One of my goals for 2023 has been to put together a few designs and patterns collection for my portfolio and as of November, I've put 3 collections together and given them a feature page each on my website which you can find on the collections page. The latest of these collections is called the Mediterranean patio collection. I could swear I had a plan of writing a blog post about each of the collections and that I had done that already, at least for the first two, namely Tiger Safari and Pacific Beach, but it seems the plan is yet to materialise.
So without any further ado, here is a bit more about this beautiful teal, orange and white collection that brings you to a warm seaside, sun kissed mediterranean villa and garden.
The collection was built around this teal and orange minimalist citrus fruits and branches artwork which you can find as an art print and more on Society6. This illustration gave birth to a matching pattern, and it instantly gave me a mediterranean orchard garden vibe, so much so I decided to use the same orange, teal and white color palette to create companion patterns for it. As you probably have realised, I am a sucker for retro geometric patterns with an Art Deco influence and florals and botanical designs, no matter the color palette.
I think the honeycomb pattern was the first companion pattern I created, quickly followed by a teal seigaiha wave pattern. At that point I didn't have a name for the collection at all, I just created patterns that could go well together in a fun mix and match way.
It's when I created this orange and teal retro lilies pattern that I realised I had a warm garden theme coming together and the first words that came to my mind were "Mediterranean garden". I knew I was onto something. I work better putting collections together when I used a mockup file and start putting all the different patterns together so I went to Creatsy and decided to use one of their free mockup file called the Versatile fabric roll free mockup. Which had enough customisable fabric rolls for me to really put a solid collection together and see how all of them worked together.
I had 4 patterns ready at that point : the teal and orange tree branches, the retro lilies, the orange, teal, white and navy honeycomb pattern and the teal and white seigaiha waves pattern, but the mockup had two additional fabric rolls to use. So I dug deep into my patterns archive to find a mid-century modern, 70s inspired geometric rainbow design.
With two geometric patterns already this one seemed like a perfect marriage between the light and playful seigaiha and the more structured, patio tiles like honeycomb pattern, so in the collection it went and it worked beautifully with all the other fabric roll. I had a winner right away. The last pattern was a bit tricky, I had a navy blue and turquoise Art Deco floral motif that I used in the Pacific Beach collection that was a strong candidate as a filler pattern. But the navy blue did clash with all the other designs making that one stand out entirely too much. But the motif did feel right at home with my garden/patio theme, so I decided to recolor the background a dark teal to see how it would work. Turned out that move was the right move and just like that, I had my complete collection ready.
All that was left at that point was finding a name for it. Because of the citrus fruit pattern, I knew "mediterranean" had to be in the name. I felt torn between garden, villa, patio and orchard when it came to names. Orchard got dismissed quickly, because with so many geometric patterns in the collection, it didn't feel like it was fitting the organic kind of vibe an orchard usually gives. The clear retro geometric elements suggested there was an architectural element to the collection, and the name needed to reflect that. This reasoning is what ended up disqualifying "Mediterranean Garden" as well along with the fact that it's such a generic, overused name I would probably not really stand out in searches with that one. So I was left with Mediterranean villa and patio, and both could have worked to be fair. I just got drawn to the patio more because the honeycomb pattern reminded me of mosaics found in Moroccan courtyard houses called riyads which are similar to patios.
The Mediterranean patio collection got officially named!
All the patterns in the collection are available as fabrics and wallpapers on Raspberry Creek Fabrics, and on several if not all items on Redbubble and Society6. They are of course all licensable which is exactly why I'm focusing on building collections, so if you are interested in licensing my work, you can shoot me an email.
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