Design Seamless Character Patterns

Pattern designs application is far ranging, from fashion and fabrics to wallpaper and print. Many graphic artists and illustrators focus almost exclusively on pattern design, working as designer-makers, selling to boutiques or creating commissioned work for larger companies such as Habitat or Urban Outfitters. At the moment, character patterns are very popular for children's wrapping paper and wallpapers.

The process of pattern design very much has its roots in illustration. Many of my designs begin life as characters or commissioned illustrations that are re-designed, added to and tweaked to be given a new life as a pattern design, ready for an entirely new application.

In this tutorial I will take you through my process of making a character-based, seamless pattern in Illustrator. While I am using vector-based imagery, there is nothing to stop you using the same tiling techniques with hand-drawn imagery.

Click here to download the tutorial for free