March Review

This year seems to be absolutely flying by, and with another month passing I’ve decided to do a quick round-up of some of the things I got up to during the month of March!

This was a busy month for client work and I’ve been working hard behind the scenes on a couple of new collaborations (one of which will be released in within the next few weeks - exciting!). I’ve had a few collabs launch including one with December Moon which saw my pretty floral butterfly pattern feature on luxury Pyjamas.

It’s so exciting to see my work on apparel, it’s long been a dream of mine… I also received my samples for a range of greetings cards I licensed in Australia for Nuovo Group, floor tiles with amazing Canadian wallpaper brand Otto Studio and finally my phone case collection with Young Kit.

Cool things I discovered in March..

This podcast.

I love Goodtype - Although it’s heavy on lettering and typograpghy chat, if that’s not your thing then there is a wealth of information about Art Licensing too (they also offer courses in this area). They’ve also just launched a Slack channel so you can chat directly to like-minded creatives.

One course I’m looking at right now is the prompt list for building a portfolio for art licensing - I sometimes struggle to navigate the many areas of art licensing and get stuck in a floral rut! I really want to expand my portfolio this year and draw new and exciting things so this might be something I invest in soon.

Learning Achievements..

This month I tasked myself with learning some new skills, namely Adobe Fresco and Illustrator. These are not programmes you can learn in just one month but I’ve made a really good start. I absolutely love improving my technical skills as it opens up so many doors and can give a real boost to your portfolio. I’ve long been afraid of vectors but it’s always been at the back of mind whether a client may need a vectorised pattern or illustration.

Skillshare is my go-to platform for online classes and below are some recommendations if you want to also have a go at Fresco and Illustrator:

Surface Pattern Design in Adobe Illustrator: A Complete Introduction by Esther Nariyoshi

Pattern Design for Beginners: Create Your First Seamless Pattern in Adobe Illustrator by Di Ujdi

Level Up Your Vectors with Lines: A 5-Day Challenge in Adobe Fresco by Amy Bradley

Surface Pattern Workflow: Adobe Fresco to Adobe Illustrator by Amy Bradley

And Finally…..

I launched a new newsletter for creatives and sent my first one - I have lots more content planned so do sign-up and get some tips, tricks, freebies and more delivered to your inbox each month :)