SIP by Stephanie Ip

stephanieip.comSeptember 12, 2018March 7, 2019#100PrintsByStephanieIp, 2018, Design + Development, Fashion + Soft Goods, Illustrations, Print Pattern

About a month ago, while I was flipping through new trending movies to watch on Netflix, I stumbled upon this gorgeous movie cover that said “Chasing Coral”, with these radiant coral reefs on the bottom. As a designer myself, I am often attracted to beautiful images, people and things – this movie poster definitely did a fantastic job of pulling me into checking out what this movie is all about.

The movie title and poster speak for itself; it is indeed a documentary about coral; specifically, the dying of coral reefs. Over the past few years, I have heard about the bleaching event of Coral Reefs, but never quite understood or cared enough to dig deeper into the topic.

Long before I declared my major in Fashion Design at Parsons, I knew I was very much interested in nature, and wanted to devote my career to designing meaningful sustainable products that will benefit the world. In the past 7+ years, my working relationships with various types of companies that design and sell products had reassured my deep belief in sustainable designs. One of the most inspiring times I had was working with Yeohlee Teng in New York City, who after 30 years, still devotes her high fashion business to sustainable fashion that is classy yet consequential. Interested to learn more about Yeohlee? Check out her company website .

For those of you who don’t know, coral bleaching is a natural reaction to, and warning sign for the changing temperature of the ocean.

What are the causes of this temperature change? As part of the ecosystem, our day-to-day behaviors have the most influence on how the environment changes and develops over time. The waste every single one of us produces and contributes to producing is one of the main causes of climate change.

Here I have gathered 5 hard facts about this bleaching event:

1// Corals are animals who breathe and eat, just like us
2// The coral reefs house vast amounts of ocean life
3// Rising ocean temperatures due to climate change
4// The bleaching event is happening to more than 80% of reefs nationwide
5// The impact is enormous on both ocean and human life

The quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson says it right, “Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.” You wouldn’t eat a fruit that has become an unfamiliar color, because you know it has turned bad. But will you turn to yourself when you see how our Mother Nature is displaying signs of sickness?

The message I’m trying to bring across is very simple – be aware, be considerate, and question yourself before making any decisions about the things you choose to consume daily.

Watercolor Corals Fading Beauty Cover Image

So what does this movie have to do with fashion?

Let’s step back to think for a second. Did you know that all the bright and neon colors that are printed on the clothes we wear are toxic to the environment?

Here are 3 main reasons why everyone of us are responsible:

1// We are part of the ecosystem of this planet
2// Nature cannot keep up with, or recover quickly enough, from the speed of human-generated pollution
3// Human beings are over consuming what nature can provide.

The industrial revolution for sure accelerated industrial production processes and produced more jobs for decades. At the same time, it had also increased the basic needs for factories to stay in business. In order for a business to make profit, factories often set a required high minimum quantity, which pushes brand owners to place high volume orders they may or may not even end up selling.

Coral Watercolor Art Print Etsy — Ocean Inspired Wall Art Watercolor Print | Coral Reef
Available on Etsy.

Working in the industry of fashion gave me the opportunity to witness how polluting the production process can be. I have to be honest – low quality, mass produced products that are sold in the market today absolutely turn me off. As part of being a product-based business owner myself, I think we really should fuse sustainability actions into our design and development process. As a smart consumer, one should be mindful that deciding to purchase cheap clothing and/or products whose creation generates mass pollution can have massive impacts to the environment we live in.

Watercolor Coral Reef Diamonds Throw Pillow
Available on Society6.

In an effort to educate and spread awareness on climate change and saving our coral reef ecosystems that are in serious trouble, a month ago, I had posted a week’s worth of #Awareness posts on my Instagram, which you can check out @SIPbyStephanieIp, or click here.

SIP by Stephanie Ip Print Pattern Design — Interested in purchasing this print pattern design?
Contact us

My goal for the weeklong awareness posts is to bring out a message through my artwork, created using my artistic and technical skills in illustration and textile design. As part of my business practice of sustainability, all art prints and printed merchandise are print on demand only. Textile prints are ready made and available for sale upon request. Best of all, partial proceeds will go toward the WILD Foundation to fund all research and promotion on all matters related to animal extinction caused by climate change. Check out the WILD Foundation to learn more.

So what else can you do to help?

You don’t need to paint or draw! Here are a few simple things you can do today.

1// Watch the fabulous Chasing Coral documentary on Netflix with 5 of your friends or family members whom you care about!

2// Check out ChasingCoral.com. The amazing team have put together some positive actions you can take to help spread the word!

3// Like and share my Instagram posts within your network to spread the #awareness!

// Stephanie Ip

Stephanie is a Creative Director and Consultant, providing creative strategy development support to small and large scale businesses in the industries of Fashion and Soft Goods. She specializes in Design and Development. Learn more about her here.

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Are you passionate about anything in repeats? I used to dislike print patterns on clothing, thinking they made the wearer look old and boring. That was probably back in the 90’s, when I didn’t have much appreciation of anything but simple, plain, minimalistic designs. Print patterns have evolved tremendously over the past 30 years. With the advanced designing tools, designers have much more opportunity to experiment and discover new design techniques.

In today’s post, I am going to walk you through the 5 steps I took in making the Under the Water group in #100PrintsByStephanieIp – a creative challenge I set up to encourage myself and other fellow creative individuals to create everyday. You can see more on the related tag on my Instagram page @SIPbyStephanieIp!

5 Essential Steps in the Print Pattern Development Process

1// Pick a Theme

The print(s) you plan on applying onto your product(s) should have a theme that will stand out and complement your product design styles. Under a set of design considerations, you want to choose a targeted season, a color palette that makes sense, and materials you plan to print on.

2// Illustrate and Pull Together Design Elements

This is one of the most fun parts! You get to play and be creative with the types of elements you want to incorporate into the design. For #100PrintsByStephanieIp, I was exploring watercolor design elements, which gave me the opportunity to try out different watercolor painting techniques. For more defined elements, I like to sketch by pencil first, then trace with Adobe Illustrator. In this part, make sure to illustrate each element separately on a large scale to display the element’s quality.

3// Digitize Design Elements

Once you have all the elements down on paper, you’ll want to scan them onto your computer. To preserve the quality of the elements, you want to be sure to scan using at least 300dpi resolution. Then, with Photoshop, clean up the scans, adjust the coloration, and make sure each of the elements are separated for easy composition.

Another fun part of this process is putting together the artwork! Now, with the clean elements, you can play with composition and arrangements. Have fun!

4// Repeat Artwork

Generally, I use Photoshop and Illustrator to create the repeats of my prints. Photoshop is better when the artwork is composed of photo-based elements. Illustrator is more for vector-based elements. For this post, I won’t be going into the details on how to repeat a piece of artwork. If you want to learn more, stay tuned! It will be coming up soon.

5// Factory Artwork

A factory artwork is fairly similar to a tech pack, except the information to include is less complex. On the factory artwork, you will have to include print method requirement, scale, Pantone colors, and print # for the factory to prepare the first sample for your review before production.

While there are more details to consider in these 5 steps, this post is to give you a general idea of what’s needed to get you started!