Petra Gardefjord creates design patterns out of her children’s dreams

When I first started using these tools, I was blown away. These apps were exactly what I had been looking for. I especially like how I can capture assets and turn them into patterns but also capture my own handwriting and turn it into vectorised word art.

Swedish creative entrepreneur Petra Gardefjord started her journey back in 2013 with her company Mini Mocks. Initially just a hobby project, Mini Mocks has grown to become a great success with its range of eco-friendly accessories for kids.

Today, the mother of three is a star on Instagram, and her account @Minimockspetra now has more than 82,000 followers. In fact, it was on Instagram that Petra established a close and daily dialogue with Mini Mocks’ customers, and the social platform is also helpful in her creative process.

We’ve caught up with Petra to learn about her latest project and where she finds her inspiration.

“I get a lot of inspiration on Instagram. Also, I look through interior design magazines every week. But most of all, I get inspired by my children with their wild fantasies and immense energy,” Petra tells us.

Her idea of designing and creating moccasins started when Petra had her second baby and began to craft small interior design pieces and create baby clothes. She later ended up making moccasins for her daughter. The design for the first pair of moccasins was made out of a dozen patterns, and now Petra creates most of her designs with Adobe Creative Cloud. By using Adobe Capture CC and Adobe Illustrator CC, she can create the motives and patterns which she encounters in her everyday life.

“When I first started using these tools, I was blown away. These apps were exactly what I had been looking for. I especially like how I can capture assets and turn them into patterns but also capture my own handwriting and turn it into vectorised word art.”

For a few days back in March Petra carried out an experiment to find out if she could capture assets from the dreams of the children. Petra had two of her children draw their dreams on paper as soon as they woke up. By capturing their illustrations with the Adobe Capture CC app, Petra could easily transfer the captured shapes, brushes and colour pallets to patterns and elaborate with new designs for her products.

“The experiment was very interesting. I mean, it all depended on their morning mood. The outcome might end up as a collection made for kids, designed based on their dreams,” says Petra.

Petra’s three tips on how to fuel your creativity with your phone:

1. Practice, practice, practice! It will make you better. Adobe’s Capture CC app makes it easy to take the pictures – you just have to train your eye.
2. Invest in a good smartphone with a good camera – it’s worth it.
3. Use all functionality of the app – you can never “capture enough”.

Now you can get creative, too:

Check out Petra’s step-by-step tutorial on how to transform dreams into patterns for kids’ accessories.