Looking for My Signature Style
About the Signature Style
What does it even mean to have a signature style? When an artist has a developed art style you can recognize his work among others. Even if it is not signed, its vibe, colour palette, composition, stylization, brush strokes or something more intangible tells you who created it. The art style is like a fingerprint of the Artist visible in his works.
Benefits of Having a Recognisable Style
Is it helpful to have a signature style? It depends. In some cases it is better to be a versatile artist, creating in many different styles. In the pattern design world, it's sometimes true when you work in-house or when you are hired as a freelance for a specific project. Then you are usually asked to create in a certain art style specified in the project brief. As a freelancer, it might be easier to find clients if you show you can create in a wide range of styles. However, if you want to have a full influence on the art you are creating and focus on licensing your art, then having your signature style can be helpful. It's easier to build your brand around a solid art style. When your work is cohesive people will not only recognize it but should also respond to it more. Your clients would know what they can expect from you and may contact you when they have a project fitting your style. It's also easier to niche down when you know your strengths.
How to Find Signature Style?
There is a long argument between artists about whether it's possible to “find” your style or if is it the style that finds you. Some say that style is something that you naturally have or not. I don't agree with it. I believe that art style is a sum of our abilities and all the influences that we are exposed to. Pictures that we consume, artworks that we like and surround ourselves with and of course things that we create all affect our art style. Therefore, it’s possible to guide ourselves to the chosen aesthetic. “How?” you may ask. Exactly as I mentioned above - by absorbing art with a similar style, analyzing artworks that we love and finally practicing this art style.
I see two main roads to achieving your unique art style:
Find art that you love and artists that you admire and learn from them. Of course, it's best to have many influences and mix them together, adding something new on top to create an aesthetic that is unique and truly yours. This may be a longer road as your current skills might be far away from what you want to achieve.
Analyze your own works, find your strengths and base your art style on them. This approach is good for people who have a decent body of work and some art skills under their belt. It should take less time to master your art style this way as you already have a base to build on and you only need to tweak things here and there. You can focus on improving your strengths and learn new skills to support them.
As my strengths and the art that I'm naturally drawn to are pretty much aligned I’m going to use both methods to master my signature style/styles.
What are my artistic strengths?
To make it easier to decide what direction I want to take my patterns I analyzed my existing body of work. Here is a list of my strengths and skills:
detailed line art
balanced and interesting compositions
good perspective skills and ability to show depth
using both digital and traditional techniques
strong colour palettes
realistic painting
Traditional painting techniques
I’m going to bet on my strengths and build my signature style on them.
What do I imagine My Signature Style to be?
It may be hard to combine all my strengths to create one art style (especially line art and traditional painting). Here are three possible styles I could make good patterns at:
Detailed, layered patterns with clear, well-executed line art and moody, deep colour palettes. Good for botanical illustrations. It could work well in many industries like interior design (traditional, dark academia and elegant styles), fabrics and stationery.
Artsy patterns created with oils or acrylic paints (or digital counterpart) with an old master vibe and a rich, wide range of colours. Could be used in almost any niche. I feel there are not many patterns in this style and I could fill this hole in the market.
Light, colourful watercolour patterns with or without line art. Perfect for feminine fabrics, stationery and home décor (bohemian, Shabby Chic, Coastal, minimalist or eclectic styles). This style on the other hand has been pretty popular last couple of seasons and many designers are creating similar patterns.
All the above patterns would work better as rasters. Vectorizing them would probably result in losing the texture and hand-crafted vibe. The first one is the only one that could work in vectors.
What's next?
Now it's time to explore, experiment and create as many artworks as possible. Maybe after this exploration phase, I would choose one of these styles? Or maybe I would keep them all? Or I would find something new on the way? We will see…
