Hi, I'm Elizabeth. I teach beginner surface pattern designers the clear steps to find clients, pitch their designs, and create a profitable, fun product design business.
Jill! I was in an Immersion group with Jill. She is an amazing artist and person. I walked into my living room and this was playing on RU-vid… it made me smile to see her!
hi Elizabeth! thanks for the video! :) may i know your canvas setting, the profile & size? i have this issue where i draw in procreate in cmyk, then download it as .psd, the colors become off and it’s no longer my original colors. do you have any advise for me?
That particular canvas shown was 11.5x14.5" at 350 dpi. Because I was just drawing icons and then tracing in adobe illustrator it wasn't specific to a repeat size. As for colors-my understanding is that procreate is only RGB mode, I have not seen CMYK mode available. And when I export, it is also RGB, so the colors are very close, but if need be, I can always adjust them after the fact, especially once they are converted to vector as I show in this video.
Great video thanks Elizabeth. My mind was blown when you were changing the colours so quickly. I rewatched but can't work out how ps knows which element you were wanting changed - you used the marquee to select the pattern, but then it looked like just the eye dropper. Were you using the magic wand tool or something else before the eye dropper that I was missing? Great way to test quick colour changes before committing. Thanks again
@@cherylbrucecreativ I was using the eyedropper to select color, then marquee to select pattern then the paint bucket (fill) to paint everything of one color to a new color. You may have to adjust settings, you don't want 'contiguous' selected because that will only fill one color that is touching. Unchecking that means everything within the marquee of the color you fill will change.
Thank you so much for reviewing my collection (the Halloween one). Your review has helped me tremendously to think more about having a product before designing my collections. And thank so much for your suggestions on reworking this collection for party and napkins and adjusting it to a certain industry.
Thank you for this informative 13:57 video! I love all your videos, I’m always learning so much. I would love to see more of these critiques because you are making such great points that I didn’t even think of.
Thank you Elizabeth, it was useful ❤ really like to see more critical videos like this. I sent you an email and my actual name is Farnush, I would be appreciate if you could answer it ❤ Is there anyway that I can have your opinion about my artworks like you did on a video?
Yay, thank you for this! I would love seeing more of these types of videos, especially if you use my submission (wink wink) but I love learning from others' work too.
I know this is a year-old video, but I just had to comment since this was the first video of yours that I watched! I've been a graphic designer for 30+ years - mostly working in corporate marketing settings. I've recently been tasked to come up with some surface patterns to pitch to a licensing agency. This is my first time to ever design surface patterns and I'm scrambling to learn the process (oh, my!). This is the best video for insight into the "process" - your process, I'm sure others may do it different, but this makes so much sense to me! I am struggling with the fact that I can't draw a stick man and I'm not sure if being able to draw is a key component in being a great surface pattern designer. However, that has not held me back from being a great designer overall - I just can't draw LOL! I am ready for the challenge, though! I would greatly appreciate any advice you have on that. Side note about the planner theme/message needing to tie in with it being a year-long planner - as a consumer of planners and journals - I have to say, I could care less about the message! If it's a beautiful theme and I love it - I'm buying it!! I'm a sucker for beautiful design! Your finished products were so fun and happy and would have stopped me in my tracks had I seen those in a store! Can't wait to binge watch all of your videos - thank you for your amazing content! -Michele
@@meeshell91365 thanks so much for the 'planner user intel' I don't really use planners that often so it's good to know! I'm glad this process video was helpful for you...I would look through my other videos to guide you. I have one on whether you need to be able to draw to succeed as well as a few where I interview licensing agents, those all may help illuminate if this is the path for you!
It's going to depend what your end goal is for your art (i.e. are you working with companies or designing only for print on demand?), but thus far I don't see Canva as tool that works effectively for patterns. LOVE it for other things though!
😞I left the industry over 25 years ago. I’m starting again working on my artwork. Hopefully, I can make it happen soon. I really enjoyed working in the fashion industry.
Thank you but we don’t really have access to all the agencies and links unless we provide you with our email address which isn’t totally transparent in your video.
The discussion on colour and composition reminded me of those absolutely awful tesselated patterns that so many people are "creating" (I use that term loosely as it's clearly software doing it) and putting on sites like Spoonflower, etc. Or worse entering in SF design challenges and such. They look like you took a photo through a kaleidoscope, the colours are always so awful and clash terribly, let alone the blinding composition of the pattern itself... If people would just stop doing that and learn about colour and composition properly (or even a bit), that'd be greaaaaatttt.... 😂😂 Thanks Jill for doing the interview, lots of great nuggets. 😊❤
Happy this popped up. It was a good review of my life from BFA to retail illustration to design and back to my roots with fine art, including portrait commissions and now spec paintings. It's been a success, but not easy!
I have a Skillshare membership that I have been renewing for the past, I think, three years. There are some bad teachers but there are more good teachers. The thing that frustrates me most is you never know the date the class was made so much of the information could be out of date but you don’t know this when you take the course. Also, some teachers really share a lot of information and go at a great pace and others race through not properly explaining things. I didn’t know teachers were so poorly paid though, that’s not fair.
That's a good point about not knowing when a course is made- mine are pretty old. I still think they are valid as far as content, but I can see how some info could easily be out of date in certain topics. Yea, the pay rate is bad...it's a great place to build an audience as a teacher though because you already have built in students so there are definitely pros and cons!
All your videos are helpful and amazing 🤩 . I just started digital art and using procreate, I didn’t go to the art school and never had any art project (digital and even hand draw) But I think that I have acceptable drawing skills. How can I start to make a portfolio? Whenever I search for that in RU-vid or in the internet people are talking about using project that you did in school or what ever but I don’t have any history in art😢. If you have any idea that how and where I can start I would be appreciated cause I found myself in a rabbit hole right now and if you have courses which is helpful for me that would be great if you can tell me ❤
It's going to really depend on what your goals are, but the short answer is give yourself "assignments" for the jobs you want. When I first left my corporate design job and was trying to build a freelance career, I wanted to design patterns for home decor companies and apparel companies and all the things. Now, I definitely suggest picking one to start with (I have videos on why niching is useful if you're curious) but I would say "okay, pretend West Elm needed some new art for their bedding, what would be a great collection of surface patterns for West Elm?" And then go from their, by looking at what they had in their line currently, and deciding what I thought would look amazing for bedding at that time. I did it for a bunch of different companies I was interested in and built from there. Focusing on one niche means you can have a collection of art that works for a certain product category or client type and so it's not just one designt hat works for bedding, one that's better for pajamas, one illustration that works on a greeting card etc. Once you have some art built up, here are additional tips: www.elizabethsilver.com/portfolio-help
As a woman of colour living in rural England, it was nice to see what I feel but wasn’t sure if it was just me ☺️ Still not sure how I could be seen here, but hopefully using some of your great tips in the video will help me get further in my illustration and surface design journey
It's not just you! I hope as an industry we can start to lift up more diverse voices. Check out my interviews with Tequitia Andrews and Jessi Raulet for more incredible artists in this space. So happy the tips resonated with you.
not specifically, you can watch me do it here, I just free draw them. But you can also offset the path of letter outline to a negative amount (adjusted for how big your letters are) to get a rough look at where they should be.
Can one use special effects in pattern design? For example, for valentines day I think gold and pink, but how does gold translate? I could see it on paper products. Same could be said for drop shadows. Also, are white or light colors not recommended for backgrounds? I've seen several ( patterns in groups) that have negative feedback about a light background, but appears to fit the color scheme.
Great questions. Think about the end product- when I design cards I absolutely add in glitter or metallic effects because we know cards can have those embellishments. For fabric, you could do it for a fun look, but most companies don't print those effects so know what it will look exactly like you design it, not any better- and you have to decide if that "effect" looks good or just kinda fake. I think white and light backgrounds are okay- I have several licensed fabric designs that have been on light and white grounds. But I do know some people have every pattern they create or a full collection on white and that's not a great variety.
@@ElizabethSilver thank you for the reply! I think I will leave the effects to paper goods. I can see now the benefit designing in raster though. Great videos!
