Little Blue Nest

Patterns for organic cotton swaddles.

This client project is very close to my heart and I have to say I really enjoyed working on it. Mainly because I am naturally very fond of woodland animals and also because I enjoy making repeat patterns. Little Blue Nest took my joyful characters with its organic cotton swaddles to a whole new level. We were collaborating on a "Woodland Friends" swaddling blanket collection.

First step was (as always) loosely sketching the characters, discovering fresh and baby appropriate look&feel of characters and playing around with pencil. After I sent a scanned pile of random sketches and doodles over to the client, we discussed things and chose the characters we liked the best.

Refined pencil sketches were than digitalized : scanned and put into vectors using Adobe Illustrator. Client really wanted to keep that hand crafted look of my initial sketches (which I think is the main reason why these swaddles are so unique). In order to achieve that, I was playing around in Illustrator for quite a while.

After playing with vectors and refining the outline of a character it was time to establish a color palette. Client wanted to have a gentle, pastel, yet still modern and bright palette - which is also my favorite. I am happy to say we were always on the same page regarding the aesthetics. 

After we had all the elements prepared and color palette confirmed, it was time to do a repeat pattern. So much fun! I designed it in Illustrator, making quite a few variations and consulting with client along the way. As stated previously, the final outcome is truly a result of good communication and collaboration. We successfully designed 4 different patterns : Bunny, Fox, Robin and Into the Woods.

Shop the collection here.