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Remember all those advices you got about not overdoing it with colors and patterns? Be it in your home, or your clothes, we've gone into the realm of boring beige, neutrals and solid colors for a few decades now. If you are old enough, you might remember the late 90s when grandmillennial florals were for wealthy people and considered old school, only to be completely phased out once we reached the 2010s and the depressing era of black, white and grey home decor that people deluded themselves into thinking it was prefection simply because that's how real estate agents showcased houses put on the market. Sure! Neutral sells, and attracts a broader market, but it's a real bore to live your days into. Sadly, people became afraid of mixing colors, or patterns for that matter. Stripes and flowers? Are you mad? Paisley and checkered plaid? Really? I'm here to tell you that this fear or color and pattern mixing is irrational at best, and all you need to get over it and infuse joy into your home is a comprehensive beginner's guide to mixing and matching patterns (and colors). So are you ready to dive in and kick the sad beige mom aesthetic out the door? Let's dive in! Start with a plan, and a color palette Refinement in home decor starts with picking a color theme for your room and make sure it's the right balance between minimalist monochromes and "help I think a paint factory exploded in there" My advice is to pick one main color for the room, include 2-3 shades of it and pick one complimentary color again in 2-3 variations and either a neutral or a contrasting color to use for accents. For example, in the first picture of this blog post where I feature The Maharani's summer garden collection . The main color is green, with a pastel mint green as the dominant color, a matching forest green and a mid-tone green. The complimentary color for green is red and since I'm predominately using a pastel green in that scheme, the natural complimentary tone is pink, I used a light pink and a dark pink. I added a sunny yellow and a few pops of white as my contrasting accent color. In the picture on the right I featured my Pacific Beach collection , I used a dark blue and turquoise as my main color, and instead of adding orange as a complimentary, I went with gold / yellow and used white as my accent color in an effort to keep it coastal. If you aren't sure about picking a color palette, I suggest you pick inspiration from Pinterest, if you search color palettes, you'll be shown a lot of aesthetic palettes of 5-6 colors each to get you started. Once you have your palette, start by deciding which color is going to be your primary color. To go back to my Maharani's summer garden bedroom, the primary is mint green, supported by darker green elements. These two colors are the hero colors. In that mockup you can see that the floral wallpaper is mint green, so is most of the bedding and the wood panelling is a solid forest green that is echoed in the fabric of the bed frame and the lampshades. The pink flowers and arches are here to brake the monotony of the green and add a bold contrast. The yellow is acting a tertiary color in this decor scheme and it's role is to provide a place for the eyes to ground themselves without the color dominating the space and competing with the primary and secondary colors. With accent colors, less is more in a maximalist decor scheme. But what about mixing and matching patterns? What's the rule? The key to mixing patterns is to find a good balance, and like with the color scheme work with one or two "hero patterns" and 2-3 filler patterns. Take my Sushi Party collection featured on the right. It features one big hero pattern which is the pink roll of fabric on top, and two sort of hero patterns in the sushi roll and nigir sushi patterns, along with 3 filler patterns : the white stars on a red background, the red and white sparks on a black background and the pink chopsticks pattern. Note that your hero pattern DOES NOT have to be the dominant pattern in your decor unless you are going for a really bold decor. For example, the pink hero pattern could be super overwhelming if used as a wallpaper (though not lying it would look cool). So if you were planning to decorate the kitchen or your dinning room with this pattern collection it probably would be a good idea to use either the red or black filler pattern as a wallpaper, and use the hero pattern for curtains, or chair cushions, and add accents like placemats in any of the other supporting patterns in the collection. Similarly, If you were to wallpaper your walls with a bold rustic pinecones wallpaper like this one from Spoonflower , you better go easy with other rustic patterns like a plaid , and keep your upholstery furniture in a warm neutral like they did in that mockup picture with the sofa. Remember this simple rule : If you are using a filler pattern as your dominant pattern, use a bolder hero pattern as an accent, and if you use a bold, large scale hero as your focal point, use a smaller matching filler pattern (or two) as your accent patterns. In home decor, you want to make sure that nothing steals the show away from your focal point, or main theme. The more patterns you mix and match, the more important that rule of thumbs become. If you are a complete beginner at it, rely on premade collections like the one I specially curated on Spoonflower and this website . I took the hassle of figuring out what goes well with what for you...to and extent. Always order swatches first Home decorating can get really expensive so take your time to make an informed decision about your fabric, wallpaper and paint. Do not go just by the image on the screen if you buy your fabric and wallpaper online, and if you go to a home decorator, do not make do with the stamp sized sample in their fabric collection book. Before becoming a surface pattern designer, I used to be an interior decorator specialised in upholstery. We ALWAYS encouraged our clients to place an order for a fabric sample swatch. They are usually about 8 x 8 inches big and will give you a MUCH better idea of how the fabric will look. We also encouraged our client to place it in the room they planned their sofa or armchair, or curtains to be and leave it there for a few days to get an idea of how it would look in different lights. Something that looks good on a sunny morning might look ugly on a rainy day or completely off in artificial lighting at night. You don't want to commit to buying yards and yards of fabric or 20 rolls of wallpaper only to realise much later that they look completely wrong in your room. Ditto with paint, do not go by that 1 inch big paper square to buy 2-3 bucket of the stuff. Paint companies sell sample size pots for a reason. Buy the colors you are hesitating between and paint generous swatches on your wall at home to decide what works and what doesn't. Still scared to go all out with patterns and colors? It's ok to start small, especially if you live in rental where you'll be limited as to what you can do home decor wise. Start by mixing and matching patterns on your throw pillows. You can buy as many as you want in your favourite colors and experiment with pairing them. You can mix things up by changing your bedding and get a new comforter or curtains . Then add a few artworks on your wall that match your color scheme and theme. Or go completely eclectic building a framed art gallery wall . There are absolutely no reason to shy away from colors and patterns in your home. You aren't living in a Pinterest worthy real estate show home. Bring some personality into your home sanctuary.

Raise your hand if you are glad to give the month of March the boot! Like every year, this month has been exhausting and it threw me a few curve balls I didn't particularly care for (more on that shortly). So this morning it's with a lot of happiness that I removed the March calendar page from my fridge and replaced it with the April 2025 calendar page . As hot and humid as this month get, April is usually a month I find my groove back and get productive again and this year I'll get a busy second half of the month as I volunteered to be teaching the basics of pattern making in Photoshop at a nearby school for a month. But let's go back to the month that was shall we? The month started strong with out 10 years old washing machine making god awful noises during the spin cycles on March 1st. We got a repair guy to look at it immediately and the verdict was that the whole drum assembly and bearings wear breaking bit by bit. He told us that while he could replace the whole drum, it would be a lot wiser to put the money toward buying a new machine as there was no guarantee something else wouldn't break a few months later. So the night before hubby was due to go on a weeklong business trip, we bought a new machine. Then the week went on fairly uneventful at the exception of relentless ongoing heat wave straight from the hottest pit of hell. Hubby came back from his trip with a cold, and a few days later I got it too, leaving me out of comission for almost 15 days! But WAIT! There is more! Just at the same time I got sick our BRAND NEW AC unit which the landlord bought and got installed to replace our old one decided to break. Thankfully being only 3 weeks old it was still under warranty but it ended up being an endless protocol with the manufacturer to get it addressed, one that left me without AC in the bedroom for 5 days. While having a cold, in the middle of a heatwave. Don't worry I made do with sleeping on the sofa bed in our home office, but still. March was also a slow month on the sale front, but less slow than January or February and thanks to my big cold, there hasn't been new YouTube videos going live, at the exception of one short one . The month did end on a positive note though. I had entered the Golden Coil planner cover contest and on March 31st it was announced that mine made it to the top 10 out of over 1600 covers! The voting for the number 1 spot is going on until April 4th so if you haven't yet, go vote for mine on this post , simply comment with the letter C to place your vote. I'm pretty stoked to have made it to the top 10 this year, last year my entry wasn't selected for the voting phase.

Massive disclaimer : This post getting searched a lot on Google I need to point that Symplico shut down their operations in December 2024 and while they said it was temporary, their website have been taken down too. If that every changes, I'll write another post. Good news if you live in India! You can now purchase some of my designs as fabric as they are now available on Symplico . Symplico is a new print on demand fabric based in Surat, India that operates like Spoonflower does in the US. Designers upload their fabric, and customer get the option to purchase fabric by the meter on different type of fabrics for all their sewing projects. They contacted me last month to know if I would be interested selling my designs with them, and after doing a bit of research, I was in and the prospect of selling fabric in India was very exciting. Their uploading process works a bit differently from all the other PoD I know which is why my designs are going to be taking a bit of time finding their way in the shop as they review everything before publishing it. This means all my work goes through their quality check team who then decide if the design is a good fit for them and will print well. Being a fabric printing company that can print in bulk, I imagine it's their way of making sure nobody gets any nasty surprise with designs not repeating well or colors not working when they order big rolls of fabric. I put them to the test The instant my first batch of designs went live, I knew I would order this orange and green fishes in seigaiha waves print to turn into a cute summer top. I selected the polyester based "Satin linen" option out of the 14 different types of fabric they offer because it was light weight and marked as a good choice for women's clothing. I placed that order on the 21st of May and it god delivered on the 29th. The Symplico team told me that most fabric orders get printed in 3-4 days with the exception of viscose based fabrics which can take up to 8 days, so if you plan or purchasing something bear that in mind. It should have reached me on the 28th, but BluDart revised the delivery date after one of their own transport got "delayed/cancelled" as per the tracking manifest. At this point though it's a courier company issue and not with the manufacturer. The quality of the print is superb and when you work with printing services like I do, it's something that is always the first thing I check. All PoD out there ask designers to upload RGB files instead of CMYK because nowadays printers are able to read and convert the embedded color profile in the files, but sometimes things still can go wrong. A good printing company will make sure their printing machines are well calibrated and run smoothly, but I have unfortunately encountered companies with poor quality over the years. So back to Symplico, their color matching is on point and my on screen design is translating perfectly to this fabric print. The printer also picked up all the small glitter accents on the fishes nicely and gave a nice rendering. The fabric itself is light and has a little texture which makes it visually interesting and less generic than your standard polyester. Being a thin, light weight fabric, it isn't fully opaque, but it's not super transparent either. You can partially see through in the the white areas of my design, but not in the printed areas. I sent it to a tailor right away to have it stiched as a wrap around top. We decided to go without lining because I wanted a light weight casual top. But with that fabric type, you might need some lining depending what you plan on turning it into. If you were to turn it into a dress, lining it would add some body to it and prevent the slight risk of being a tiny bit see-through. they have of course other fabric types that are thicker, and before placing an order, do check them all to see which one will fit best for the kind of project you have in mind. As for myself? I think I might later invest in a sewing machine and get into home decor projects. Sewing clothes is pretty much out of my wheelhouse but as former interior decorator, I'm very familiar with home decor items stitching. I might even figure out how to sew simple clothes down the line...who knows.

Trends come and go, what was in got, out and then in again. Live long enough and you realise everything can be made new again. We saw it happening with mid-century modern designs, 90s fashion, grandmillenial home decor, and the 70s mod aesthetic. Right now, paisley is making a comeback if we are to keep an eye on trends. Not that paisley ever really went completely off the grid to begin with, but it wasn't prominent a trend as it is posing itself to be right now. The first hint of the rise of paisley came last year with Cowboy chic aesthetic trending, suddenly cowboy boots and hats became a big thing and I think Beyoncé's country album had something to do with it. From then it's not far a stretch to include bandanas as part of that aesthetic trend and voila! The rise of paisley had its perfect storm coming. Spoonflower tend to organize design challenges around emerging trends and toward the end of 2024, they had come up with a wild west challenge along with a cabincore challenge. Those two trends already compliment each other well, but a few weeks back they also had a paisley revival challenge encouraging designers to play around with timeless paisley motifs and make them new again. Just this morning (as I type this) I sold this pink on pink paisley cushion cover on Society6 and a few months ago I sold the matching 2024 calendar tea towel on Spoonflower . Still on Society6 I also sold a few of these throw pillow with an older paisley pattern I created a few years back. The same pattern in a different colorway sold a few times on Spoonflower as well and I believe as a wallpaper swatch on Raspberry Creek Fabrics . And of course there has been multiple sales of this paisley pattern via Deny Designs for their whole sale partners : Safe to say that if you haven't included paisley pattern design in your portfolio, you should get to it and draw a few paisley motif right away. The beauty of paisley patterns is that they can be made in just about any style, so it shouldn't be hard to come up with one that fits your style and brand, and you can make it available in several color variations in just a few clicks in Photoshop. Plus paisley will always stay timeless, it's that designs that pops back at regular interval. It was a thing in the 70s, it did make a comeback in the late 80s and early 90s as bandanas and I sweat I had a magenta paisley and pink top during the Y2K years. I also remember having a Nokia 3310 orange paisley case (do I date myself at this point or what?) My advice if you are a bit lost as to what is trending is to start by paying attention to Spoonflower's design challenges, they are all made around what is starting to trend. You can view their current and upcoming challenge themes even if you aren't selling on Spoonflower yourself.

Spring is about to spring for many of you, and here in Mumbai we have entered the dreaded summer season (we don't get any transition season over here) March is always a month I tend to dread and each year I mark it on my planner and calendar as "Take it easy month". Speaking of calendars, we are the 1st of the month and this means the March 2025 calendar page is now up for download in the Freebie zone . The illustration on this page was the 3rd in my series of floral animal silhouettes which were released each month as Patreon rewards last year and are still available should you join Patreon today . Drawing a floral bunny to illustrate the month last year was because Easter fell in March, this year it's going to be in April, but I think we can all agree that rabbits have that kind of "spring has sprung" kind of vibe about them so it makes them a perfect animal to illustrate the month. This illustration like all the others are available on Teepublic as I make a point of uploading Patreon illustrations in that shop the same month I release them to my Patreons (yes that means this year's rewards are already live on Teepublic). Now back to the month that was and the month that will be shall we? February has felt like a kind of extension of January : slow, sluggish and a bit of boring. Sales were slow, but then they always are for the first quarter of each year because people are still hungover from the Holidays shopping frenzy and the fact that in a lot of countries the financial year ends around March, and tax returns are due in April in the US. Still February had a few surprises, like Society6 announcing they would restructure their whole approach to selling art and decided to delete a lot of accounts in the process of becoming a more curated platform. I wrote a blog post about it and made a YouTube video elaborating a bit more about it. The plan in March is of course to take it easy and favour self-care, and with the heat being on, spending lots of time at the pool. I resumed my 3 times a week swimming routine 2 weeks ago (that's how insane the heat has been this year). I'm also very excited to see what will happen with Society6 as I am one of the artist that made the cut.

The first business day of February brough in a massive surprise/shock for many artists in the community with Society6's biggest move to date. A move that is leaving artists very divided at that. If you have been selling on the platform, you must have received a special email on February 3rd either announcing that your account will be terminated or that you will be part of a smaller, curated number of artists that get to stay on the platform. The change is due to occur on March 18 at which point they will also introduce a vetting system for uploading new artwork (for the artists who made the cut) and the permanent suspension of all accounts that weren't selected for the big move. Before I go on, let me announce that I made the cut and will be part of the curated selection of artists to continue selling on Society6. A move that brings a huge relief as I was facing the third round of subscription plan renewal not going through and the prospect of being demoted to the free plan for the 3rd time. So what is going on with Society6? What is that big move all about? Society6 made the decision to delete a great number of artists' account to move toward a more curated approach to selling art. In their announcement they explain that the move was decided in order to keep on providing their customer with the best service and on trend products. The move will come in order on March 18th, until then, all accounts meant to be deleted will continue to operate as usual, but as of February 3rd the uploading of new artwork has been frozen and all subscription plans ended. Those who had just gone for a new cycle on their plan will be refunded and no new payment will be deducted after the 3rd. By March 18th, the shipping fees will be cancelled and the royalty earnings structure will change for all the accounts that have been cleared to move forward with all markups set at 5-10% of retail price. This move is to ensure that all products regardless of the art printed on them will have the same price and be more accessible to customers. Society6 announced that the artists who will be continuing with them will have their portfolio reviewed and some of their work might be removed from the platform to align better with their curated collection. New artwork will have to follow a curation guideline and submission process they haven't shared yet. the reasoning behind that big move All print on demand websites have become EXTREMELY saturated and plagued by fraud / spam accounts uploading low quality artwork, often relying on free stock photos or worse stolen art, then came AI and some people have been uploading AI images after AI images by the dozen in order to flood the platform and hope to be seen. This has sadly led to many genuine artists disappearing in the mass of low quality and low effort designs. All those PoD platforms started with the intent of giving artists a chance at getting seen, and they have all evolved to become attempt for bogus designers to get rich quick (which doesn't happen). Some blatantly steal the art of artists like myself, I had to report quite a few over the years because these bogus accounts will stop at almost nothing. Back in 2023, Society6 first introduced shipping fees on all sales earnings, and then paid subscription plans in an effort to weed some of those fraudsters of the platform. They weren't the only ones coming up with measures to deter bogus "artists" then, Redbubble introduced membership tiers and fees on entry level accounts and Teepublic came up with two different earnings structures depending on the quality level of the account. Society6 is now taking it a step further and decided to narrow down their pool of artists and designs in order to cater exclusively to their target audience. This move will give the remaining artists a better chance at getting seen and making sales, which I think is a good idea. What to expect moving forward? I personally think it's going to be interesting to see how things will develop starting March 18th, especially with what kind of curated content they will be going for. I'm not too surprised by the whole move to be honest, they really hinted at a serious change of direction when they introduced the whole new look of their website in October and their marketing strategy going forward, not to mention their blog posts hinting at upcoming trends. It's clear they are moving toward catering to a clientele that is into specific trends and design aesthetics and want to do away with anything that does not resonate with said audience. I personally think that while this move is a bold one, it's not necessarily a bad thing. Society6 is a business after all, and they are protecting their own interests. This is also allowing them to stand out in a crowd of PoD platform. With artists usually uploading the same designs on several platform, and most PoD selling the same type of products, there wasn't much that made Society6 stand out. It's not just artists facing fierce competition in this industry, PoD feel the burden too. What to do if your account has been marked for suspension? As I said in December in my " Don't put all your eggs in the same basket " post, if you haven't diversified yet, now is the time. New PoD shops are created all the time, and many die as quickly as they come, and you never know when something will affect your business, so the wise move is to never rely on just one platform. Too many artists make that mistake and it severely impact their chances at building their business. It's something I keep on saying on Quora as well : what sells on one platform won't sell on another and there isn't much logic to it most of the time. When I started selling on Society6 back in 2017, the trend of the hour was boho abstract art, followed by watercolor hand lettering and watercolor patterns in bold colors. The succulent everything trend was already starting to decline. Fastforward to now, the trend on the platform seems to be retro florals, grandmillennial aesthetics, and retro seasonal trends like the après-ski trend and the vintage coastal elements like the ones in my recent collection . The Matisse inspired art is still having its moment too, but I have seen a shift away from it going on. All this to let you know that when you plan on selling your art on PoD or anywhere for that matter you essentially become a commercial artist, and paying attention to trends is something you should always keep doing. It doesn't mean you have to hop on all of them, just pick the ones that resonate with you, and in the end make peace with the fact you might not be doing well on every platforms. If you were among the artists that were marked for suspension, as much as it hurts, do not take it personally. It's not that you weren't good enough. I've seen many excellent artists not making the cut, the quality of their art isn't the problem. It's just that Society6 made an executive decision to only go with a certain style and didn't feel your work was part of their vision for their brand. This kind of things happen all the time in the art and design industry, rejection is part of the game. I'll say that though, Society6 is at least giving you over a month of warning before the big move occurs. I've been on PoD that didn't give that kind of courtesy, several I had a presence on simply shut down their operation one fine morning without as much as an email or a plan to pay artists their dues. So make the most of that month to clear everything, change all your links and let your audience know what is going on. If you haven't signed up for another PoD platform yet, go ahead and open an account on another. There are several options out there and I encourage you to try a few : Teepublic Threadless Redbubble Spoonflower Zazzle Framer Art Pixels Just to name a few! Also keep an eye open for any other PoD out there, especially new platforms where you will probably have more visibility. Also look in the possibility of licensing your art directly to companies, or entertain commission work. You could also set up a shop on Etsy if that is your thing, especially since they now allow drop shipping services to be listed as your production partner. The point is when it comes to creative businesses you never know when the wind is going to start turning and it's better to try new things and say yes to opportunities coming your way whenever they come.

This year, seashells and retro coastal themed artworks and patterns will have a moment in the sun. Not that they were ever out of the spotlight as they are one of those timeless trend that never really goes away. But 2025 will be the year of refined coastal elements, and thanks to Pantone and its Mocha Mousse color of the year, we are going to be seeing a lot of beige, and warm earth tones around. Neutrals have been associated with comfort, warmth and luxury as of late. And while I am not fully on board with the sad beige aesthetic trend (I actually hate it), I must admit it works great in coastal collection of patterns. Which is why I created the retro seashell beach collection . In the name of trends, I stepped out of my comfort zone and worked with a neutral palette of tan, peach and sand tones with a hint of teal and designed a seashell collection using a digital watercolor brush in Procreate on my iPad. The result is a collection of seashell and kelp patterns transporting you to an Atlantic coast beach in the peak of summer. Picture a quaint little coastal town and a beach cottage in the summer. For me, this is the only time using warm neutrals feel appropriate. It brings back memories of simpler times and childhood innocence mixed with carefree summer days at the beach. The whole collection is already available on Spoonflower as fabric and wallpapers. As with all my designs, I can resize them on request for Spoonflower and they are of course licensable, so if you are interested in licensing my work, shoot me an email. This coastal collection isn't the first I created, as I also have a brighter, bolder collection called "Pacific Beach" in my portfolio. As far as seashells are concerned one of my best seller on Redbubble has been this Turquoise seashell pattern which has sadly been stolen by some people selling on Ali Express and possibly Temu. As of late the same pattern is also getting popular in its soft pink avatar still on Redbubble. With Pinterest predicting a "sea witchery" and a "Fisherman aesthetic" trend in their 2025 trend report I think it is safe to say seashells and coastal aesthetic isn't going to leave the scene this year.

Is it just me or January is a month that feels like a whole year in itself? I always feel like it drags and drags on no end. 31 days? It feels more like 80 if you ask me. The irony being that this unbearably long, boring month is followed by the shortest month of the year : February. So before I ramble any further about anything, here is the reminder that the February 2025 calendar page is up for download in the freebie zone . But back to the month that was shall we? All 269 days of it (just kidding...well almost), I think it's safe to say that on top of usually being a sluggish month it also was a crazy one for many around the world. And then there were social media changes that got people all riled up : Meta cancelling fact checks, TikTok facing a potential ban in the US, and Instagram changing its grid from square to rectangle! Which is what prompted me to publish a blog post about 3 expenses you shouldn't be cheap when it comes to your creative business . As for me, the social media changes isn't really something I feel like cribbing about, the most annoying bit of January has been Society6 yet again failing to fix their auto-pay feature for subscription plan which will probably have me demoted to the free plan for the 3rd time since November in a few days. At this point I'm finding myself pondering if sticking up with them is even worth it in the long run. January has been a predictably slow months for sales, it happens every year, but even more so this year with the US being uncertain about tariffs hitting them. I'm suspecting that with the cost of everything going up, including essentials there will be less room in the budget for many to buy art. But hey! Enough with the doom and gloom, let's keep marching on and embrace February and all the opportunities it may bring. I know many of you up North are longing for spring, and while I don't rejoice to the prospect of temperatures rising up here in Mumbai, it will at least come with the silver lining of being able to enjoy the pool again (not a fan of too cold water). So here's to an awesome month of February, wherever you are! Cheers!

As I type this, the people are loosing it over Instagram changing their grid from a square format to a rectangle format and I am among the few who really don't mind it at all, but some people still hungover from the ultra-aesthetic grid trend that was at its peek circa 2016 is not taking the change too well. Why? Because it's making their perfectly curated grid looking all funky. I was planning this blog post about the main 3 business expenses you should not skip when planning to sell your art and this later social media development is making it even more important now. See, some people were relying exclusively on Instagram for all their marketing strategy, including building their portfolio. It's free, and it's easy, but the problem with everything that is free is that you are completely dependent on the platform and if they decide to make changes or shut down, or get banned you end up being left to hang dry. As I said it a few weeks back, it's never a good idea to put all your eggs into one basket . Along the same line, it's not a good idea to be cheap with certain expenses when it comes to building your business. Don't get me wrong, I get being on a tight budget, when you are just getting started, it can be hard and if you can get something for free it's tempting. There are also many expenses that aren't as necessary as they are made to be, like paid ads on social media to promote a PoD business. But these 3 below are really important and I'll explain why below. your own domain name and website If there is one expense you should ABSOLUTELY not skip, it's this one. You can temporary ignore the other two I'm about to list, but this one is non negotiable. The key to building your creative business is to establish yourself and your work as a brand and like all brands you need to have a presence online. So if you haven't already, narrow down on a name, and check the availability for a domain name. There are a number of domain registration services like Go Daddy, Wix, or Google domains. Look at the prices and packages and see which one fits you better. I bought this one years ago when I still had a blog on Blogger and did so from Go Daddy, all in all this should set you up to around 15$ a year or since I am in India around 1500 rupees a year. Your first year is likely to come up a lot cheaper as many of these domain registry sites offer discounts to new customers. Bear in mind that this will ONLY buy you the domain name though. You are then free to link it to a website or blog platform of your choice that may or may not attract hosting fees. As I said when I first bought my domain, I was bloging on Blogger which is FREE, you have the option to add static pages along with your blog including a portfolio page, so if you are on a budget, know that Blogger will do the trick just fine. I moved away from Blogger in 2022 and started this website which is hosted by WIX, again they have different plans, and I picked a premium plan because my website is image heavy and it sets me 2600 rupees a year but they do have cheaper plans, so if you are just getting started, you can opt for a cheaper plan and upgrade later on as you grow. Having a website or a blog is pretty much buying yourself a slice of the internet and ensuring your content doesn't vanish as easily as it could with just a social media handle. All of your update will have their own URL and can be searched on Google. Bonus expense : Buy an email ID that ends up with @your-domain-name. com. I did without for years, but I now like having all my professional mails be delivered into one mailbox that is separate from my personnal one. Plus to a client, having an email address that ends with your domain name instead of gmail is going to make you sound a LOT more professional. You can get it as an add-on with your domain registrar or web host service, or you can get with with Google workspace. For the sake of disclosure, this sets me up to about 400 rupees a month. As I said, less essential but a nice bonus if you can afford it. Buy your own products! I keep seeing people asking if running an ad campaign on Instagram or Facebook is going to help them make sales on Redbubble or Society6 and my answer is : NO, it's a waste of money I did it once for 5 days back in 2018, boosted one of my Instagram posts, back then it was I believe 600 rupees for those 5 days and at first I let IG decide for me who my target audience should be based on who I follow and who follows me. I ended up getting a bunch of creepy guys wanting to "be friends" in DM and people from India kept liking my post without any further engagement. Not where my potential buyers would be for Society6 products! So I changed the parameters of the add to select the countries and target the demographics better. At the end of 5 days, my posts got a lot of likes, a handful of clicks and only TWO new followers! There is a much better place to invest your marketing budget and that is in buying your own products. Either from those PoD sites since several deliver to India, including Society6 and Threadless (both links point to blog posts I wrote about it). You also have the option to get your designs printed locally, I do it all the time for the cushion covers on my sofa, and other items like the canvas prints on my wall and mousepads. For this I mostly rely on an India based service called YourPrint , but I also used Vistaprint in the past. A picture of an actual product in the flesh posted on social media will give you a LOT more credibility than posting product images after product images straight from your Redbubble shop. Plus you can style your products to be consistent with your own branding. It looks more personal and you'll look less spammy. Plus they can be great conversation starters with people visiting your home or seeing you carry your Society6 bottle at the pool/gym. With PoD, the key is to wait for a significant promotion deal to recover the shipping cost and a portion of the possible custom duty (depending from where it ships). Threadless is also periodically sending artists coupons to use in their own shop to buy samples, so take advantage of any deal you can. Invest in professional editable mockup files This one is a follow up on my previous blog post about using mockups in your portfolio. Buying mockups vs using free ones will give you an edge as they will be less overused, ESPECIALLY on social media. If you are trying to build a professional portfolio to pitch to clients, using .psd mockups that you can edit at will is the way to go. And yes, I am part of the Creatsy Affiliate program so I obviously will always recommend theirs, but even without being an affiliate, they are mockups I can 100000% vouch for. They are easy to edit, and always look great. A couple of days ago I bought this retro bathroom scene and edited it in many way, including one version with my " Beach n Surf " collection. Out of all 3 businesses expenses you shouldn't skip this is the less urgent, but in the long run you benefit from using paid mockups over free ones. Like with buying your own products, consider it a marketing budget expense that is going to be worth more than paid ads. These 3 essential expenses are the ones you should be planning in your budget before any other ones. Forget expensive courses, or fancy and expensive ad campaigns or expensive video filming equipment. You can still buy into these later if they makes sense to you, but as long as you don't have your own website, and unique quality products images you'll be at the mercy of social medias making changes on you and fighting the algorithm for a chance to be somewhat seen. Those 3 business expenses are helping you buy your way out of the rat race that everyone else is running.

There will be a point during your surface designer career where you'll need to create a collection or put together a portfolio or website showcasing the best of your designs in an attractive and professional way. If you stumbled upon this blog post without having seen the rest of my website, I urge you to click around a little bit to know what I mean. You'll notice immediately that my whole website contains a lot of product pictures featuring my work in an on-brand way. I've done so by using mockups to create a professional portfolio look, and you should to if you are in the design industry. "But WAIT! What do you mean by mockups? Aren't those images real?" Yes and no. Yes they are kind of real and they weren't created using any AI, but no, there are no physical enamel mugs with my Beach n Surf designs going around....yet. Those mugs, along with many other mock ups are files I bought from a brand called Creatsy (affiliate link) which in my opinion create the best Photoshop editable mockups there is. Mockups are files that you can use to add your images into to create a very realistic looking product and they are your secret weapon to create a professional and cohesive portfolio. I've been using them for years to create images for my blog posts, photos to use on social media and more recently to build collections to add to my collection page and portfolio. I found that it's a lot easier for me to get a feel of how different designs look together by playing around with a mockup like this bedroom mockup I used to build my Maharani's summer garden collection a few months ago : Aside from providing a great way to visualise how a collection is going to look as you build it, it's also a great way to show a prospect client what potential your designs have and how well they work together on different surface. If you are a surface pattern designer mostly doing home decor textiles and wallpaper, building a portfolio that showcase a lot of mockup images on that theme. If you are planning on pitching your collection as tableware, using plates, mugs and tablescapes mockups is the way to go. There are several free and paid mockups options all around the internet, if you go for a free version, pay attention to the fine prints, some require you to give attribution. You also risk looking less original with a free mockup file, especially on social media. My advice with all product mockups files is to rely on as large library of assets as you can to avoid repeating the use of the same one all the time be it on Instagram or in your own professional portfolio. No matter where your prosepctive clients and customers look, they will want to see a wide range of application. If your goal is to build a cohesive portfolio organised around collections, do not forget to use pattern swatches along those mockup to allow people to have a better look at how your patterns look as well. You want to create a visually appealing collection spread to sell your pattern collection to a prospective licensing partner or client. And in my opinion, purchasing mockup files from a reputed company is one of those expenses you want to make room for in your business. As stated after my first Creatsy link, this post contain affiliate link as I am a member of their affiliate program. That said, I only partner with companies creating products I can 100% vouch for, so rest assured that if you follow those links and make a purchase, you aren't going to be disappointed. I've been using these mockups for years and no other company create more realistic looking products than them. To be able to use those files, you will need Photoshop as they are all .psd files, all of them are highly customisable and are easy to use with a basic grasp of how to use "smart objects.

Creative blocks are as old as time and every artists have had one at one point or another. They can be pretty annoying when your livelihood relies on your ability to be creative. It comes as no surprise that to attempt to solve the creative rut problem, the ancient greek deployed a battalion of goddesses dedicated to the arts and science : the muses. The muses were the ones you would go pay a tribute to when you struggled to find the words for your next play, the moves for your next dance or the inspiration for your next poem or song. There were 9 of them to cover all performing arts, literature, history and astronomy. Oddly enough none dedicated to rescue a sculptor or painter out of their creative block misery. So if the greek needed 9 muses to inspire artists, it's safe to say that creativity playing hide and seek with people has pretty much existed all throughout history and with all the tech and science we have, we haven't solved that existential problem yet. Probably because it isn't as big a problem as we thought. Science seems to support the idea that creativity comes in wave and that the phases we call "creative block" are simply a phase during which the brain is catching a breather to regenerate and these period of calm are needed to tackle the next big creative wave. I'm sure you all have had one of those creative surge where you want to do all the things at once and you usually get more ideas than you have waking hours at your disposal to execute them. Those periods of high creativity can be energy draining and once your brain says " no more" it will shut down to being receptive to any idea until it got its energy back. If you are an introvert, you are probably already familiar with that "recharge your batteries" concept. You might enjoy an evening out with friends and be bubbly and talkative, only to want to see absolutely no one for a few days afterwards because being social drained you completely. The same goes with creativity, when it comes it can deplete your energy levels and push you into needing a break. it becomes a problem only when your livelihood depends on it In a world obsessed with productivity at the cost of health, suddenly having an urge to crawl under the covers and munch on chips while watching Netflix isn't going to bode well. But, forcing yourself out of a creative rut is probably not the best idea either. The day I finally made peace with the fact those periods of low creativity were actually healthy was the day I started getting over them quicker. Sounds weird, but you are better off fully embracing the rut than trying to fight it and push through it. Just like the way out of a Chinese finger trap is to push deeper inwards rather than try to yank your fingers free, the way out of a creative rut is to embrace it and give in to the "laziness" to be able to rebound. Once you fully accept that your creativity will wax and wane, you can plan your work life around it and still be productive without creating new work. This is actually the beauty of working as a creative entrepreneur. Chances are that if you are freelancing, you are also a lot more flexible with your time, and have several streams of income, some of them passive, and some requiring a bit more of your time. Here is how I go about having a waning creative phase these days : If I'm feeling like I could use some downtime, I take it. I only keep the tasks I really can't push around like the art classes I teach, but everything else takes a backseat until I feel energised enough to take on new tasks. Usually my creative blocks have one or 2 days of really not wanting to do anything at all, followed by a few days of me not wanting to do new work, but feeling up to the task of uploading work I had sitting on my computer to my shops , I might even have the energy to revisit an older design and tweak it a bit to create a new version I usually bounce back to a creative phase within a week or so, sometimes it can drag for 2-3 weeks, especially in the hot Summer months when the heat becomes debilitating in Mumbai. Every year without a fail, creativity leaves the building around April and doesn't come back until June when the monsoon comes. This period of creative block is the easiest for me to anticipate, so I usually take full advantage of the fact I am super creative in January and February to create a lot of new things that I save for that period. You can also strongly reduce the amount of time you spend stuck in a rut by reminding yourself to take frequent breaks in your work. We are not machines, and it's important to have a good work/life balance, EVEN if you love what you do. I don't see doodling or painting as work or as something unpleasant, and I could do it for hours on no end not realising that my mind still would need a break, and that is when the risk of getting sucked in a waning phase strikes. I usually limit the amount of time I work on weekends and make sure I pepper my week with breaks where I go out, meet friends, go for a walk or a swim, or as it is going to be the case later this morning, go get my nails done. Believe it or not, I plan my work period AROUND my needs for break rather than squeeze my breaks into a work schedule, and doing it that way has been a game changer. Right about now, I'm actually in a "rest phase" I spend 3-4 weeks feeling very creative, and now my body and mind is naturally entering a regenerating phase which it really needs in order to start creating more for the upcoming festive season. It pays to know what your personal cycles feel like, mine are fairly predictable at this point so I know how to work with them. If you have not yet noticed your own pattern, I urge you to just embrace the phase you are on, possibly journal about it, and let the whole cycle run its course a few times to see how long each of your phases last and what factors might play a role. As I said, my longest rest phase comes between April and mid-June when the heat is at its worst in Mumbai and I have the energy for NOTHING leave alone creating things. I also tend to have a creative block phase right around Christmas until New Year because it's time I want to spend reflecting on myself and spending it with family. The rest of the time I tend to fall in a 3-4 weeks creative phase followed by a 7-10 days phase of rest, with at least 2-3 days of really not wanting to do anything. You don't have to look for inspiration, let inspiration find you If you are rested and in the right mindset, ideas will keep flowing from the most unlikely sources at time, like it was the case for my Groovy Rickshaw . Chasing an idea rarely work and you might end up feeling quite frustrated doing so. Ideas tend to come to you when you are receptive to them, once you make peace with that fact, you feel more relaxed and being more relaxed allows ideas to come back to you quicker after a creative block phase. One thing I often do is write ideas down when they strike and wait until I feel ready to give them any attention, it might be an option when I am not yet in a high inspiration and creativity phase, but am out of a highly unmotivated rut period. When you are a creative person, it greatly help to see yourself as a medium through which ideas can manifest, and it's hard work. So like everyone, you need your rest between work periods, that's ultimately how you should approach a creative block, which isn't really a block at all.

I set several goals for myself in 2025, one being to make more YouTube video content for my channel and the other to draw and doodle more regularly and I found the perfect way to stay on track with that second goal. This is time to kiss creative blocks goodbye! There is no more excuses with this one super cool Christmas gift I gave myself " The Endless Art Challenge " by Megan Roy (affiliate link). This is a cute little set of 90 cards divided in 3 categories : subject, color and wild card. You pick one card from each category and work with this prompt to create your artwork. Still stuck? The back of each card has an illustration by different artists and the invitation to recreate their work in your style. The card set let you create over 25'000 unique combinations so that you will never have to deal with the dreaded creative block, as long as you challenge yourself to act on those prompt that is. I already created a pattern using the prompt in the picture above and if you want to know more about the cards and what I created with them, I encourage you to go watch the first video of 2025 on YouTube :