The Elements Project

The 100 Day Project helped me launched my career as a pattern designer, so when the project started again in February 2024, I knew I wanted to join in for the fourth year in a row.

You can see each past year of my project on Instagram here: 2021, 2022, 2023.

Instead of simply creating a new pattern each day, I wanted to do something with an overarching theme—both as a creative challenge for myself and to create a story to follow along with for my community. 

I brainstormed a few ideas like seasons, courts (like in a fantasy series), decades, and ultimately landed on the elements. I divided the project into 5 collections: air, fire, earth, water, and spirit. This theme was specific enough to give me a lot of ideas, but also broad enough that I didn’t feel hemmed in. It also had room for literal interpretations, like clouds for air or flowers for earth, and more abstract ones like a representation of sound waves moving through the air or dragon scales to connect with fire. 

The only hitch in my plan was time. As in, life happened, and for the first time in four years I got way off schedule and didn’t complete the project within the 100 days. But by that point I was deep enough into it that I had to see it through, and despite the delay I was also really enjoying working with the theme. 

It may have taken me almost a year, but I completed this project and I love how it turned out. There were some designs that won’t make it into the portfolio, but a good chunk that I’m proud to share. One of the air designs has already been licensed on scrapbook paper which you can read more about here. 

Check out some of my fave designs from the collections below or you can see all of the project on Instagram. What do you think: should I create more large collections like this? Ideally ones that I complete in less than a year. 

And if you’re interested in licensing any of these patterns or illustrations, or want to create something new together, you can contact me at katy@ktogeretzdesigns.com.

Air

Fire

Earth

Water

Spirit