The Making of The Nocturnal Woodland Collection
The Fall season is here and I've been working on a collection of prints that will be perfect for this season looking at the trends that will be on the market next year AW/2024. I would like to share with you "the making of the Nocturnal Woodland Print Collection" a presentation to document the process. Very exciting!
Step One: I start building my collection by researching the trends that will be on the market next year AW/2024. I look at hundreds of pictures, the patterns and trends that are emerging and select a few favourites to include in my trend research board. The fashion designers that stand out in terms of print & color are Balenciaga, Tom Ford, and Versace. Balenciaga for the colorful busy floral in rusty shades of red, orange and extremely warm spectrum. Tom Ford for the wonderful abstract animal prints and beautiful cool gradient shadings and Versace for the distress look and natural textures.
Step Two: I build my own inspiration board. I want the trends to guide not inspire me. For inspiration I go to Pinterest ; ) The photos are of nature, dried plants flora&fauna, animals/insects, moods and colours that appeal to me. Here is how my mood-board looks like in it's final stage.
Step Three: Next comes the color board & color palette. I choose a few stunning pictures that will inspire my color selection and then look for matching #pantone swatches and Voila! I have my key colors.
Now to the actual design process:
The process started more than a month ago, that's when I began putting all the ideas together to build a collection.
Drawing/painting/scanning/editing/refining/repeating/recoloring/cleaning up/ not to mention preparing the files, doing presentations and mockups, social media etc etc. it takes a lot of time and it is a lot of work, but the final result is wonderful and it is for sure worth the effort! Hope you enjoy the outcome!
Some 730 hours later I have the prints in repeat and all that remains is to choose the right scale and coloration in order to harmonise all of the designs together. I make a quick presentation draft for Instagram and I'm ready to upload the designs to my website.
Here is an overview of the complete collection, I’m happy to see that all the prints complement eachother and can be used in endless color combinations…
One last detail is envisioning the prints on the products they were intended for, in this case fashion. I love to play with different scales, colors and combinations on different garments and seeing how they fit together like characters in a story. The story is called Nocturnal Woodland and the prints are available for licensing now. Enjoy!
Presented below the “characters of the play” in order of appearance:
Botanical Silhouettes, Butterflies Dark, Night Garden, Shadow Floral, Pressed Wild-herbs, Animal Minimal, Wood Texture, Deer Spots, Animal Dots.
