Seamless Repeat & Radial Patterns

Seamless Repeat Patterns

What is a seamless repeat pattern? It is a pattern in which you cannot see the edges of the repeating unit tile. The banner above is an example of this. We will begin our exploration into pattern design with a quick pattern repeat exercise with paper and scissors. This will help you understand the offset filters in Photoshop and Sumopaint.
Here are a few links to info on repeat pattern design:
http://okadadesign.blogspot.com/2010/10/pattern-repeat.html
http://www.designspongeonline.com/2008/05/welcome-julia-and-how-to-make-a-repeat-pattern.html

After the above preliminary exercise we will explore these next two projects below:
PROJECT 1: Seamless
We will explore creating a simple seamless tile and upload to Spoonflower.
Seamless, a new tool by ColorLover. Great for quick student exploration of pattern repeat design. You can create a pattern, color it and send it directly over to Spoonflower for the creation of a textile.
Here are the instructions.
PROJECT 2: Radial exercise
Using archival images (copyright free) from The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, we will create a seamless tile.
Copyright free images of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Save an image from this site to your computer and then open it up in Repper
To see how Repper can be useful in geometry lessons see this project link in my You Are Here Banner Project: Repper with 5th graders of Cureton Elementary.

PROJECT 3:
Sumopaint
Experiment with the kaleidoscope filter and the offset filter.