What is Surface Pattern Design?

Whenever I told anyone I wanted to be a surface pattern designer, I would get a blank stare followed by an inquisitive look. It is not a common or well-known profession, but one that surrounds you every day. If you take a look around you, you will likely notice objects that have designs on them, your bedding, your shirt, that notebook on your side table. All of them had to be designed or thought of by somebody. Simply put, surface pattern design is creating artwork that goes on surfaces.

Surface pattern designers create artwork that livens up your everyday life by changing plain, solid materials into colorful, fun pieces that tell a story. Life would be pretty blah without it. Surface patterns can be applied to anything from wallpaper, fabric, books, food packaging, to your favorite mug. Surface pattern designers need to know how to create artwork into seamless repeats so that you don’t know where the pattern starts or ends. Surface Pattern design is not limited to just repeat patterns. Hand lettering and placement prints are also created for products such as T-shirts where you want one stand alone design to be the focal point.

I have wanted to do this career ever since I was in high school, but I never had the word or career title to define what it was I wanted to do. I remember looking at a design on a wallet and a thought occurred to me, someone gets to design this for a living. In a very roundabout way, I went to college for art, switched my major many times, and graduated with a degree in Interior Design, and am now working as a surface pattern designer.