The Secret Power Of The Sketch Layer

A Time Saving Tip For Surface Pattern Designers

As a new designer I often missed out the sketch layer, believing it was an unnecessary step that would just add time to my design process.

I now believe the opposite is true and the more I design, the more benefits I see from spending time on the humble sketch layer.

In fact there’s one HUGE benefit of the sketch layer that I’m tapping into more and more as a surface pattern designer and I am excited to share it with you today as it is going to save you SO MUCH TIME!

Excited?!

Me too! Let’s just cover some of the basics before I spill the beans…

What is a sketch layer?

A sketch layer can look different for everyone, but it is basically a very rough sketch of your design or pattern.

I often do a couple of sketch layers: one very basic, and one a little more detailed, like this below:

It starts as a few shapes that I ensure fit together in a repeat and then the next sketch layer fills in some of the details.

(Here I am using my favourite template method to create a seamless repeat)

I am frequently testing the repeat to make sure it all fits together nicely and looks good when repeated multiple times.

Why draw a sketch layer?

A huge benefit of spending time drawing a sketch layer for your pattern is that when you come to draw your final layer, you know exactly where everything is going to be placed.

This may sound obvious, but it is absolutely crucial in Procreate because Procreate is a raster program. This means that once you have drawn something it cannot be scaled up or even rotated without it loosing quality.

In a sketch layer you can move and rotate things as much as you want because the quality doesn’t matter!

Imagine spending a long time creating beautifully illustrated elements with multiple clipping masks, textures and colours, then realising when you test the repeat it needs to be scaled up!

Horror, you have to do it all again!

Alternatively, if you’ve tested the placement of each individual element in the sketch layer you can confidently spend time illustrating each element knowing that it is going to look good.

The BEST reason to spend time on a sketch layer…

So as I mentioned in the intro this post, there’s another huge benefit to drawing a sketch layer that I’ve been tapping into more and more recently that never even crossed my mind when I first started.

Have you ever thought about reusing your sketch layer?!

Let me explain…

You jot down some basic shapes in your template and spend some time testing the repeat until you’re happy with how it’s looking in repeat.

You then add some more detail to your sketch layer to bring those shapes to life.

Now it’s time to ink the final design and you come up with a pattern you’re happy with…

But what if you’re not entirely done with your sketch layer?

What if you stored this sketch layer file somewhere on your ipad or computer and when you were stuck for ideas you came back to this layer as you know the positioning of the shapes creates a great pattern…

What if you created multiple patterns using the same sketch layer over and over again!?

Wouldn’t that save you a lot of time!?

It’s certainly helping me increase my pattern output and the great thing is the patterns you create from just one sketch layer can look so totally different and unique.

I was particularly reminded of this when I provided this sketch layer template to my email subscribers last week.

Since then so many of you have tagged me with the gorgeous patterns you have created using this template. You’d never have guessed they were all from the same sketch!

'Work smarter not harder'

I’m not sure I’m such a big fan of this quote but in this case I think it is spot on.

If you’ve spent time creating a good sketch, even if it is very basic, use it again for a totally different pattern and it will cut your work load in half.

You can interpret the shapes in so many different ways that it will most likely look completely different to your original pattern.

I would love to know if you found this post helpful or if you have any questions relating to this idea! Let me know in the comments!