Textile Design with Amanda Caronia

Textile Design with Amanda Caronia
Amanda Caronia is an artist whose colorful graphic prints are inspired by her love of all things outdoors – a perfect match for Mata! Pulling from her environment in Costa Rica, her designs match modern with organic, evoking health, happiness, and harmony.

Creating a Print Design

Amanda’s imprint on the fall collection is strong, with five designs and several variations gracing the surfaces of over half a dozen pieces. We caught up with her to learn a little more about her methods of designing and thoughts on textile design.

1) What’s your process usually like? Do you sketch on paper/digitally? Do you paint/draw?
I usually start an idea in my sketchbook with black artist pens. Sometimes I use watercolor pens or I paint with watercolors and brushes. For these prints I worked with black pens.

 

2) Were there any tweaks that had to be made to the print to accommodate for the printing and production process?

Last year Maureen reached out to me after seeing my work on Instagram and was interested in collaborating. I was thrilled with the opportunity because Mata Traders is exactly the kind of environmental and socially responsible company I seek to work with. After sorting through my portfolio 5 prints were chosen. I customized the repeats for apparel. From there, Mata took the art and came up with color combinations that worked for the season. I was able to approve the color ways for production and loved what the Mata designers did with my prints! Sometimes it can be scary to hand over your work to companies and trust what will be developed. But I knew right away that Mata Traders only produces beautiful pieces and the only hard part was being patient enough to wait to see the final product.

3) Were you inspired by anything in particular?

I lived near the beach in California and now in Costa Rica so lots of time in and around the ocean is always my inspiration. When I sit down to draw these days I try not to think too much about anything particular but just let it flow – I love to be surprised by what evolves.

4) Do you think there’s a difference between art and designing for textiles/products?

I think the initial creative process is the same for both. But when you have to ultimately create a repeat pattern there is a special attention to balance in the composition that has a different set of rules from other art forms.

  

5) What do you love about designing prints?

Everything! I have always loved drawing and painting but when I learned to make my first repeating print I found my path in the world of art and design. I especially love discovering which of my prints work best with apparel. I think it’s the hardest product to design for. The human figure is the most complex to draw so creating the right design to decorate apparel is an exciting challenge. When you do it well, you make people feel good.