Decorative Bands

Have ever struggled with designing a decorative band that looks balanced and in proportion? To be successful, a pattern requires a sense of rhythm, and to achieve this rhythm, geometry plays an important part.

This week, I published a class on Skillshare. This class shows you how to use a grid to create a band; a band that can be used as a decorative border pattern.

Design a Simple Decorative Band

Grid

In this class I’ll show you to use the grid below to create a range of designs that can be repeated indefinitely.

Grid (left) and Border Patterns (right)

Grid (left) and Border Patterns (right)

Each pattern is initially hand drawn over the grid. Some patterns draw their inspiration from the geometric shapes formed by the grid, some draw their inspiration from nature, and for some, the inspiration is a combination of both. The grid guides the size and location of each element that is to be repeated, and introduces rhythm and harmony; ensuring each element remains in proportion to every other element in the design.

Drawing Heart-Shaped Leaves

Using the grid to draw heart-shaped seed heads.

Affinity Designer

Once the patterns are drawn, they are scanned into Affinity Designer and traced using the pen tool.

Using the Pen Tool

Heart-shaped seed heads drawn using the pen tool in Affinity Designer.

Symbols & Surface Pattern Design

The class introduces Affinity Designer’s Symbol functionality. This functionality is incredibly useful for surface pattern design. By creating a symbol out of the repeat unit, any changes made to the repeat unit will be reflected across the design. This means, you don’t have to replace all instances of your repeat unit every time you make a change.

Learn how to Create a Decorative Band? – Watch this Class for Free

Use this link to sign up to Skillshare Premium, and you will gain free access to all the lessons in this class, and every class on Skillshare for a limited period of time. What have you got to lose?

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