Free Lesson

Why your repeat

might suck...
and how
to fix it

theprintschool.com
©Longina Phillips Designs 2023
Hello and Welcome!
Repeating a design can be fairly complicated (when you’re not taught the correct
way to do it!), it’s easy to stuff up.

In this lesson, we are going to show you some of the most common repeat design
fails and highlight what's wrong with them because sometimes seeing the bad
teaches you what’s good.

In fact that’s exactly why we created our highly anticipated repeats course: The
Complete Repeat Course For Surface Designers. This course will help you to
understand the thought-process behind every design decision, from concept to
production-ready file.

©Longina Phillips Designs 2023

Our designer's very first repeats

PHOEBE

“When I was first trying to wrap my head around repeats I watched a tonne of video's
and one thing that really shocked me when I started working in the apparel textile
industry is 9/10 times repeats are NEVER just those ditsy 4 motif throw repeats you
see all over YouTube. I genuinely thought repeats were all those simple illustrated
repeats because that’s the only tutorials out there.

1. I had no idea about varying scale sizes and flow. In my first ever prints, they are
obviously repeating, I thought because of the YouTubes I watched, all the motifs had
to stay the same size and the repeat had to be obvious lol…

2. Also for so long I didn't know that you could utilize color edits/effects on your
motifs. So lots of my first prints are quite musty n dusty"

JESS

"Some mistakes I’ve made in the past:

- Making the canvas too small so that the repeat was way too obvious. This is a trap
you can fall into when making a digital yardage as there are no parameters for the
repeat size.
- When I first started I used the offset tool a lot because it seemed easier. There are a
lot of constraints in terms of design when you use this tool and it's not industry
standard."

©Longina Phillips Designs 2023

Our designer's very first repeats

ANTHEA

“Basic designs- A basic repeat is….. basic, so to add value there needs to be
something unexpected or a bit different.

Before designing full time I thought there was a ‘rule’ for geometric designs to be
structured and repetitive but that’s not the case at all. You just see them everywhere
because they are easy to produce but that doesn’t mean that they are a good design.
If you’re making a geo, think about how to mix up the flow of the design to make sure
it stands out from the rest, colour, size and direction play a big part in how to make
your repeat geo more sellable."

Just remember that all of these designers learned how to do the right repeats that we
teach inside of The Complete Repeat Course For Surface Designers

Now let’s dive into the 5 most common repeat fails

©Longina Phillips Designs 2023

 Regimented layouts
A regimented layout is where all the
motifs are in line with each other.
Almost in a grid layout.
Yes, there is a place for very
regimented layouts, but you can not do
every design in this way. You must offer
variety.
There are lots of photoshop and
illustrator tools available that let you do
this layout really quickly and easily, and
they serve a purpose…up to a point.

Ok, so let's take these same motifs and

offer them in a more thoughtout and
flowing design repeat…

Can you see the difference?

The negative space is
considered, the flow of the
design, so your eye ‘flow’s calmly
across the page.

©Longina Phillips Designs 2023

Accidental clusters

An Accidental cluster is where you have arranged your motifs in a way that when you
repeat your design out, it forms an accidental eye sore.
In this design, we’ve not thought out our colour distribution correctly. See how an
accidental row of motifs can unfortunately ruin the flow of the repeat. This row of red
bold flowers creates a bold line that your eye goes straight to and unfortunately
interrupts the allover feel of the design. A simple redistribution of your motifs would take
this design from clunky to softly flowing.

©Longina Phillips Designs 2023

Railroad tracks
A railroad track is where you get accidental gaps or lines of motifs thru a repeated design.

This happens most often when

doing a ditsy floral design. Its
very very easy to see these
‘tracks’ after you repeat your
design out. This creates stripes
on the product and can make it
look like a fault.

Normally color distribution is

the culprit with ditsy's, but you
can also get railroads if your
negative space is not
considered or your motifs are
in line with each other.

It's important to make sure that to create flow in a design that particular elements
(especially if it’s the hero flower) are not placed directly above/below another. It creates an
obvious line in a repeat and extremely easy to spot the repeat (that’s a bad thing!) when on
a garment.
In general, making sure your elements are facing different directions and a mixture of
scales is a good thing.
.

©Longina Phillips Designs 2023

Obvious repeats
An obvious repeat is where your eye can easily pick it out. You do not want to be able to
notice it when looking at a final product, especially a garment.

This fruity conversational number is a 32x32cm repeat. It looks ok at first glance on the
blue ground, but when you see the design on the black, the horizontal oranges are
coming in too regularly and creating a square tile shape that draws the eye. This is a
common problem with 32cm repeats because the tile is repeated more times on your
fabric than a 64cm tile as it is smaller, so you have to be extra focused on creating a
flowing repeat. The fix? Open out the tile to 64cm and rework the spacing of your
motifs so that there’s more variety in the placement.

©Longina Phillips Designs 2023

 Hold your design in front of a mirror or flip your canvas on

TOP TIP screen, hold it upside down, or place it on the back of a

garment, this will immediately show you anything that looks
out of place or odd.

Large motifs in too small of a repeat

The repeat size is dictated by your design. Large flowers = largest repeat size you are
able to do (limited to fabric width only for digital, can run down the fabric any
measurement. And limited to screen size for rotary and flat bed - check with your
printer, but we do cover this in great depth in the full course)
See these pants for an example. This would have looked much better in a larger repeat
so that huge flower was not coming back underneath itself so close.

32cm repeat v's 64cm repeat

©Longina Phillips Designs 2023

The biggest take away from
this lesson:

The best repeats are the ones

where you can not see the
repeat!

©Longina Phillips Designs 2023

So if you’re finding that you are creating one or maybe
a few of these repeat faux pas, you likely need to learn
how to do repeats the right way so we recommend
enrolling into THE COMPLETE REPEAT COURSE
FOR SURFACE DESIGNERS

1. In the course you will learn side-by-side with our designers, from
concept to final repeat tile.

2. You will understand the thought-process behind every design

decision, from concept to production-ready file.

3. And you will gain an exclusive insight into the design decisions we
make from element to final repeat tile.

©Longina Phillips Designs 2023

The course comprises of:
Why you need to know how to do repeats

What the industry expectations are

Production techniques that you MUST know to be a successful Surface Pattern

designer

There are 3 juicy Modules showcasing:

25 different design types from beginner to intermediate to advanced

Beginner: Spots, Stripes, One Element, standard floral, ditsy floral, Grided motifs
and a Geometric

Intermediate: Paisley, Tie dye, Check/plaid, Watercolour floral, Framed/scarf,

Dense Tropical, Texture, Fashion floral and Floral Boarder

Advanced: Animal prints, Mandala prints, Placement to yardage, Oversized

Abstract, Photographic floral, Two-in-one, Engineered, Optical and Diagonal
Stripes.

This is a course we’ve been asked for, for years, so we’re really
proud to be able to share it with you now.

©Longina Phillips Designs 2023

 Thank you!

Do You Need More Info?

Follow the link below to check out THE COMPLETE
REPEAT COURSE FOR SURFACE DESIGNERS

©Longina Phillips Designs 2023