Worktable Wednesday:Designing "The Look" Of My PDF's

I made an announcement last week that I'm going to be designing and selling PDF patterns. A lot of work goes into doing that and the Free patterns that I offer to you my blog readers and my email subscribers, so I thought I'd document the process. It's given me a whole new respect for designers who do this.

So to begin with I needed to design "the look" of my patterns. Yes that's a thing and I wanted a clean look that would work with all my patterns and be identifiable as a Sassy Packrat Studios Pattern.

I first picked the type font I'd use for my headers, which are the name of the pattern, and all titles, like Instructions, supplies etc. I chose the font I use in my logo, which I really love and made it a blue color that also come from my logo.

  All the secondary text will be in a medium gray color and the important copyright text will be in black. The red box above is where the beauty shot of the finished plush piece will go. I'm considering adding a few lines of a story about the plush character on this page. I also will add some snowflake graphics for this particular PDF.

  This second page is an introduction about making this piece and supplies/tools. I'm probably going to make this 2 pages with the supplies and tools on it's own page. There will be photos of the supplies and tools needed plus a written out list.

 The sewing instruction pages will have photos, graphics and written text explaining each step. All pages except the cover page will be numbered.

 This is an original design I used to make that was pretty popular, so I've chosen it for my first selling pattern. I'm re-designing it and it will look somewhat different than this, but it's a cute and easy to make pattern that doesn't require a lot of skill and will turn out well.

My goal is to have this pattern ready my the end of April. I'd love to have some pattern testers, is anyone interested? 

Here are the details: You get the pattern FREE to try, be willing to send me 3 photos of your finished piece and feedback on the pattern and process. After I've made tweaks I'll send you the final pattern for FREE as compensation for testing the pattern. I'll also keep you on my list for future testing. Sound good? Then email me with your interest. I'm Jennifer, sassypackrat(at)hotmail(dot)com. Thanks!

Some Thoughts About Patterns...

O.k. so back in February I talked about releasing some of my patterns for sale after I re-worked them to be made in fabric instead of felt. The way the economy is I could very much use another steam of income no matter how small. 

These are the patterns I was considering.

 My Penguin

 

My Seahorses

My Owls

Well I've had a change of heart. In the last few weeks I've heard from so many people and read so many stories about how their patterns have been stolen. Some of these patterns have been stolen by unscrupulous people who sell multiple copies of of other people's work for profit. And some involve people in other countries who steal patterns and claim them as their own work.

Let's be clear, I don't think I'm a fantastic designer or that my patterns are so wonderful. I would just be absolutely heartbroken to have my intellectual creative property stolen.

So I'll just retire them until a later date. Sorry to anyone who expressed interest in buying a pattern, I hope you understand.

UPDATE: I've changed my mind about patterns and am currently designing and selling them. See the side bar for the patterns I have available right now!