The Bronx was my home for seven years. I lived in apartment building 2194, Barnes Avenue. The building inspired the design for my wallpaper. By taking a portion of the window reliefs that were scattered about. I started with sketchs one in pencil, which eventually went into being a sketch done in illustrator. At that point I made the decision to focus on a smaller section of the on the reliefs. Which is what the main design of the wallpaper is based on. From the main designs element I created two more designs from it in the form of dots and dashes. The dots and dashes are also used in the second wallpaper design to be international morse code. Repeating Barnes Avenue multiple times giving the secondary elements more reason to exisit than just sharing qualities of the main design element of the wallpaper.

Concept

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Original sketch and Illustator file

Process

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This is the first incarnation of my wallpaper, that took from the concept work.
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This was when I redesigned the the main element and added secondary elements to repeat. This was done to create more intrest in the design.
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The elements on the wallpaper were repeated more often to create more of a brick effect. I wanted to see if the pattern would look over bearing or not. In the end it was decided that I would return to having the pattern repeat less.

Final Designs

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The first of two final designs, after setting all the different elements in place it came to deciding color combinations. The choice of red was something that came into being from multiple critics. I enjoy that the red tones make me think of brick buildings. The choice of making the dots and dashes different colors was to create another element so the repeating pattern wasn't as repetitive as it already was. The color pattern was me playing a number game of ones and twos. The pattern is 2212, 1221, 1121, 2112, 2212, 1221, 1121, 2112.
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This final design differs by letting the secondary elements have a stronger tie to the original concept. Which is making it connect to back to where I've lived, this project is really about my home. The pattern is done in international morse code, repeating the phrase Barnes Avenue the street the apartment building is located.