Spotted: San Francisco Japantown

I just spent a week in San Francisco's Japantown on a business trip, and took a few days off for fun. It's my favorite city! Here's some of the inspiration I found during my travels.

In Japantown, I stumbled across a really cool clothing shop called SOU SOU which features patterned items by designer Katsuji Wakisaka. Wakisaka was the first Japanese designer to work for the Finnish design house Marimekko. I was able to purchase some small pieces of cloth for only a few dollars. The numbers print reminds me of my work with typewriter and letterpress type, so I had to have it.

I also found some lovely scraps at a store called Neat Asian Things, which sells fabric by the yard. They are located in the Kinokuniya building in Japantown, or online at neatasianthings.com.

I also enjoyed the sakura blossom pattern incorporated into this wallpaper mural on the hotel room wall inside Hotel Tomo.

Spotted: Chicago

 I've been away visiting Chicago for a friend's wedding. I spotted this hexagonal pattern at Mercat, at the Renaissance Hotel.

Spotted: Around Boston (Saturday's Patterns)

I spent the weekend in Boston and photographed different patterns I found around town. First, here are some cool patterns from the Museum of Science. First is big cats:

This is coral, which has a neat organic structure:

I like the series of spots on this urchin:

Here is a Lepidodendron fossil, a prehistoric plant with scaly bark.

Here are some beautiful tiles from the T (subway):

I found some socks at the mall:

Lovely men's ties from Thomas Pink:

A Moroccan inspired pattern from kate spade new york.

Here's the beautiful wallpaper in the dressing room at the kate spade new york boutique on Newbury Street.

This cute giraffe pattern is from a tie by Salvatore Ferragamo.

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This seahorse pattern is from J. Crew

Spotted

In addition to creating my own patterns, I want to feature patterns that inspire me. Look for posts with the tag "Spotted" for inspiration I find in the wild.

I work near a high end shopping mall. Patterns are everywhere in fashion. Wednesday at Lunch I went for a walk and photographed some of my favorite patterns. 

rag & bone

J. Crew

I just love this "scatter dot" print at J. Crew.

These scarves by Forget Me Not are almost too pretty to wear!

Another by Forget Me Not. There is so much detail and beautiful color variation in these.

These tangram cats on this blouse by Piamita are really fun.

Here's a new parking garage with interesting vertical stripes. The green sections are actually astroturf. I'm not sure how that will look in five years, but now the building looks pretty neat.

Here is the underside of the entrance to the Aloft Hotel.