You’re gonna love today’s post. If you haven’t heard of Domestika, you’re in for an awesome surprise, because they have some of the best courses for surface pattern designers (and all other types of creatives).

If you’re anything like me and love watching how other designers do their magic, these classes will have you launching Illustrator and Photoshop in no time, and totally excited about the possibilities!

So, first of all, I’ll let Domestika introduce themselves…

Domestika is one of the fastest-growing creative communities within the creative arts industry. It all started as a small but dynamic online space where creative professionals could network and learn from each other. Years later, born from this core value, Domestika widened its reach by curating and producing online courses for all those who want to develop their creative abilities with the best professionals in the field.

Today, Domestika hosts an international community of over 5 million people with a common passion for learning new skills. Each course is planned and designed by a team of in-house experts. We share editorial content for and with the best creative professionals in the world. We run virtual and attendance-based creative events where teachers, creative professionals, and students all have the chance to share experiences and ideas.

Domestika

If you’re familiar with Skillshare, then you’ll know how this type of online learning platform works. There are a couple of differences worth mentioning, though…

In Domestika, you pay for each course, and you then have unlimited access to it, forever. You can also get an annual subscription and get an additional discount on all courses.

Also, when you finish a course you get to download a nice looking certificate of attendance! It’ll include your name, the name of the class, a QR code that links to your course project, and the teacher’s name and signature. So you get to show off proof of your brand spanking new skills.

But for me, what gives Domestika the edge is that each course is taught by some of the best creative professionals around, and each class is expertly planned and produced by their in-house team. This means all their courses are individually curated and super high quality, and that means there’s little chance you’ll be disappointed!

Domestika was born in Spain, and so their classes used to be only in Spanish. Fortunately, they have now gone international and have teachers and students from all around the world. If a course is not in English, they’ll subtitle it for you.

Prices for the courses start at £9.90, and you can find discounts on many of them of up to 75%.

So, without further ado, here are my ten favourite Domestika courses for surface pattern designers

Tip: press the CC button on the bottom right of these videos to turn on the subtitles if you need them!

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Design and Composition of Textile Patterns

by Inés Aguilar from La Casita de Wendy
Create designs and motives through scale, colour and printing

Inés is a fashion designer at La Casita de Wendy, a Spanish brand that creates collections for stores like Anthropologie, Cocktail and Lamp. She also directs the Master of Textile and Surface Design at the European Institute of Design. So this lady knows her stuff!

In this course, Inés teaches you how to create figurative and abstract motives, and how to use them to create beautiful patterns using composition, colour and scale. She shows you how to draw your motives on paper and how to move them into Photoshop to create all sorts of wonderful repeats. She also goes through the process of creating mockups and preparing spec sheets ready to send to the printers.

This course is for anyone wanting to learn how to design their own prints and fabrics at a more advanced level.

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Design of Textile Prints

by Inés Aguilar from La Casita de Wendy
Creation of repetition rapports for manual and digital printing

This is another course by Inés Aguilar (see above) in which she walks you through the step by step process of designing a print and all the basic concepts of creating repeats. She teaches you how to gather inspiration, drawing techniques, materials, and the different ways of printing on fabric.

This course is for anyone wanting to understand the basics of the pattern design process. You also get to experiment with different mediums and manual processes, so it’s great if you like getting your hands dirty.

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Floral Illustration and Pattern Design

by Tatiana Boyko
Explore the beauty of nature by using experimental painting techniques to create a unique collection of floral illustrations

Tatiana is a Spanish-Russian illustrator currently based in London whose clients include Walker Books, Vanity Fair France and Kenzo. I absolutely love her style, so yummy!

In this course, Tatiana teaches you how to create a floral illustration and turn it into a pattern. She goes through the process of generating ideas and shows you different art supplies and tools. She helps you find your unique style for drawing and painting plants and flowers, also exploring composition and colour palettes. Finally, she shows you how to bring your creations into Photoshop to create your repeats and mockups.

This course is for anyone interested in exploring floral illustration and how to translate it into a pattern design.

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Illustrated Pattern Design

by Ana Sanfelippo
Learn to tell stories using your own hand-drawn patterns and put them on different bases

Ana is an Argentinian illustrator and graphic designer. She specialises in children’s illustrations and pattern design for products and has worked with brands like Bigbox and La Maraña. I think you’re gonna love her style!

In this course, Ana teaches you how to design a collection of patterns that tell a story. She goes through the process of choosing characters and other types of motives that will bring your designs to life. Ana shares what materials to use to create your illustrations, how to apply colour and how to give them personality. She then moves on to how to digitise your designs in Photoshop, and how to turn them into repeats using various composition techniques.

This course is for anyone wanting to design a pattern collection with story-telling figurative motives.

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Illustration for Patterns with Soul

by Catalina Estrada Uribe
Develop your own graphic language through patterns for meaningful projects

Catalina is a fellow Colombian and a friend of mine! But that’s not why she’s on this list, I promise you. She’s one of the most talented illustrators ever and has worked for some big clients like Paul Smith, Nike, Coca-Cola, UNICEF and Amnesty International.

In this course, Catalina walks you step by step through the process of creating beautiful and emotional prints using a project of social nature as inspiration, as she loves collaborating and volunteering in projects that help improve the environment and people’s lives. She shows you how to gather inspiration, sketch and then vectorise your designs in Illustrator, how to create your colour palettes and your repeats, and loads of other amazing and very useful tips and tricks.

This course is for anyone wanting to learn how to create heartfelt prints, step by step, and using simple and practical techniques.

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Personal Brand Creation Based on Your Patterns

by Ana Blooms
Learn how to design patterns and reflect them in your first product collection

Ana Peralta (better known as Ana Blooms) is another Colombian and a textile designer who specialises in floral and nature illustrations.

In this course, Ana teaches you how to create a mini collection of patterns to apply to your own products. She introduces you to the world of branding and strategies for differentiating your work. Ana goes through the process of gathering inspiration and creating moodboards and colour palettes. She also shows you various illustration techniques, how to bring your drawings into Photoshop and how to create repeats and mockups.

This course is for anyone interested in creating their own products printed with their own prints.

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Textile Pattern Design for Home Interiors

by Tatiana Nedialkova
Learn to create patterns and illustrations for household products that light up your home

Tatiana is a multi-disciplinary artist based in England. She owns Softer and Wild, a home and kitchen textiles brand.

In this course, Tatiana takes you through the process of designing and producing textile patterned products for your home. She shows you how to get inspiration and create moodboards, how to create patterns with simple shapes in Illustrator, and how to colour them. Tatiana then teaches you how to apply the designs to kitchen textiles using balanced compositions and how to prepare your files ready to send to the printers. She even gives you some tips and tricks on how to market your products.

This course is for anyone interested in creating their own printed textile products.

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Textile Prints with Digital Techniques

by Ricardo Luévanos
Learn to create illustrations based on photographs to be applied on fabric

Ricardo is a maximalist Mexican graphic artist who uses collage, illustration and photography to create intricate prints. You can find his work in galleries, album covers, international magazines and clothing lines.

In this course, Ricardo teaches you how to create textile prints with digital techniques. He shows you how to create moodboards and how to define the graphic style you’ll use for your designs. Ricardo then moves to Photoshop to create collages using cut out images and digital techniques like brightness, contrast, shades, etc… He shows you how to create compositions and how to use colour filters to create gorgeous effects. Finally, he teaches you how to apply your designs to fabrics.

This course is for anyone wanting to explore digital techniques to create unique patterns for printing on clothes and accessories.

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Vector Pattern Creation and Commercialisation

by Laura Varsky
Creation of repetition rapports for manual and digital printing

Laura is an Argentinian graphic designer, art director and illustrator who specialises in albums and book design. She’s also the author of several illustrated books, and her work is part of the permanent design collection of the Museum of Modern Art of Buenos Aires.

In this course, Laura teaches you how to create a mini collection of patterns using manual and digital techniques. She uses her graphic design background to show you how to create images from concepts and how to vectorise these elements in Illustrator. She helps you to create mockups so you can commercialise your designs, and also talks about copyright and contracts.

This course is for anyone interested in creating a collection of digital patterns to use commercially.

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Vector Pattern Illustration for Beginners

by Sara Tomate
Create a step-by-step graphic pattern system and turn it into a collection of illustrated products

Sara Sarmiento (better known as Sara Tomate) is another Colombian illustrator. I swear I’m not biased… They’re just too good not to include them! Her clients include Penguin Random House, The New York Times and Mac Center. I think you’re gonna love her too.

In this course, Sara teaches you how to create vector patterns from scratch using a clear and authentic concept. You get to create a pattern collection that you can use to make your own illustrated product line with your signature style. Sara shows you her step by step process, from inspiration, sketching and pattern styles to composition, colour palettes and the tools and tricks to create vectors. She also shows you how to visualise your designs on real products by creating mockups.

This course is for anyone wanting to create vector patterns to apply to a variety of products.

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And those are my current ten favourite Domestika courses for surface pattern designers! I hope you enjoyed this selection and that it got your creative juices flowing. If you feel inspired, do give any (or all!) of these classes a go, I promise you won’t be disappointed.

And by the way, there are more pattern design courses that you can have a look at, just in case you’re looking for something different. There are also loads of other classes that might interest you in illustration, design software, crafts and many more creative endeavours. Just have a good browse, and I’m sure you’ll find something that tickles your fancy!

Have a lovely creative day, and I’ll see you soon :-)

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I’ll get a small commission if you buy any of the products featured here (at no extra cost to you, but it does help run the blog!). But please be assured that I only recommend stuff that I would buy/use myself, and that’s a promise.

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