If you look at my portfolio you’ll notice a lot of my work is ocean-inspired pattern design. The world beneath the waves is an endless source of fascination and wonder for me, and I can’t help but be inspired to create patterns from what I have seen.

Marine life is colourful, bright, abstract, with lots of movement – exactly those elements I want to capture in my art.  

The feeling of the ocean itself can also be relaxing or energising – and if I can carry this feeling into my work then I have achieved my goal.

Underwater and beach inspiration for ocean inspired pattern design

I love noticing details either underwater or at the beach – I constantly look for patterns, interesting shapes, and colours of marine life. I have a bit of a ‘collector’ mentality, where I want to learn what every species is that I see and record it in some way. So I am always always looking!

Most of the time I will have a camera, or at least my phone, to take photos of anything interesting I see that I want to use as reference later. These photographs have been used for colour studies, pattern inspiration (the actual pattern of a fish, coral, etc.), and for developing mood boards.

I have an extensive photo library to reference when I am looking for pattern design inspiration, and honestly the hard part is deciding what to turn into a pattern first!

Ocean inspired pattern design process

When I am ready to create a new pattern design, I will first develop a mood board with my photo references, colour palettes, words and phrases, and any other images (usually from Pinterest) for what I want the feeling of the design to be. I will sketch out ideas for patterns and/or create some motifs until I see in my mind what the final design should look like. Sometimes this process is quite straightforward and I know exactly what I want to create  – some examples are the design Harlequin which is based on a giant clam I saw while diving in the Solomon Islands; and Sand Shapes which are lines created by sand snails on the beach at low tide. I knew as soon as I saw the shapes in the sand that they would make a great pattern design.

Some of my other designs like Dot’s Spots took longer to develop to the final pattern – occasionally the idea I have in my head is quite hard to create or doesn’t quite look so good in reality!

So once I have my moodboard and some initial sketches/motifs, I work on creating all of the art needed for the pattern. This can be anything from hand-drawn watercolour illustrations, hand-made textures, collage, photo elements, or digital artwork and effects.

I usually try to create more than what I will need – as when I am creating for a specific pattern (or collection) I have a feeling/vibe in mind, and I have found that if I try to go back at a later date and create more art for that pattern, it doesn’t always have the same feeling and can look mis-matched.

Then when all the artwork is completed, I scan any hand-made elements with my high resolution scanner, and bring everything into Photoshop.

It usually takes me anything from 4 – 10 hours to create one pattern design, depending on the complexity and how many elements are included.

I will check what the design looks like in repeat and often go back and forth numerous times to get the repeat just right – I want my ocean inspired pattern designs to look seamless and not obvious that they are a repeat.

Then the final step is the mock-up test! Usually I have an idea of what products my design would look great on, so I create a few mock-ups to see how my work translates onto a product. Sometimes I will see an issue and then go back and rework the design until it looks perfect (well as close to perfect as possible).

If you’d like to see more of my ocean inspired pattern design, you can explore my pattern portfolio or enquire about custom designs.