From a sponge to a clothing pattern – a hand-made texture, gone digital.
A sweatshirt design that started with an ordinary dish sponge. We turned an ink-on-paper experiment into custom digital brushes and used them to create a clothing pattern in two versions: white on black and black on white.

client
Fabian Style
product
sweatshirt pattern
our role
concept, illustration and digital brushes
outcome
two versions: for light and dark garments
Challenge
Fabian Style came to us for a sweatshirt design. At the concept stage we presented several stylistic directions, including an experiment: ink prints on paper made with a dish sponge. That was the one the client liked best.
- keep the raw, irregular texture of the print
- freedom in building the composition
- a file ready for fabric printing
- a pattern that works on both light and dark garments
Premise
The hand-made sponge mark must not lose its character when moved into the digital version.
Solution
Instead of recreating the texture with off-the-shelf tools, we made our own. Real sponge marks became brushes in a graphics program, and we used them to create the digital version of the design.
- sponge prints made in ink on paper
- scanning and a custom set of digital brushes
- illustration created digitally
- two colour versions: white and black
- print-ready file preparation
Reverse
The pattern comes in two inverted versions: a white print for black garments and a black print for white ones.

