown below, "Make It Snappy!", is the print I'm entering into the contest. It features a collection of vintage and retro cameras, including those resembling the Brownie, Polaroid One Step, Canon Snappy (my first camera)...even a couple inspired by Fisher-Price toy cameras. These may not have been geeky at the time, but collecting them now is all the rage for geeks like me. To me, "Geek Chic" could be defined as "dorky and cool at the same time." And it seems kind of dorky-yet-cool to go back to using analog objects now when digital cameras and apps for processing and sharing are the mainstream.

Make It Snappy!

Cal Q. Lator and High Energy (Gray)

Apple Pi with close-up

Hi-Fi (Black) and All-Stars (Gray)

May the Cube Be With You and Magic Cube

Hi-Fi (White) and High Energy (White)

Geeky Stripes (Black on Grid) and Oh, Goody! (Black)

All-Stars (White) and High Energy (Red)

Hi-Fi (Yellow) and Oh, Goody! (Pinstripe)

Swiss Time and Geeky Stripes (Color)

I've had so much fun working on this collection, not only because the subject matter is so nostalgic, but because it is different from anything I've done with surface pattern design. Doing the drawings and then seeing them come together with color and in patterns...I could get used to this! There are just too many geeky-but-cool things from the '80s--I have a feeling I'll be doing a second collection!

Three Cheers for Pattern!

Check out these amazing kaleidoscopic pattern elements Cassandra C. Jones makes from photographs of people and things! This group in particular, called Good Cheer, is entirely composed of cheerleaders. Cassandra says on her website:

Good Cheer is an installation of wallpaper that is composed of snapshot photographs of cheerleaders performing routine stunts that flaunt their briefs. This type of photograph, a young girl in uniform with one leg up in the air, has a duel connotation of family values and pornography all in one image. Good Cheer surrounds the viewer in this paradox of ethical ambiguity.





You can see more of Cassandra's work, including some really cool animations using still photographs, here.

Wallpaper and Wall Decals? Oh, my!

What's the saying? "When the cat's away, the mice will play?" Though I really wouldn't consider myself the cat, but... When I returned from vacation, I found an email from Spoonflower saying they now offer wallpaper and wall decals! So I spent the first couple of days making sure the bulk of my designs translate to the new product.

Wallpaper is available in standard 24" x 144" rolls at $60 each, or you can get a 24" x 12" swatch for $5. And it's easily repositionable, so no paste is involved! Wall decals are made from the same material and come in three sizes: 5" square ($5), 15" square ($15), and 30" square ($30). The decals are not die cut, so they need to be trimmed using scissors or an Xacto knife. And they can be applied to just about anything! I thought a small decal of my Staxx design would be fun to apply in the living room of a dollhouse!

Here are some examples, including a 30" x 30" Footnote Flower decal sheet. Now, if Spoonflower would start printing wrapping paper...