Design an Arts & Crafts Pattern
Geometric Grids Made Easy
Built for Creatives Like You
Whether you are a surface pattern designer looking to balance all the elements in your pattern, a graphic designer looking for new methods to visually communicate your ideas, or an illustrator looking to expand how you can weave your visual stories into your posters, flyers or magazine work, discover the power of using centuries-old grids.
- Perfect a sense of balance and harmony in your patterns; no matter how simple or complex.
- Master symmetry and asymmetry with a simple grid of nested squares and circles.
- Discover simple techniques for creating beautifully ordered naturalistic designs.
- Use a grid to explore spatial relationships you never new existed.
- Cultivate your creative imagination, even if it sometimes feels like your ideas just won't flow.
- Bring your imagination to life with a grid, even if you once thought grids to be boring and sterile.
- Apply principles that will lend authenticity to your design.
- Easily create a design that is consistent with and respectful of the 'Arts & Crafts' period.
- Easily create a design that has depth with a foreground and a background pattern.
By exploring the little known properties of a grid like the one below, ideas begin to flow, one from the other, and with a readiness that unguided effort cannot achieve. In this course discover what you can acheive by combining this grid of squares and circles with some Victorian and Arts & Crafts design principles.
With the downloadable grid included in this course, you can easily find that subtle balance between the size of your leaves, flowers and branches and the white space around them.
If you are confident in wielding the vector-based pen and node tools in Illustrator or Affinity Designer, you will get the most out of this class. If these tools are new to you, this course will help you on your way to mastering them. We will be using these two tools a lot to draw and refine the curvature of all our lines.
On the other hand, if like Alison below, you don't do digital, feel free to complete your design in whatever analogue medium you choose whether that be watercolor, gouache or acrylic paint.
The arts and crafts style is so inspiring and this course gave me a whole new way to approach that kind of imagery. I personally prefer to paint than create digitally so I used gouache for my design.
Background image supplied by and reproduced with permission from Alison Kolesar.
What's in the Course?
- Approximately 50 minutes of video demonstrations for you to watch and copy.
- Layout notes for reference while you draw.
- Bonus Affinity Designer Brush - Create that squishy fruit dot pattern with ease.
- PDF Grids for printing and importing into Illustrator.
- Bonus Affinity Designer File - grids that you can use straight away.
The learning time to design a pattern similar to the one covered in this class will vary from person to person. Some people will require more practice with the techniques than others. Please be prepared to spend at least 10 to 12 hours of hands-on practice if you want to master the basics of what is covered in this course.
A brilliant class - thank you Chris! I hadn't experimented with the geometric grid method before, but this methodical, visually balanced approach to beautiful pattern creation was something that really appealed to me. Chris’s easy-to-follow teaching style, great tips and examples made working with vector drawing software an enjoyable experience, and I would recommend his classes to anyone.
If you want to learn how to create a beautiful complex design while making it visually balanced and simple, this is the class for you. Chris shares his design process, including where to find ideas for inspiration, grid systems, tips and tools. He makes the creation process look fun and achievable. Thanks Chris!
Course Pricing
One Time Purchase
$57 USD
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Purchase Once and Return for Years to Come
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- Access to All Videos
- Ready-to-Use PDF Vector Grids
- Affinity Designer Grid
- Affinity Designer Brush
- Layout Notes (PDF)
Chris Heath
Chris is a writer and designer with a serious interest in geometry and design. In the 1990's Chris completed his Masters Thesis on 'The Geometric Laws and Principles in Ornament'. Chris lives in the sunny Art Deco city of Napier, New Zealand.
Reviews
5
Top Rated
Jen T
Refine your skills
Chris has a calm and methodical way of teaching which I found to be inspiring. This course has helpful content and resources (grids!!). Even though I don't use the computer to finish my work (I use watercolor, gouache, ink), the course still had plenty of helpful content. I would also recommend Chris's Band & Border course to go along with this one, I used both courses to create my current art project. Looking forward to more courses!
Chris V
Wonderful Instruction!
I found this course to be beyond my expectations. Chris breaks down each process to make it easy and fun. His clear step by step demonstrations are perfect for anyone looking to make a professional level pattern. I particularly found the vectorizing instruction really great, plus he gives wonderful suggestions for executing the project. I highly recommend this course! Chris Vabre www.octopusconnection.com
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