How ZIGGATI Patterns Are Born

Every ZIGGATI pattern grows from a moment that calls the soul and draws the eye. A flower that flashes its beauty, a cloud that gently puffs along the sky, the sunlight dancing on the water or a pattern that stops us in our tracks and forces us to look again.

Photography always the starting point.

Photographs often express more about the eye of the photographer than the actual reality of the subject. It turns out my eye became even more valuable when advising Ziggy about what to do with such gems she created. Thankfully the archive of Ziggy’s photographs is so abundant that I could live many lifetimes and never run out… in fact her daughter AJ, now 24, is proving to share that same gift as her mother so perhaps before long we shall see some interesting new works in the mix.

Here’s where the magic happens. The photograph click moment: Capturing a time, A place. An emotion. Whether it’s planned or spontaneous it carries the memory of its conception.

Stage One: The Capture

An instinctive moment, be in with a phone or a professional camera in hand. Sometimes in a paradise and others on a vary mundane trip back from the supermarket. The photographs aren’t shot with patterns in mind. They are shot with feeling and curiosity.

Stage Two: The Pause

This is the slow part, the review…the scroll back and see what’s there. Sometimes nothing at all. What felt huge in the moment doesn’t translate into a 2 dimensional image and other times…Wow! Above and beyond expectations of eye dazzling moments captured and frozen. And occasionally and the most exciting, are ones that you get to see slowly, the unassuming ones that evolve each time you look and reveals a secret hiding in its structure. Now those are the ones we always choose.

Stage Three: The Transformation

Once the photo, or a part of the photo is selected, we play with it. Well that’s what I call it. It’s really fun. Using various different graphic mediums, we pull it apart and re-imagine it - folded, flipped, stretched, squished, mirrored, kaleidoscoped, inverted. By this point the original photograph might be unrecognizable, depending on where the artistic process takes us. Both outcomes work, as the route and vibe of the original image always remains.

Stage Four: The Repeat

The tricky part, repeating the pattern to go on forever, seamlessly and infinitely. This is where surface pattern design technical skills come into play, sprinkled with a bit of graphic magic. The designs must flow without interruption for it to comfortably sit on cushions, fabric, wallpaper, or anywhere else it’s invited to land. It’s precise and a little obsessive, but an act that deserves commitment.

Stage Five: The feeling

Every piece of creative that leaves this studio before it goes to print is valued on emotional impact. How does this feel? ZIGGATI patterns aren’t just decorative - they’re emotional. And that is how we turn moments into patterns that never end.

ZIGGATI, patterns with memories, depth and soul.