Its always exciting and challenging to design a whole new collection of bags. In this case i'm designing a range of pinstriped bags to co-incide with the opening of the new London Museum at the end of November. Its going to be really exciting.
As i was designing both the bags and also the print of the fabric, i thought i would let you in on some insider tips as a bag designer on hacks to ensure the best possible outcome when designing a print for a bag or range of bags.
Firstly once you have decided on what print you want, you need to make sure that it is a repeat print, and that it can be scaled to become a whole fabric print. Designing a print as an all over print is in art in itself if it were for example a tartan or floral design. You can have a look at my tartan range here. I also re-created this iconic fabric myself to my own scale for the tartan range of bags for Goodordering.
Its all about translating your print to a 1:1 scale using a combination of digital and real life mocking up.
Here is a summary of the steps
1) create the print make sure it is a repeat print
2) print it out at different scales
3) hold the print outs up against a bag roughly the same size as your bag design to see if you like it.
4) try different scales and decide which one you like the best
5) create the print at 1:1 scale , i do this on an a4 size page
6) print the final size out again making sure its 1:1 scale for the printer
7) decide on the colours you want to use. referencing pantone references
