A licensing enquiry arrives, and the question is deceptively simple: can you send the collection? You open the folder and find forty motifs, three half-finished repeats, a colour test you made at midnight, and two files called final_final_v2. That is how most collections actually live. Getting one ready to pitch is less about drawing new motifs and more about making the work you already have easy for a stranger to assess.

What follows is the pass-through that turns a working folder into a presentable collection. Work through it in order; each step makes the next one quicker.

Get the repeat genuinely seamless

A motif becomes a pattern when it tiles, and the seam is the first thing an experienced buyer checks. Before you judge any design on its own, view it as a minimum of three tiles by three on screen. If your eye catches a line, a stripe of lighter background, or a motif that suddenly disappears, the repeat is not finished.

The quickest way to find faults is to offset the artwork by half the tile in both directions. Most editors have an offset, wrap-around or seamless-tile filter for exactly this. Any join that appears in the middle of the canvas after offsetting is a seam that will show up on fabric. Fix it, then offset again until nothing jumps out. Finally, zoom out to roughly 10 per cent. Repetition problems that vanish close-up often shout at a distance, and fabric is always seen from further away than your screen.

Repeat types worth having in the collection

• Straight or block repeat: the grid is visible; useful for geometrics and anything with strong horizontal rhythm.
• Half-drop: every other column shifts down by half. Softer and more forgiving for organic motifs.
• Brick: staggered rows. Good for small motifs that need energy without chaos.
• Tossed: motifs scattered without an obvious grid. Deceptively hard — check directional flow and keep density even.
• Border or stripe: not strictly a repeat but often part of a licensing package, especially for trims and packaging.

Keep artwork edges deliberate. Either bleed motifs cleanly across the tile boundary or keep a comfortable margin — accidental clipping reads as sloppy rather than loose. Print one repeat at its intended size on cheap paper before you commit; screens flatter work that paper exposes.

Decide on colourways before anyone asks

Three to six colourways suits most pitches. Fewer looks thin, more looks indecisive. A workable structure is this:

• Lead: the version you would put on the cover, fully resolved.
• Tonal or neutral: a quieter, lower-contrast sibling for backgrounds and coordinates.
• Accent: one saturated version for gifting, stationery or seasonal ranges.
• Dark or reversed ground: proves the motif works on something other than white.
• Two-colour reduction: useful for screen print, foiling and low-cost print methods.

Record the values for every colourway — hex codes, RGB, CMYK — and note any Pantone references you have matched to. Ink and screen never agree perfectly, so flag that printed versions may shift slightly and offer to review proofs.

Show scale and context

Buyers need to picture the same motif at several sizes, because a design that sings on a notebook can look clumsy on a duvet. Build a scale sheet: the identical artwork shown small, medium and large, ideally against a faint outline of a plate, a cushion or a panel. Keep a master file at the largest size you would ever license and scale down, never up. Blown-up artwork with soft edges suggests the collection will not hold up under scrutiny.

Build mock-ups that do a job

Mock-ups should show intent, not decorate a portfolio. Five to eight well-chosen ones beat twenty. Choose surfaces that match the motifs: stationery and gift wrap for delicate line work, home textiles for larger botanical repeats, packaging for bold geometrics. Keep perspective believable, lighting neutral and shadows subtle. Avoid dropping your motifs onto recognisable branded products, which creates unnecessary confusion about existing agreements, and keep flat artwork alongside the mock-ups so the pattern itself remains visible.

For anything you send before a contract is signed, use a lower-resolution preview or a discreet watermark, and say clearly that the preview is for review only.

File organisation: the boring part that wins work

Tidy files reassure a licensee that working with you will be straightforward. A simple structure holds up well:

1. One top-level folder per collection, named with the collection title and year.
2. Subfolders for Repeats, Placements, Colourways, Mock-ups and Documents.
3. Layered source files (AI, PSD or similar) kept untouched, plus flattened TIFF or PNG exports at 300 dpi.
4. Transparent PNGs for digital use, CMYK files for print, sRGB for screen — labelled so nobody has to guess.
5. A single-page PDF contact sheet showing every motif, its repeat type, colourways and file name.
6. A version note in the file name: collection_motif_repeat_v03, never final_final.

Put the licensing basics in writing

Your pitch pack should make the commercial shape of the offer obvious on one page: what is included, whether you are offering exclusive or non-exclusive use, which product categories and territories are covered, how long the term runs, and how many rounds of amendments you will accommodate. State whether you are quoting an advance, a royalty, or a flat fee.

A buyer should be able to see three things at a glance: what they are licensing, how it behaves in repeat, and what saying yes involves.

Contract wording varies enormously between countries, categories and clients, so treat any agreement you are asked to sign as something worth professional review before you commit. Keep your own plain-language summary separate from the contract itself, and never pad it with terms you cannot honour.

Before you hit send

Run this final pass on the finished folder:

1. Every repeat tiles cleanly at three tiles by three, offset-tested and viewed at 10 per cent.
2. Colourways numbered and named, with values documented.
3. Scale sheet included, no upscaled artwork anywhere.
4. Mock-ups checked for stray branding and unrealistic shadows.
5. Contact sheet PDF opens on a phone as well as a laptop.
6. File names legible to someone who has never met you.
7. Preview files low-resolution or watermarked.
8. Terms page dated and versioned.

Then send it with a short covering note: collection name, number of motifs, number of colourways, and what you are asking for. No biography, no long story. A clean, complete package does the persuading for you, and it is the sort of thing a licensee remembers when the next brief lands.

Photo: Ron Lach / Pexels