Want to design for swimwear clients? It’s a major market for prints and a great place to unleash your love of bold flowers and bright colour ways. Junior designer Nicole helps get you started with her most important dos and don’ts.
DO: STICK TO A SMALLER SCALE
When designing for swimwear it’s important to think of the shape and size of the end garment. Consider a small bikini – if your motifs are too large the majority of the design won’t be visible. It’s best to keep designs at a smaller scale for swimwear.
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DO: BALANCE YOUR COLOURS
Colour plays a big role in any design. Think about the distribution of colour and ensure you have even coverage throughout. Considering the garments can be cut from anywhere along with the fabric, you don’t want one bikini top to be a completely different colour from the other on the same swimsuit!
DON’T: USE CIRCULAR MOTIFS
When selecting motifs be careful with front-on flowers that have defined centres (such as daisies), mandalas and circular fruit as they can fall in the centre of a bikini top and can create a ‘target’ on the boob!
DON’T: USE VERY LONG FLOWER STAMENS
Sometimes long flower stamens can look a bit like male appendages. You want to be wary of them for all your apparel print designs but it’s particularly important with swim designs as they can fall at the bottom of a swimsuit and get its wearer attention for the wrong reason! You can learn more about this here.
DO: TEST YOUR DESIGN
Try putting your design into a swimwear shape to see how it looks and check for any of the above pointers. It’s a great idea to cut out a bikini top and bottom shapes and lay them over your printed design as well!
Want to know what else to watch for? Check out this post right here.
Good luck with your swim prints!
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