It's time for another Fancy/Funky Friday!
First, the "fancy": Pattern Virginia
I absolutely love this pattern. As always with the "fancy" ones, I would love this upholstered on decorative furniture in my dream home someday. It looks like lace, and I really like how it created two different units when I started connecting the units to each other. The different parts of the pattern give the illusion of stripes, which creates a nice variance between the larger, more intricate unit and the smaller unit. This is a great pattern for invitations, too, because it looks formal and regal, and it looks good in several different ways.
I'm always careful about overdoing patterns on invitation - I wouldn't want it to get too busy and overwhelm any viewers! So usually my go-to way of including pattern in invitations is just to include a small sample strip of it at the tops, bottoms, or sides, leaving most of the stationery with a plain white background. But with Pattern Virginia, it looks so lace-like in large quantities that I just had to try the whole thing in the background of one of my invitation samples. As long as the colors of the pattern are similar enough to the background, I think it just looks subtlety beautiful, rather than too busy, and it looks so much more elegant than just a hint of the pattern would.
And now the "funky": Pattern Emma
I really like this pattern, too, even though it's a lot simpler than Pattern Virginia. It's much more graphic and modern. Can you guess what character this pattern is entirely made of? In case you've forgotten, I almost exclusively use characters from different font families to create all of my patterns. The goal is to make a pattern that is beautiful outside of the beauty of the individual characters, and often that means creating a pattern in such a way that whatever characters I used are no longer decipherable. (For instance, in Pattern Virginia, above, I can still pick out a cursive "E" character, but I'm not sure about the others - I think there's a "T" in there, but there's still some other element that I can't quite put my finger on).
Anyway, with Pattern Emma the character is still obviously visible (give up? It's a comma!), but the pattern works and doesn't scream "look at me, I'm a collection of commas!" because of the drastic scale difference. We see commas all the time on a daily basis, but they're always really tiny and barely noticeable, and almost never seen on their own. So by blowing the commas up to giant size, it's hard to recognize them as commas anymore, since that's not how our brains think of them. Instead of seeing commas, when I look at this pattern I just see graphic floral elements, big and bold and modern, like a pattern that would have upholstered chairs during the seventies (just picture the pattern in a golden yellow or orange. Can't you see them as dining room chairs on "That 70's Show?"). Of course, now that I've told you they're just commas, perhaps that's all you can see when you look at it now. Hopefully I haven't ruined the pattern for you! ;)
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Click here to see all posts related to "Fancy/Funky Friday"
Shameless plug time: Love my patterns? I incorporate them into a lot of the artwork I create, from stationery for Invites by Andrea to the watercolors I paint. Check out Invites by Andrea's website to see examples of these patterns in use or drop me a line at andrea@invitesbyandrea.com to let me know what you think!
First, the "fancy": Pattern Virginia
I absolutely love this pattern. As always with the "fancy" ones, I would love this upholstered on decorative furniture in my dream home someday. It looks like lace, and I really like how it created two different units when I started connecting the units to each other. The different parts of the pattern give the illusion of stripes, which creates a nice variance between the larger, more intricate unit and the smaller unit. This is a great pattern for invitations, too, because it looks formal and regal, and it looks good in several different ways.
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| "Frill of a Lifetime" - Sample Invitation |
I'm always careful about overdoing patterns on invitation - I wouldn't want it to get too busy and overwhelm any viewers! So usually my go-to way of including pattern in invitations is just to include a small sample strip of it at the tops, bottoms, or sides, leaving most of the stationery with a plain white background. But with Pattern Virginia, it looks so lace-like in large quantities that I just had to try the whole thing in the background of one of my invitation samples. As long as the colors of the pattern are similar enough to the background, I think it just looks subtlety beautiful, rather than too busy, and it looks so much more elegant than just a hint of the pattern would.
And now the "funky": Pattern Emma
I really like this pattern, too, even though it's a lot simpler than Pattern Virginia. It's much more graphic and modern. Can you guess what character this pattern is entirely made of? In case you've forgotten, I almost exclusively use characters from different font families to create all of my patterns. The goal is to make a pattern that is beautiful outside of the beauty of the individual characters, and often that means creating a pattern in such a way that whatever characters I used are no longer decipherable. (For instance, in Pattern Virginia, above, I can still pick out a cursive "E" character, but I'm not sure about the others - I think there's a "T" in there, but there's still some other element that I can't quite put my finger on).
Anyway, with Pattern Emma the character is still obviously visible (give up? It's a comma!), but the pattern works and doesn't scream "look at me, I'm a collection of commas!" because of the drastic scale difference. We see commas all the time on a daily basis, but they're always really tiny and barely noticeable, and almost never seen on their own. So by blowing the commas up to giant size, it's hard to recognize them as commas anymore, since that's not how our brains think of them. Instead of seeing commas, when I look at this pattern I just see graphic floral elements, big and bold and modern, like a pattern that would have upholstered chairs during the seventies (just picture the pattern in a golden yellow or orange. Can't you see them as dining room chairs on "That 70's Show?"). Of course, now that I've told you they're just commas, perhaps that's all you can see when you look at it now. Hopefully I haven't ruined the pattern for you! ;)
-
Click here to see all posts related to "Fancy/Funky Friday"
Shameless plug time: Love my patterns? I incorporate them into a lot of the artwork I create, from stationery for Invites by Andrea to the watercolors I paint. Check out Invites by Andrea's website to see examples of these patterns in use or drop me a line at andrea@invitesbyandrea.com to let me know what you think!
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