Guys from the neighbor department who were participating in the triathlon event asked me to design their swim/run suits.

This was absolutely unexpected project, i have never designed nor studied how to do anything cloth related. In addition to that i had only 7 days for the whole process from idea to the output file which had to match technical specifications of manufacturing company.

but I thought it was a good opportunity, to realize one of my long-standing inspirations related to graphic design: the dazzle camouflage.

It was designed by the British marine artist Norman Wilkinson and used extensively in World War I. It consisted of complex patterns of geometric shapes in contrasting colors, interrupting and intersecting each other. Unlike other forms of camouflage, the intention of dazzle is not to conceal but to make it difficult to estimate a target's range, speed, and heading.

Basic geometric patterns were made very quickly and looked just as i wanted them to. My customers chose more strict variant (left one on the picture above). And then troubles started.

There were two major problems. First problem was that every pattern was connected to the other one, and if there were small amounts of black or white at the edge of one or both of them it would resulted in the visual noise and would look like a manufacturing defect. So my first step was to check every edge of every pattern, to be sure that there weren't any small details left.

The bigger problem was that manufacturing company asked only for one pattern for both men and women suits, but according to their guides crop marks for men/women versions had a slightly different area. That meant i had to check not only the edge of the pattern, but also an intersection of the crop marks (different red lines on the image above).

Anyway i was pleased with the end result.

Some brief studies that I have done so as not to repeat other people's designs

Vasily Shikhachevskiy, 2016