3 Simple Techniques To Help Create Movement and Flow in Your Patterns

How to bring rhythm, balance and movement to your designs

Creating flowing, organic patterns is something we all long for as designers, but in practice it can be pretty tricky to achieve!

If you look at your patterns and you are dissatisfied - perhaps you see a clunky or obvious repeat, or random spaces and obvious line-ups in your motifs - don't despair.

If you are noticing there is a problem with the flow or movement that is good news.

It would be far worse if you didn't see it!

The fact that you are noticing it's not quite right means you have your eye tuned in to what works and what doesn't, and it means that you can take some steps to improve your work and fix it.

Hooray!

When I first started creating patterns it wasn't long before I started to notice a difference between the patterns I was making and the beautiful patterns that came at the top in the Spoonflower Design Challenges!

I set to work studying what those artists were doing that made their patterns look so smooth and effortless and I'd love to share some of those findings with you in today's post.

Before we do though I just wanted to say that a large part of learning to create natural and flowing patterns simply comes from hours of practice. We can't magic ourselves to where we want to be without putting in the time and effort to get there.

I know that is frustrating as we all want to skip the process (which is hard) but it is just an encouragement that if you are feeling like you're not where you want to be yet, that's ok! You'll get there with time and perseverence.

You are learning and growing every time you sit down and create. Even the 'failed' patterns (of which I have many by the way...) still help us to grow as artists. Nothing is wasted. And the many patterns you are not happy with all contribute in some ways to the ones you are proud of!

That said, there are thankfully some very simple techniques you can learn and implement straight away which will help you make steps towards creating flowing patterns that are full of grace and movement.

1. Motif placement

One of the simplest ways to add movement and flow to your designs is by thinking intentionally about how you place your motifs.

Don’t point everything in the same direction. If every leaf, flower, or shape is facing one way, the pattern can feel unnatural.

When I am on my initial sketch layer, one of my main objectives is to make sure everything is pointing different ways.

You can see below how I have tried to ensure the flowers, leaves and butterfly wings are pointing in different directions.

Our eyes naturally follow the direction of motifs, so when even a couple are pointing the same way, the viewer is guided in a single straight line which is not ideal for movement.

This can often take a bit of time to get right. When you are working in a template like this, it's important to scale down your sketch when you've finished it so you can see how it will look when it's repeated mulitple times.

In the sketching stage, look for 'line-ups' of motifs. This could be created by the anglels of particular items all being the same, or sometimes it's created when the space around an item creates a line.

If you find you have a line-up, go back to the sketch and change the angles, or shapes to break up the line. It's worth spending time at the sketch layer to get this bit right as it really can disrupt the flow of a pattern!

2. Curves and lines

Adding flowing curves and lines is a great way to guide the viewer through a pattern. This is perfect if you are designing something floral as there are always leaves and stems you can use.

Again, it's important that the curves are not all curving the same way or in the same direction, but adding them strategically into your pattern will add visual interest.

Below is one of the patterns I teach you how to create in my Trailing Patterns class.

You can see that the vertical stem curves gently and each of the branches also curves in different ways, as do the leaves coming off. Everything is carfully positioned so it doesn't line up with anything else.

This means your eye can travel along the different elements in the pattern without getting stuck.

Here's a different example below where I have used curves and wavy lines to add some interest and flow to the pattern.

The leaves at the bottom could have just followed the outline of the template but instead I have added an extra wave to the leaf. Equally the leaves in the middle could have gone straight upwards like the stem but I have added an extra curve in the leaf to add some variation and flow.

In your own patterns try adding movement by adding in extra curves, or wavy lines to your elements.

3. Use of space

Space is a huge part of creating movement - both the space you fill and the space you leave open.

If you are using a layout template (which I nealry always do) it can sometimes help the flow of your pattern to overlap the sides of the template.

You can see what I mean in my sketch layer below:

If you haven't tried overlapping the lines on a layout template before you may be asking - how do you do that and know that the motifs won't bump into each other?

The answer to that is you need to add in a few motifs first, then make the repeat so you can see where they end up, then add in a few more, make the repeat and see where they end up etc. until you have filled the tile. (I go into this process in my Procreate Pattern Class.)

It can take a while but doing it in this way helps to avoid the strange negative space that you can sometimes get around the edge if you stick too rigidly to a template.

You can see in the tea cup pattern above that I have also been so careful to make sure all the motifs were at different angles. I had to do a number of tweaks at the sketch layer so that two elements didn't create a line following on from one another!

It is also important for the flow of your pattern to think about negative space.

Negative space is simply the space in your pattern where nothing is happening - where the background shows through.

Some patterns are tightly packed and there is not much negative space, and other times patterns are less dense and there is a lot of negative space.

You can make flowing patterns with both of these types but the key thing to make sure is that the negative space is even.

When you have some areas of the pattern with big gaps and other parts tightly packed it creates an imbalance and the eye is disrupted and can’t travel across the pattern fluidly.

Sometimes it can be difficult to create an even amount of negative space with the motifs you are using, so ‘filler elements’ can be really important to maintain balance and flow in a pattern.

One little trick I like to use if I have got uneven space in a pattern is to use dots or dashes to fill in the space. This just evens out the negative space and allows the pattern to look balanced and complete.

See the difference below in a pattern where I haven’t used the dashes, to where I have filled in the uneven negative space with dashes.

New Class - Trailing Patterns in Procreate

This brand new class will help build your confidence in trailing patterns in Procreate.

The class covers three different trailing patterns and how to get the balance and flow for each one. My aim is to equip you to replicate the techniques in all sorts of patterns which will help you to boost your portfolio and give you some slightly more complex designs to add to your Print on Demand shops.

If you have any questions about this topic, or about the new class, just leave a comment in the section below or you can always send me an email: jasmine@jasminehnatkova.com