How to Design a Collection

Deidre, how do you come up with your designs?

Good question!

For my first collection, Galactic Confections, I thought of what would define me and my store. What is the thing I love most? Cats. The second most? My husband. Third? Unicorns.

Next, I doodled different versions. Outline or no outline? Winking or eyes open? Mouth or no mouth? I tried different things until I liked the end result, and asked my friends to vote on which style they preferred

Once I had the main elements down, I was looking for more cohesive drawings that would fit with the theme. What goes with unicorns? Space, clearly. So I drew stars and moons. What is as sweet as cats? Cupcakes, obviously. And once I drew the unicorns, I was like, why can’t my cats have wings too? And boom, my caticorn was born.

I also thought very hard about the color scheme- I started with my favorite color teal, plunked it into a color generator, and kept clicking until it came up with a combination of colors I liked.

I typically draw more elements than I need. For galactic confections, I had ribbons, ribbons with wings, hearts with wings, hearts upon hearts, and even an evil caticorn (gasp!). I move the elements around and copy and paste until they fit into a nice little puzzle. During this process, I find that some of the things I drew don’t fit (like evil caticorn) but that’s okay, because they may make an appearance further down the line, or they inspire new ideas and combinations.

What does your creative process look like?