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The greatest inspiration when I feel challenged to start a custom sock design are my fellow designers in our in-house design team. Each of us comes from a different creative sphere, whether that be a fine art, graphic design, photography or fashion background. We approach the design process in unique ways that we are always exploring within our team.
I sat down with fellow designer, Molly, to pick her brain on her process of designing custom socks. Molly has worked for Sock Club, designing custom socks with logos, for two and a half years and is a pure joy.
Hanna:
What is your creative background? Your custom sock designs are some of my all-time favorites and your personal artwork is stunning.
Molly:
Gee whiz, thank you boo. My background is in fine art, illustration, and design. My work is heavily illustrative, which is why I love designing our bold subscription socks and struggle with classic/traditional patterns.
Hanna:
There is something fun about making a traditional pattern such as argyle or stripes into something new and fresh.
How do you take your previous art experience and your own personal style into how you design custom socks with logos?
Molly:
I think a strong aesthetic and personal taste has a lot to do with it. I like what I like and choose to make artwork with imagery that inspires me, which is often plants, animals, and nature. My personal illustration style that I’ve worked to develop over the years just naturally bleeds into everything I make now!
Hanna:
Relatable! It’s fun to see how we all approach the same client request differently and in our own styles. How do you start designing a custom sock for one of our clients? What is your process?
Molly:
I generally start by researching each client. I look up their website and social media to get a feel for their brand style. When I create custom sock designs for a client, I incorporate their colors, any graphics or patterns they might have in their brand guidelines, or I come up with some pattern suggestions that could fit with their brand.
Hanna:
The research stage is one of my favorite parts of the process. It’s interesting to learn and gain experience on brand trends and motifs. What is your favorite thing about designing for a knitted garment such as custom socks?
Molly:
I love seeing the final product! Watching something you design on screen come to life as a functional product is really exciting and satisfying to see in real life. It’s also satisfying knowing that you got a client’s branding right and it looks cohesive on a real life good.
Hanna:
What is the most challenging part of designing for a knitted garment?
Molly:
Hmm, I would say complex artwork. Some of our clients send us the most stunning and intricate art. While their artwork looks great on screen or in print, our knitting machines can only achieve so much detail with stitches of yarn in a knitted garment. So it’s our job to take that artwork and translate it into a knittable product that is also comfortable to wear.
Hanna:
It’s almost like a fun puzzle!
What client would you love to design custom socks for?
Molly:
We have done socks for so many dream clients already! It would be super fun to design merch for one of the chefs I admire, Molly Baz! Her cookbook branding by Violaine & Jérémy Design Studio is amazing too, so that’s a plus.
Hanna:
Molly Baz is amazing, what a fun treat that would be.
What part of our custom sock design process do you wish our clients knew more about?
Molly:
One of the most unique and important aspects of designing for knitwear is the process of translating vector art to pixel art. We recreate all logos and artwork using pixels, and one pixel on screen is equal to one yarn stitch in a sock. We’re a team of designers and artists so this is a fun process for us!
Hanna:
Totally agree! The challenge of manipulating pixels/stitches to get as close to the client artwork is exciting. It’s so satisfying when it all comes together on a custom knitted sock.
If you could give one piece of advice to a client who is wanting to tackle their own custom sock design, what would it be?
Molly:
We give you all the tips and tricks to design your own sock art in our template documents, and we love to see what our clients create. The biggest suggestion we usually offer is to be aware that the artwork wraps around the calf in a tube shape. So we always point out how to set up artwork so it wraps seamlessly around the sock. Most importantly, have fun with your design and we’ll take care of the rest!
Hanna:
Great advice! I would add that small lettering and more than 7 colors on a design can be a bit tricky to execute. However, our job as custom sock designers is to challenge ourselves to come up with creative solutions to get as close as what our client’s are wanting.
Thank you Molly for speaking with me, a pleasure as always.
Our in-house design team is here for any of your sock design needs. We are experts in knitting custom socks, finding the perfect sock-lution (get it) and creating masterpieces that you didn’t think could exist. Feel free to start your custom sock design process on our website and any of the designers can get in touch with you if you have questions.
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