As a screenprinting brand, it’s important for us to consider how to make the most striking pattern using the least amount of colours. In screen printing, each colour is a different screen, so for us it’s ideal to have as few colours as possible, as we print all the fabrics ourselves.
It was this factor that had us intrigued with tile design and the effect of inverting the same tile. By inverting the same design we could create really great depth for a one colour design. This technique lends itself so well to screen printing so we were quick to explore it!
Sophia and I are both in love with the moon, so it was an easy decision to have this as the focus of our new tile print. The idea of the inverted tile playing with different levels of light and dark worked nicely into our moon concept and naturally evolved into the idea of the relationship between the moon and sun.
And so the artmaking began!
DESIGNING SONNY
I started by creating a template of a tile and dissecting tile designs. I then sketched a LOT of different designs into this template using motifs centered around the sun and moon.
As this developed I also started to explore designs that had their own internal relationships.
Once I had some sketched tile designs I liked, I started considering how each tile would look screen printed. Screen Printing is a really flat medium and this design needed to have a lot of life, so I started exploring the idea of lino cutting these tiles to create extra texture.
Using Lino brushes on Procreate I sketched up my designs and turned them into vectors on Illustrator.
Sophia and I then worked together to add some personality. Tufts of hair, elton john glasses and expressive mouths were added to make each tile have a story of its own!
SCREENPRINTING SONNY
Once the design was done and exposed onto a new screen we started exploring different colourways.
We already had orange fabric and wanted to use it to create a vintage aesthetic, so we started exploring shades of yellow. We instantly fell in love with the 2 colours together and the SUNKING colourway was born.
The yellow and blue colourways also came really naturally. The yellow colourway, DUCKY explores the sun side of the print while the blue colourway, BLUE MOON explores the moon.
Each colourway created a completely different look and each person we asked loved a different design.
We hope you ADORE Sonny as much as we do! What’s your favourite colourway?
Check out the full SONNY collection below.
