The 52 Pattern Challenge

I started 2026 with a personal challenge: create 52 surface pattern designs over the course of the year — one pattern per week. I wanted a way to stay accountable, develop a signature style, and build a cohesive portfolio of repeat patterns along the way.

As a mom with a full-time job, I needed clear parameters so I wouldn't get stuck overthinking motifs and layouts. The creative barrier needed to be low enough to keep the process joyful rather than precious. After listening to a podcast featuring surface pattern designer Leila Simon Hayes, I had my answer: one set of hand-drawn shapes and three distinct color palettes.

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The Parameters

Using my set of approximately 20 hand-crafted shapes, I experiment with scale, proximity, proportion, and various repeat layouts, from simple block repeats to more complex arrangements. Each pattern must incorporate at least one of these shapes in one of my three colorways.

By week four, I discovered something I wasn't expecting: through experimentation and play, individual patterns naturally started forming collections. There's never any pressure to create more than one design per week, but the shapes and palettes have a way of speaking to each other.

And by week 14, I expanded the project by bringing in papercutting, a technique rooted in my fine art practice, as a way to create organic, hand-cut motifs that bring a tactile, handmade quality to my surface designs.

If you're drawn to the process behind the patterns, the experimentation, the happy accidents, the slow development of a design language, I'd love for you to follow along. Join me on Instagram to see each new pattern as it unfolds.

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The Shapes

The Color Palettes

Umami

Fresh Pressed

Citrine + Sea

Pattern No 01 - Abstracted floral shapes in cumin, pink salt, and sucre.

Pattern No 01 - Handrawn starbursts and polkadots in cucumber, mint, and melon.

Pattern No 03 - Mid-century modern pattern with handrawn circles and half circles in mint and blueberry

Pattern No 04a - Mediterranean, tile-inspired pattern in lavender, sea salt, and cobalt blue

Pattern No 04b - Vertical squiggle and dot pattern in cobalt blue and deep sea.

Pattern No 04c - Undulating, hand-drawn squiggles in lavender on a sea salt background.

Pattern No 05a - All-over floral pattern with large black-eyed susans, surrounded by smaller abstract flower shapes.

Pattern No 05b - Tight abstract floral pattern in sucre on sage.

Pattern No 05c - Blender pattern of abstract flower shapes and polkadots in a straight repeat.

Pattern No 06 - Tropical-inspired pattern of lines comprised of leafy silhouettes in coconut on spinach.

Pattern No 07a - Tropical trailing floral with abstract flowers in the Aguas Frescas color palette.

Pattern No 07b - Simplified pattern of tropical-inspired abstract flowers on blueberry

Pattern No 07c - Hand-drawn starbursts in a half-drop repeat in coconut and hibiscus.

Pattern No 07d - Blender pattern of inverted triangles in an uneven tossed orientation in coconut and melon.

Pattern No 08 - Straight repeat of decorative polkadots in Citrine and Sea color palette.

Pattern No 09a - Prairie-inspired pattern in a checkerboard layout made out of x-shapes, small daisies, and small arrow-shapes in the Umami color palette.

Pattern No 09b - Prairie-style stripes made out of small daisies, x-shapes, and arrow-shapes in pink salt, cumin, on raisin.

Pattern No 09c - Trios of small daisies in a half-drop repeat on a field of light-toned arrow shapes in tumeric and sage on sucre.

Pattern No 09d - Checkerboard-style pattern using x and o shapes in sucre and cumin on pink salt.

Pattern No 09e - Vertical lines made of smaller horizontal lines with pops of color here and there to give the pattern movement in the Umami color palette.

Pattern No 10 - Mirrored leaf shapes composed of tiny dots arranged in a diagonal layout in lavender on sea salt.

Pattern No 11a - Mandalas made up of dandelions in a straight repeat in the Umami color palette.

Pattern No 11b - Abstracted dandelions in a half-drop repeat in the Umami color palette.

Pattern No 11c - A tossed repeat of dandelion seeds in sucre on cumin.

Pattern No 11d - Vertical stripes made of elongated and abstract stamens in horizontal lines in sucre on cafe.

Pattern No 12 - Stylized orange slices on a background of hand-drawn wavy vertical lines in melon on coconut.

Pattern No 13 - A dense tossed pattern of tiny papercuts, including birds, bunnies, moths, butterflies, ladybugs, and small flowers in the Fresh Pressed color palette.

Pattern No 14 - A mid-century modern-inspired dahlia in a half-drop repeat in cobalt blue and chartreuse.

Pattern No 15 - A simplified tulip motif aligned in rows with the floral aligned up and then down, interspersed with polkadots in framboise, pink salt, and cumin on sucre.

All patterns are available for licensing.
To inquire, please send an email to hello@danivinokurov.com