Here is his winning pattern:

And this is how Christopher Lowell described it:

Depending on color choice, this could easily go from organic to pop art. Its range is calm and sensual or upbeat and highly graphic depending on chosen contrasts. I like its non-gender specific attitude. Its flow and movement give it a contained animation. Its soft, pod-in-water-like suggestion could integrate well into both global-organic modern, traditional and pop or young and hip spaces.

Billy will now be inducted into the league of World Class Designers on Alluminare.com. He also won a $300 gift certificate toward any of Alluminare’s fabulous products.

The runners-up were: Renata Rubim, Maria Cheek and Nicky Martin. Congratulations to all!

In light of recent developments, this post has changed to congratulate a new winner. I stand by Homeworkshop.com’s decision to adjust the outcome.

Friday of @Alluminare tweeted the other day “It has always been our opinion that our customers are the designers. We are the facilitators of design.” Hear that? Empowerment. Alluminare* provides a platform for anyone to be a great designer.

I have recently had the pleasure of judging a contest with Christopher Lowell**. I have been a fan of his for YEARS and you know why? Empowerment. He’s always showing people how to do cool stuff. I love it. Just watching his show will make you feel like a rockstar.

In conversations it’s often expected and/or acceptable to downplay your accomplishments, to not take any credit for anything. It makes me uncomfortable. Would you let someone talk about your best friend that way? Sure, there’s a fear of sounding prideful, but we’re all adults here, and we know when we’re being arrogant. What about genuine, unabashed pride in a job well done?

Everyone needs their own moment, their own moment to stand back and feel awesome about something. What are you good at? What have you done that makes you smile at yourself? Did you surprise yourself?

For me, recently, I’ve been shocking my own socks off with the level of detail I’m able to draw. I had no idea I had that ability! Now if I could just find smaller pens…

What’s your awesomeness? What makes you feel like a rockstar? Come on… Dish.

*Affiliate. If you buy my stuff over there, I can get that new pair of Chucks I’ve been eyeing.
**Not an affiliate link. I just think he’s amazing.

1. Finish this tutorial series.
2. Complete the plan for a new product I’m developing (super secret! super exciting! stay tuned!)
3. Refine some current patterns; get my sketches up for your viewing pleasure.
4. My usual end-of-summer task: another copyright book!

She started with 5, but for now I’m starting with 4 (I know, I know…). If When I get these done, I’ll add to the list! Summer 2010, here I come!

Today, I made a pattern from the doodles I did on the train from Venice to Florence. Introducing “Venice.”

Talk to me if you’d like to use this pattern somewhere.

I decided about a month ago to declare Mondays “Offline Mondays”. I know an independent artist who works in a cafe/pub on Friday afternoons, and another who is completely offline on Fridays.  Now that I’ve tried it, I am convinced this is the way I must do things. Here’s why I love it:

• When I’m online, I often have about 5 tabs in Firefox open, Illustrator and Photoshop running, and a handful of chat windows asking for replies. Being the obsessive consummate multitasker, I actually enjoy this environment. Tons to do, flying a mile-a-minute through windows and screens and programs, making it all happen. Offline Mondays, sans computer, I am able to let my brain stop and breathe, and after about 11:00 on Monday morning, ideas I’ve been packing into the back of my mind begin to gingerly emerge. Baby ideas that aren’t strong enough to demand attention while I’m multitasking. It’s quite exciting, actually. I wouldn’t get to that part of my brain if I didn’t stop and let it happen.
• I usually work on the weekend. Often I am timing loads of laundry with chunks of time for project management or creating patterns. Again, being a multitasker, I enjoy the challenge of a long to-do list and seemingly not enough time to finish it. I’m just not convinced it’s the best way for me to do things every day of the week.
• I. Need. To. Draw. And I need my eyes for this. I need my hands. Being online requires both my eyes and my hands, so I don’t have a lot of focused creative time while I’m online. My creativity and drawing have soared since the advent of Offline Mondays.
• My brain is so addicted to multitasking that if it’s not doing fifty-seven things at once, it starts to invent things to take up all that extra thinking room. When I step away from the computer, all that extra thinking room is available for new ideas, new plans, thinking through past half-ideas, and making coherent thoughts into plans. It’s like running through a field of flowers I’ve never seen. I wake up Tuesday full of plans, hope, resolve, and usually a handful of sketches. That takes focused time, time that is hard to come by at my desk.
• Yesterday, I planted blueberries and grapes in my garden. On a weekday. When everyone else was working. But while I was planting, I was able to mull over a couple business ideas I’ve been ping-ponging around lately, and actually have a more cohesive plan. And I’ll have fresh fruit in a few weeks to boot!

Of course my crackberry is on the ottoman in front of me, and if someone needs something, I’m right there. But generally, Monday is the day the whole world is putting their head back on straight after a relaxing weekend, so I rarely have emergency calls.

Try it! Just once. Give yourself, your creativity, your brain some time to itself. I think you’ll be surprised at what the break will do for you.

The scariest pricing idea ever. That works.

Here is a photo gallery of just the pics of things I found inspiring. There were no rules to what and why I’d take a pic; if I liked it, if it caught my eye, if it made my brain whirl, I took a pic. I tend to notice very small things, or very large things. My mind has always aligned the things around me, so sometimes, I’d just notice the shapes made by several buildings or objects all together, from whatever perspective I was able to see them. I hope you’ll enjoy them and feel inspired, too!

Inspiration Picture Gallery