Thursday, September 10, 2009

It's Shadow Box Time!


I love hearing about how the folks at the Lilly design department come up with new patterns! It's so interesting a process. The new shadow box print is out and Design Director Janie has explained the origins of this print:

Hi guys!

So this season we started the design process with mini design boards of our favorite things. Each mini board was about 24” across. We had 16 of them! A lot. We filled an entire wall of the print studio. I find that when we make these little boards you kind of space out a bit…WHICH IS GOOD! I promise we do not live in la la land, but when you are designing print, spacing out is IMPORTANT. Maybe a better word for it is DREAMING. Yes, that’s it. Let me start over…

When we are designing prints we are either all laughing and talking and sharing ideas…or we are all kind of quiet and painting and DREAMING. HMMM. Maybe I will stop trying to explain our creative process, makes us sound like fruitcakes. MOVING ON!

Each print designer did a few mini-boards…some were just about feathers, others tassels, turtles, books…here are just a couple of examples…


BUT WHEN we put them all together it looked like a SHADOW BOX of special collected treasures. GOT US TO THINKING…or DREAMING about how we could do a uniquely Lilly patch for Fall. Every every every time we do a patch print everyone loves it and wants to buy it. But a Fall patch could be…EEK. So we went about it like a shadow box. Each area had something special in it. We hid peacock feathers, our la la lilly script, mini flowers…and even the texture of a
pineapple (go figure!).

THEN you add the rich beautiful colors for fall, the oranges and the blues and pinks – it has all that dimension of a true shadow box. I promise, even if we are in la la land, it all comes together in the end! XX

What do you think about the shadow box print? Will you be buying the Keating Dress or Rory Top?

3 comments:

  1. I love the way they describe their creative process. Really interesting.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It is amazing to learn how they design the patterns, great info Miss Muffy!
    :)

    ReplyDelete