Pattern Book review: Designing Patterns: For Decoration, Fashion and Graphics

Today, we bring you a new pattern book review from Susan Niner Janes.

Designing Patterns:
For Decoration, Fashion and Graphics
By Lotta Kühlhorn
Gestalten 2014
Hardcover £30.00
(English language edition)

Star rating: ****

Here’s one for your wish list. A coffee table book that won’t stay on the coffee table. For aspiring surface pattern designers, this is a real go-to resource for tips and inspiration. This stunning book is both a quirky visual design memoir and a how-to book. It is beautifully photographed and lavishly produced.

Lotta Kühlhorn is a very successful , mega- talented Swedish designer. (Yes, she designs for IKEA.) Surface patterns for products, fabrics, wallcoverings, bookcovers – she does it all.

In this book, Lotta Kühlhorn tells you, in great detail, how she goes about designing surface patterns. The author says that she thinks of a pattern as something that has a life of its own and is continuous beyond the boundaries of the surface it decorates. And that edges are just as important as middles! She feels strongly that pattern brings sense to the world – and that a pattern does not have to be pretty.

The book is divided into four sections: Sourcing Inspiration, The Way I Work, Patterns, and Ten Do-It-Yourself Projects. The Sourcing Inspiration section advises you to seek pattern in all aspects of life, unexpected (aerial photos) and predictable (flea markets).

The section on patterns tells you how to generate various sorts of patterns, and discusses colour (including successful colour combos), form, and repetition with plentiful examples.

Look to this book as a guide to kick-starting the design process . Unlike some books on surface pattern design, this title does not go into techie computer how-tos for designing repeats (although it does tell you how to create a basic square allover print repeat manually). But what it does do, it does brilliantly. The author’s child-like enthusiasm for her subject is paired with a totally professional work ethic. (Think outside the box – then decorate it. On time.)

Just as Lotta Kühlhorn creates a printed pattern from a deconstructed Thermos flask, she deconstructs the pattern design process for you to emulate. Read and learn. Referring to specific projects, the author provides useful, methodical summaries of her studio work practices. You have to work hard to make things look easy! She works to schedules and makes lists.

The D-I-Y projects are, for the most part, things I’d like to try. For example – designing a tray and sending it out to be made up. And there is a Mexican-style cut-paper fiesta bunting – an instance of a non-printed design idea.

The book is accompanied by a free CD-R, a Pattern Starter Kit including 150 pattern starter templates. I was provided with a preview .pdf of the title, so I can’t report back on the contents of the disc – but it should be worthy indeed if it lives up to the quality of the book.

Lotta Kühlhorn , born in 1963, studied at Konstfack, Stockholm’s prestigious University College of Arts, Crafts, and Design. Her design career encompasses surface pattern design, book covers and editorial illustration. Her design clients include Elle magazine and IKEA.

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Susan Niner Janes is a craft designer, author, and blogger.