Llamas

For the theme "llamas," I went for free-association (semi-) rhyming, adding in "origami" and "pajamas." For the origami part, I used patterns you might see on origami paper, and for pajamas I used the "bedtime" color scheme from a previous contest.



The pattern in the llamas are those stars again, and the background are the water droplets. I'm fairly satisfied with how this came out, but I feel like the way the llama heads are arranged makes your eyes zip across the pattern too quickly, undercutting the calmer vibe I was going for.

As per usual, this came in the bottom quarter of designs. My favorite entry was this cheery folk-art stripe.

Pickles

Pickles! During my latest pregnancy (this is a scheduled post, so I was still pregnant when I was typing it) I had an ongoing craving for pickles - in particular, miniature gherkin-sized dill pickles. This wasn't all that helpful for coming up with a design, however. I eventually went with just arranging pickles in a herringbone pattern.



The colors are from here:


Color by COLOURlovers

The background texture uses the "star" lines previously seen here. I'm really happy with how this one came out - the layout is clear but it still has textural interest. The pickles are abstract enough that it's not just a novelty print. But, the majority of voters didn't share my opinion and it only got 14 votes. My favorite entry was this one that shows cucumbers, pre-pickling, along with their blossoms.

This fabric is made for walking

This week's design challenge was in concert with a shoe company called Milk + Honey, to make a small-scale geometric print that could be used on shoes. Milk + Honey are picking from among the top ten vote-getters to actually put on shoes they'll produce.

For the geometric layout, I really like sashiko designs, and was originally going to go with the classic interlocking circles pattern you see everywhere, but then I noticed that even the example shoe in the contest announcement used it. I used a variation instead, where the circles are replaced by octagons, and it looks like this.

Since the middle segments look like stars, I decided to try using the Synergy group "star" palette, which are not normally colors I'd gravitate towards, but figured it would be a fun exercise if nothing else. I tried to make it look a little bit crystalline, like the prismatic effect you get through cut glass.



This came in 279 out of a whopping 495 entries, with 70 votes. Boy howdy did it take a long time to get through the voting! There were indeed several entries that used the interlocking circles - my favorites were the poppy-colored and aqua gradient versions. Gems were also a big theme: in bubbly circles of all sizes (came in fifth), serene graphics, exuberant wireframes, and emerald dots. Many people tried to work in as many colors as possible, in circle segments (came in sixth), lozenges (came in ninth) and pixels. Other designs I really liked were this wiggly zig-zag, folksy patchwork, linen-textured motifs, Death-Star-like windows, and blackwork. The entry I'd probably most like on a pair of shoes were the buckyballs, or possibly the sequins.