and here are the prints that came from the backbeat

Inspired by Mara Hoffman's swim collections and keeping the Stylesight Spring 2015 Megatrend "Impulse" in mind I came up with three coordinating prints. I've been intrigued by woven textile traditions from the "Americas" lately, and I think that crept into the stripe a bit. I've been fascinated with the similar qualities in Navajo, Mexican, Columbian, Peruvian, Guatemalan and even Inuit textiles. 

I ended up blending two different design briefs into one collection. Over on Pattern Observer, Chelsea's Challenge has a "Runway Inspired" brief, and the Make It In Design School Summer School Intemediate level brief was for swimwear with a "fun retro inspired pattern". Specific details were to "think large-scale motifs, including at least one strong bold geometric shape.

I started thinking about 60's pop inspired geometrics, and came up with a few different patterns:

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print inspired by 60's pop patterns

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print inspired by a Courregges mini dress from the 60's (separate bits in these shapes held together with chain)

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another coordinating geometric pattern

Not really feeling like any of these were where I wanted to go, I pulled up this stripe I'd done a while ago

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Multi-colored diagonal stripe

I isolated one section of the stripe and then manipulated it repeatedly with Photoshop filters, then indexed it down to 5 colors, which I recolored into the palette provided in the design brief. From there I played around with the concept of dots coming from stripes and the two other prints emerged.