I'm a Finnish-born illustrator and surface pattern designer, specialising in hand drawn botanical design, rooted in stories and cultural heritage. In this post I share how my surface patterns come to life - and why research and story-telling are at the core of my designs.
April 4, 2022
I'm a Finnish-born biophilic illustrator and surface pattern designer, based in West Yorkshire. My work draws from folklore, natural world - and years of research into the stories that landscapes, plants, and animals carry with them. The patterns and illustrations I create for brands are rooted in botanical world and cultural detail: everything starts with a story and the design emerges from that narrative.
I've built a portfolio of surface pattern work created as bespoke commissions for brands, with projects spanning print, giftware and premium product. Each design is created to tell a unique story or convey a feeling relevant to the bespoke brief.
Hidden hero print from my Forest Floor collection is an example of my recent research-led botanical surface pattern design. Each of the three plants in the collection was studied, drawn from life and reference materials and assembled into seamless repeat patterns with care and consideration. Every motif in the patterns had a reason to exist - they were rooted in the same story.
To ensure my designs are fully market-ready and thought out, I have developed a five step surface pattern design process - which I also call Roots To Bloom™ method:
By using this method, the designs are on-brand, timeless and rich in meaning. Every part of my process is thought out and intentional, ensuring that the collection is market-ready- whether for licensing or for bespoke brand commission. Bloom is the results my bespoke design method offers to my client:
My approach to surface pattern design was recently featured in Creative Boom alongside five designers. Read the full article here.
When I first began my surface pattern journey, my focus was on building strong technical foundations and learning how to construct perfect, flowing vector repeats in Adobe Illustrator. Over the years I have been able to hone this technical skill and served a multitude of projects built as scalable vector.
Since then, through client commissions, my practice has evolved into something more research-led and narrative-driven. Where necessary, I deep-dive into the brand's origin and story, understanding that lasting surface pattern design is always rooted in something unique and genuine.
For the past few years, I have also worked extensively in Adobe Photoshop, creating seamless patterns from my original hand drawn botanical artwork and watercolour painting. The intricate detail and hand drawn texture that Photoshop allows in patterns, has been well suited to my expressive illustration style.
The choices and reasoning behind my design workflow:
My repeating patterns are created for licensing or for bespoke brand commissions, to live on packaging, print, and product. I love the moment a design makes the leap from paper to the real world, to become part of a product or a brand story that customers can hold in their hands.
Working across different techniques has taught me how to adapt to each project's mood, message, and medium. With bespoke design work, it is important to choose the best approach to serve and convey the story. Above all, I believe design is a dialogue between imagination and professional method: the creative instinct to explore and a clear design process to deliver.
Berry Birds is an early example of my folk art influenced work - a pattern combining Finnish forest mythology and William Morris inspiration, built around movement, colour, and layered symbolism. Being Finnish, I feel a natural pull toward the folk art heritage of Northern Europe: its botanical influences, its mysticism - the sense that the natural world is always carrying complex stories just beneath the surface.
Movement and colour are fundamental to how I bring stories to life in pattern form. I assess every project individually, choosing the technique and medium based on what the design needs to carry. The brief is always central, but whatever the approach, every design begins the same way: hand drawn, on paper. In a world where gen-AI is becoming increasingly common, my choice to embrace hand-drawing is more deliberate than ever - read my thoughts on AI and surface design here.
Berry Birds repeat pattern is the hero design in my folk art-inspired collection. The complementary patterns share the same folklore world but offer a quieter voice to the busyness of the hero design. Together they give the collection a visual range to work across different scales and applications.
The Hero Design: A complex, narrative-driven pattern serves as the focal point of a collection. This pattern is heavily influenced by my Finnish childhood, combining forest mythology with a classic arts-and-crafts sensibility.
The Complementary Prints: To balance a complex hero print, I design less dense, secondary patterns. These share the same style and colour palette, but feature simpler coordinates that allow the collection more room to breathe and extend its commercial uses.
Each of my designs starts as a pencil sketch, which then evolves into a simple, graphic motif or a detailed illustration. For years, I’ve used the same mechanical pencil for drawing my sketches - it is a well-loved tool which travels with me everywhere. The sensory feeling of pressing the pencil on the surface of the paper is something I have never been able to repeat on iPad or digital tablet.
After finishing my pencil sketches, I refine the lines using ink markers of varying thicknesses. Sometimes I keep the drawings simple with clean outlines; other times I build up layers of detail, like in the Pomegranates design below. Once complete, I erase the pencil lines and scan the artwork in high resolution (600-900dpi) into my computer.
If I am working with watercolours, I add this layer over my ink work before scanning. Because I don't work in large scale and my ink line is intricate, scanning the artwork in high resolution guarantees every little detail is preserved for the digital pattern building in Photoshop. My creative process always begins in the analog world and ends digitally, which I find to be the perfect balance between originality and efficiency in design workflow.
Growing up in the Finnish forest, surrounded by folk tales, botanical world, and the changing seasons of the woodland, I developed a love for storytelling. The textures, shapes and ever-changing landscape made my creativity blossom (even if I found it at times boring as a child). Understanding how stories connect us to the world we live in, starting from the environment nearest to us, affected the way I wanted to create and portray my art. As much as I love creating beautiful and decorative botanicals, I also want to include my deep knowledge of the natural world, as part of the design's layers. A timeless surface pattern design comes from a real place, ideally a place which is lived and experienced - by you or the people before you. Surface pattern design is a wonderful way to tell stories of the past and present.
Currently based in Hebden Bridge, in a Yorkshire valley shaped by the rivers and ancient woodlands, I gather daily inspiration from my surroundings. I sketch colours, patterns, and textures from the landscape, which although very different from my Finnish childhood one, is equally rich in botanical detail, folklore and heritage. Stories connected to the landscape are one of the most abundant materials available to us designers, wherever in the world we are located.
I love using hand-drawn line and ink and watercolour texture to convey a story. Floral patterns, particularly flowers and small botanical details in natural landscapes give richness to a design and lift it beyond decoration. To understand my subject matter intimately, I have trained my eye and gained knowledge through seasonal foraging courses. Often during my wild forays, I either take photographs or pick plants and draw them at home with my daughter; nature is a timeless inspiration for us both.
Surface pattern design at its best goes beyond decoration - it is a powerful visual language built on research, craftsmanship and story. For luxury and artisan brands, that depth is what separates timeless brand-specific design from a decorative, passing trend.
If you are looking for a surface pattern designer whose work is rooted in hand-drawn botanical illustration and genuine research, I would love to hear about your project. Request to view my design folio or get in touch to discuss how my bespoke design services can help to elevate your brand.
I am Heidi, a biophilic surface pattern designer. I combine a decade of design experience, a filmmaker's mindset, and my Roots To Bloom™ method to help luxury and artisan brands stand out with considered, human-made design.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGoFXVKXD18
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/hziU6e2UE6k
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