Quick & Easy Pattern Designs in Adobe Illustrator

My name is Carrie Cantwell, and I’m a surface designer and educator. I have a BFA in graphic design, and I’ve been using Adobe products for over 20 years. I became a surface designer in 2020, so when I started creating patterns, I devised a system that helps me make the most of my time. I want to help you work smarter when creating patterns in Adobe Illustrator. By the end of this class, you’ll create a half-drop pattern block and you’ll be able to optimize your pattern creation workflow, so you can focus on the fun part: creating the art!

I’ve made hundreds of patterns using my quadrant system, and I make a pretty decent living from royalties through print-on-demand websites like Spoonflower. My patterns have been featured in Peppermint Magazine, and Spoonflower, Society6 and Raspberry Creek have promoted my patterns through their websites and social media accounts.

Your time is valuable - make the most of it by working smarter, not harder when creating half-drop patterns in Adobe Illustrator: My streamlined quadrant system will help you create complex-looking half-drop patterns quickly, while ensuring they work seamlessly for a variety of mediums.

There are a lot of other wonderful surface pattern design classes out there, but my class is unique because I’m going to teach you the workflow I use that helps me save time when creating patterns in Adobe Illustrator. I want you to be able to spend the majority of your time creating the art for patterns.

I’m excited to teach this class because optimizing my workflow helps me respond quickly to emerging trends. Tell me if this sounds familiar: you’re scrolling through Instagram and catch on that the coastal grandmother trend is huge right now. You think to yourself “Hey, self! I want to create a coastal grandmother pattern!” You need to be able to work quickly enough so that by the time you’ve finished your pattern, the trend hasn’t already gone stale. This is why efficiency is key. In this class I’ll show you my quadrant system and keyboard shortcuts which will help you create half-drop patterns quickly, while ensuring they work seamlessly for a variety of mediums.

In this class, you will learn:

Why I like half-drop patterns - and how I use quadrants to design them

How to set up your Illustrator artboard and organize your layers

How to lay out your overall pattern structure

How to create keyboard shortcuts to automate processes like repeating design elements

How to test your patterns in Adobe Photoshop

How I organize my pattern collection files

How I upload my finished pattern blocks to print-on-demand websites like Spoonflower

This class is valuable for beginner to intermediate surface pattern designers who want to work more efficiently. For this class, you will need a computer with Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop installed, both of which have free trials I’ll link to in the class. What I teach requires a basic understanding of Illustrator and Photoshop. I use a Mac, so the user interface you’ll be seeing is the Mac, but Illustrator behaves similarly on both Macs and PCs so you should be able to follow along, and both Macs and PCs use keyboard shortcuts, the setup process may just be a little different. In this class, I’m creating half-drop patterns, but you can use keyboard shortcuts with basic repeat patterns as well.