Skull & Snake Design for Apparel
I was tasked by the client to prepare original artwork for use across different pieces of apparel. The deliverables were:
A vector illustration following a motif of my choice
A companion all-over print design using elements extracted from the primary illustration
The artwork was expected to be inspired by certain design trends and colour palettes that the client had provided for me in the brief. From these, I decided on a “kawaii meets macabre” tropical aesthetic. There were no sketch phases for the client to review during this process, as they were expecting final products only.
Initial Sketch of Primary Design
Original sketch for the primary design, a snake coiling around a skull in a nighttime tropical setting. To optimize the printing process, I aimed to have mainly flat colours and minimal outlines that would still look good when slightly offset.
Final Draft of Primary Design
The final draft had a clean-but-distressed feel to it, utilizing a block print style with cute on-trend colours. I removed the crack from the skull since it seemed to drown out that element amongst the increased “carved” detail I had given the snake and the skull’s shadows. The moon was made more playful by adding a nose to hint at a face, but kept the detail simple by only including shadows and not full facial detail.
Companion All-Over Print
The accompanying pattern was made using Adobe Illustrator’s pattern tool. The end result was a dense repeatable square tile.
Following the same style, additional snakes and foliage were created to fill out an otherwise empty-looking all-over print that lacked variety.
Apparel Mockups
Along with the deliverables, I provided a mockup of how the designs would look on a loungewear set. The design was made with the idea that they would be strong enough to stand out individually, but being displayed together would create an attractive set for the consumer.