Saffrons Blog

The brief for this project was quite specific and simple; to design  fabric for boys summer shorts and hats under the age of seven. Initially there was two ideas for me to work up, one based on fish and another on graphical elements. As the garment was intended for shorts it gave me the opportunity to design boldly, though keeping it cute for a wee boy. Also I knew I was really designing for their mums and grand parents who buy their clothing.

I kept in mind that squares, blocks, checks and stripes are widely used to make sure you can tell it is a boy from a distance while dots and circles are more feminine. However, dots inside a square as a pattern appears masculine again. Often ambiguous pattern designs make a pair of board shorts look more like a skirt from a distance. This is so true on little kids because of their androgynous physique.

This is what we decided on.


Colour was very important for this project. I so wanted to use colours that I don't see in boys' shorts very often such as dark grey, to hide the muck, and orange with green. Janet said I could use as many colours as I like, which was unusual as colours bump up the price in printing and budgets need to be maintained. Being able to be free with colours was really cool for me. No constraints. Janet really liked my colour ideas, she asked heaps of mums who agreed and liked them as well and said they would dress their sons in them!

I decided on a fish shape that was a bit pointy as I thought it looked more masculine. I then played around with the placement of the pattern inside the fish.  The image below is a working sketch I emailed Janet to see If I was going down the right path, which luckily I was!


I also played around with a stripe inside the fish and really liked it but the one with the squares is just a bit cleverer so I used that instead and developed it to the finished design.




For the final design I settled on a graphic approach with an abstract gold fish. Simple geometric shapes is one of the design languages for boys' clothing so I really enjoyed playing with it. It took a few tries to get it exactly right, which is part of the fun of creating a new fabric.

And last week, quite some time after finishing the designs, Janet came to visit and gave me a few pairs of the final shorts and hats to my great delight. I think they turned out great and hopefully will be very popular. I am really pleased with them. I stuck to the brief and designed something that still has a "Saffron" feel to it. Now I have a few give-aways for my nephews and my friend's boy Arlo!




Well, I really enjoyed the process and hopefully will get to do lots more commission work. Actually, Janet has asked me to design another fabric for her based on trains so I will be sure to share that with you once it is selling in her store.

Until then you can buy these shorts online via her ebay shop.