Class Review: Design Garden's Trends Online Workshop
I am a strong believer that everyone has room to grow and something that they can improve in themselves and their work. Currently I'm enrolled in a great class: Design Garden's Trends Online Workshop. This workshop is a 4 week course on how to mix and create work based of current trends (that change yearly). Classes are taught in the form of video lessons, downloadable assignments, case studies and other resources. There are 4 assignments total (one per week) and each builds upon the previous. The course touches on different areas per week:
week 1: intro to trend mixing
week 2: pattern (collection) design
week 3: stationery design
week 4: creating a look book
There are two different options for taking the course, either live or self-paced. The live course is fast-paced where each assignment is due at the end of the week. The benefit to the live course is that I feel there is more feedback readily available. All the students are in the same boat and moving at the same pace and post their assignments for all to see. Everyone is welcome to comment and provide feedback to the assignments.
The other option is the self-paced class. In this version, you have 90 days to complete the whole course and can work at your own pace. I chose this option because with my current work load and life style, there was no way I could handle completing assigments in one week. Although there is the luxury of being able to take more time to work on your assignments, feedback isn't as readily available. I believe it's because since people are moving at their own pace (and the number of students may be spread out more across the year) so not everyone will be uploading projects or checking the student gallery as often.
Personally I am really enjoying this workshop. I am a big believer in trends and creating work that is "on trend". Although some trends can carry on for years on their own popularity, creating work based on new or upcoming trends can give you a commercial advantage when it comes to licensing your work out.
A lot of great information is provided in this course. Sabina Radeva, the instructor, provides a large pdf with numerous trends for the upcoming year in fashion, interior design and decor trends! This pdf has many visual examples of each trend which really helps you understand what they are about.
The video courses are also really informative and she uses past student work to visually explain assignments and concepts (which is really great to help build your confidence).
Week 2's assignment was to design a pattern collection using at least 2 of the trends discussed in the workshop. Here is my selection of patterns for the assignment.
I'm not sure if I truly am satisfied with my focus pattern (the large one at the bottom) because it seems a bit too busy. I also would like to play around more creating the coordinates but I feel it's a good start. I really enjoyed creating the icons (all the bits and pieces) for this pattern.
Here is a photo of my original sketches and a close up of the focus pattern:
Again, I highly recommend this course. Sabina collects over 30 current and upcoming trends in an easy to refer to booklet and she goes over how you can mix and match these trends to create whole new directions. You can check out the info on this class here.
Design Garden's Trends Online Workshop - Trends relevant for 2016/2017. This is an intermediate to advanced level class. There are a few tutorials on how to work in Illustrator but it is assumed that the student has a basic understanding on how to use Illustrator (or any other digital art software). If you'd like to learn more about using Adobe Illustrator for your work I recommend checking out the self-paced Design Garden's Foundation coures here.
*Disclaimer: Although I am an affiliate with Skillshare, this is not a sponsored post. I only receive revenue if someone signs up for a paid subscription to Skillshare.
RELATED POST:
Skillshare Class Review - Pattern Design I: Creating Inspiring Repeats An Online Skillshare Class by Elizabeth Olwen - Highlighting Elizabeth’s Skillshare course first because not only did I find it really informative and valuable, it was also the first class that I completed the entire assignment. I have taken a number of courses but I was more of a passive learner (not that it depreciates the value of any of those courses). Read more...