Patterns: Inside the Design Library

by Peter Koepke, Julia Hasting (Designer)

An insider's guide to the world's largest archive of patterns and textiles, the source of inspiration for the globe's top designers Every season, designers from fashion, home furnishings, textiles, graphic arts, and paper-product industries seek inspiration from patterns to bring their collections to life. Many of these designers - including Beacon Hill, Boden, Calvin Klein, Clinique, Colefax & Fowler, Lululemon, Nike, Oscar de la Renta, Pottery Barn, and Target - look to the Design Library, the world's largest archive of surface design. This one-of-a-kind book, drawn from the Design Library’s archive, is an exclusive and ultimate sourcebook of pattern and ornament.

Genres: Art, Design, Reference, Nonfiction

332 pages, Hardcover

Published October 3, 2016

Reviews

[Paula · Rating 3 out of 5]

A million stars for execution and production quality, minus a lot of stars for the giant holes in the collection of the actual Design Library, located in upstate New York. How can you even talk about pattern without including West African textiles, South Asian sari borders, embroidery from Central Asia? Boo.

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book up hoping to find some inspiration for some art pieces I plan on doing. It's a nice presentation, but missing some textile collections that could have fit in, but I digress. Not knowing much about textiles, I learned quite a bit from it, and am intrigued to find more books on textiles and pattern.

[Lafrog8 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pick this up at the library to give me ideas to enhance my creativity with my sewing. I hd no idea that such a library existed and it is a bit frustrating imaging how many thousands different pattern designs are there when we are presented with just a few. Also some omissions as mentioned in another review: African and Asian designs feel underrepresented.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Design Studio is a fabled place of inspiration and the librarian in me loves thinking about the practicalities of how to catalog and organize visual materials. It was fun "visiting" and learning about how the archive works and to see quite a lot of eye candy in the process.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

OMG

[Carmine · Rating 4 out of 5]

An amazing collection of textile and printed patterns. My only annoyance: the front cover doesn't extend the full width of the book leaving the text block hanging out.

[Kay Wagner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous book sorted by themes such as "kaleidoscope", "jungle", underwater"...of the archives of the Design Library, a twelve-thousand-square foot loft in a converted 1907 fabric mill in New York's Hudson Valley. The Design Library holds more than seven million antique, vintage, modern and contemporary textiles, wallpapers, yarn dyes, etc. For anyone passionate about textiles, patterns, period design or simply the pleasure of the brilliant reproductions- this is a book for you.