How do I come up with my designs?

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• Ideas

• Inspiration

• Lessons Learned

• Thank you!

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I have been drawing patterns and designs consistently for a little over two months, and drawing or painting since I was a child. Throughout my life my art has ebbed and flowed, sometimes going as long as a year or more without creating anything on those mediums. To my surprise, drawing my patterns and designs these past two months has been something that fit seamlessly into my routine. While it has fit seamlessly, I have recently noticed certain patterns in my thought process when I take time to draw. So let’s talk about those!

I’ll dive into ideas I’ve had, both good ones and ones I have scrapped, where I draw inspiration from, and things I have learned during this process.

Ideas

I could say this whole design business started with a big idea of putting my art on products for others to enjoy. If you would like to read about how I started this journey, checkout my blog post “I have no idea what I am doing.” I keep telling Mr. Designs by KLM that my ideas just keep coming and they won’t stop. Which to me, that is a good and bad thing. I am someone who has always struggled with anxiety and self-confidence; this is really the first time I am stepping out on my own and not letting my doubts rule my actions.

I wish I had a simple “this is how I got my ideas,” but I don’t. All of my ideas seem to come to me in the most unassuming ways. A majority of my ideas have come while I was driving my kids to school in the mornings, or driving to pick them up. If you’ve checked out my blog above, you know my idea for the design business all started because my best friend is writing a book and I thought one day she might need a map. Seriously, this all started because I wanted to draw a map for my bestie’s book.

Throughout this process, when I get an idea, I ask myself “why not?” Why not try this crazy idea of pursuing a business? Why not post drawings to Instagram? Why not create artwork and put it out there? If no one likes it, who cares? I like it, so maybe someone else will too. So if you have an idea, but your anxiety or self-doubts start saying “no one will like this, you can’t do it,” ask yourself “why not?” instead.

All of my ideas are laid out in my design journal. I am someone who benefits from putting pen to paper, so I have a simple bullet journal (one of my own designs that can be found in the image above!) that I put a table of contents in and section off for my ideas. I always have it handy, since I never know when an idea will strike or what will trigger an idea. I write every idea I have down, both good and bad. When I say “bad,” I mean one that I personally think may not amount to anything or one that might cost a lot more money and time than I can put in at the moment. Recently I had an idea that I started to dive fully into, realized my plan was not feasible, and put it on the back burner for now. I created a list of business goals and pushed it out to be one of my long term goals to pursue in the future. But while I had tabled that idea, I had thought of another one to satisfy me until I can launch my big goal. I highly encourage you to write down all of your ideas because you never know what they might turn into.

I have worked on myself and my mental health a lot over the past couple of years. I am in the best headspace I have ever been, and I think that also has played a part in how my ideas keep flowing. I notice I have not been bogged down with my anxious cloud of intrusive thoughts that used to take up a majority of my brain space.

Inspiration

I find my inspiration all around me on a daily basis. Most of my patterns have come to me while being with my family in our yard. For example, I came up with the Tropical Turtle Pattern while playing with my kids in their sandbox. I was handed a small, green turtle toy, and BAM! Inspiration for a pattern with turtles and hibiscus struck. I came up with the Pineapple Watermelon Pattern and Summer Fun Pattern while swimming in the pool with my family and talking about pool floats.

I have always enjoyed drawing flowers, leaves, and nature scenes, and that has played a large part in how I have come up with my patterns. But as much as I love drawing those things, I have found that I need to be feeling like drawing those things in order for the pattern to come together. You may be thinking “well if you thought of it, doesn’t that mean you were feeling it?” I have learned that is not necessarily the case. I have found there is a difference, for me, between thinking of a pattern and feeling or being inspired to do a pattern. To put this into a better perspective I’ll give you a real example. I spent a couple hours designing all sorts of vegetables to use in a pattern. I thought since we, as a family, love gardening it would be a good idea. All the vegetables were in my typical art style, but I couldn’t get the pattern to look good. I put it down and stepped away. I started drawing another pattern that popped into my head and I was dying to get it drawn and into a pattern form. That one took me less time to complete than the failed vegetables pattern did. Since I was feeling the new pattern, I had a clear vision, and wanted to see it come to life, it was so much easier for me to create.

I understand this is an abstract concept, and most people don’t think the same way as me. The best thing I can compare it to is being a mood reader. If I pick up a book and am not in the mood for it, I need to put it down, or I will not enjoy it. The same can be said with my pattern inspiration. If I have an idea, start drawing it, but am not in the mood for it, I will not enjoy it, and it will not come together.

My biggest takeaway? Do what inspires your whole being. Just because you think of an idea, doesn’t necessarily mean it inspires you. Take away the ideas that you can’t stop thinking about, that you want to see come to life, and use those to drive your inspiration into reality.

Lessons Learned

One of the biggest lessons I have learned is the importance of finding my own art style. There are so many artists and digital art creators, and they all create gorgeous works. I have found, if you like a particular artist rendition and try to use that in your own art, it doesn’t really work. For example, I tried to do more basic colorings in my patterns. I tried using one color with no shadowing or color variation, but it didn’t feel right to me. It didn’t look good in my eyes. Why? Because it was not my own art style. My art style is not the one tone color look. I prefer to have layers in my patterns. Ones that have highlights and shadows rather than one color. Does it make it harder to create things? A little bit, but it’s my art style, and I have learned to embrace it!

The second lesson I’ve learned ties into what I said in the Inspiration section. Draw what comes to you and not what you think you should draw. I thought I should draw all those vegetables and put them into a pattern, but I didn’t have feeling or emotion behind it so it (so far) is a flop. I say so far because something else I’ve learned is to never fully scrap something. I’ve tabled projects in the past and saved them when I was in the right mood for them or had an idea on how to make them work.

Thank you!

Thank you SO much for taking the time to read this. I hope you enjoyed it, and if you did, leave feedback in my poll below!

Want to catch up on my latest blog posts?

You can find a full list here or my most recent posts below!

• What do I really think of my own products?

• RedBubble vs Fourthwall: Why Sell on Both?

• How do you start a small design business?

Check Out My Websites, Poll and Socials!