Pattern Designs. Observations.

Seats upholstery is a very important element of London underground and its interior design.

Commuters will easily spot many various patterns across tube lines (other train services and buses, too!). 

Often, certain patterns are typical to a specific train line, for example Victoria’s line seat covers have dark blue fading into the light blue background with a white chevron and red square pattern. It was created by Bombardier in 2009. A brief history of that pattern, along with other patterns description, is available on the London’s Transport Museum (LTM) website.

An interesting fact about the pattern on the Central Line is that its design hides four London’s landmarks. It was designed by Wallace Sewell in 2010.

Pattern templates are available on the LTM website so one can download them and re-create a neat copy of that pattern. I, however, attempted a simple drawing based on the image of the Victoria’s seats. When I have access to a printing service, I shall print out some templates and experiment with creating variations of those patterns. 

I commute regularly on the Victoria line and observe how old and tired, or new and fresh the train’s seats are. I listen to the sounds made by the trains, their closing and opening doors, announcements and other not always pleasant noises.

I take photographs of the platforms and trains – usually when they are empty so towards the end of the line when the train terminates and the crowd quickly leave the station. These images are used in my projects and presentations, they are inspirations for further work and references for creating big and small elements.

For the Time Train VR project, I was looking at various patterns, not always related to trains and transport but fluid and botanical, that could be introduced in the project. I want to create a time travelling train in a sense of smooth change from the old to the latest tube train carriage and include patterns as indicators of that change. The older trains would have more traditional designs on their floor, seats, possibly ceilings and stations, whereas the more modern ones would have different patterns, reflecting its modernity.

I was inspired by William Morris and his pattern designs. I created a Pinterst board inspired by his work where I gathered beautiful images of various designs. 

That board also includes wavy patterns and fluid images that can potentially represent the sound in my VR experience. I think that visually representing the sound is a great idea to immerse the player in the VR world. Smoke or fog-like colourful streaks of the sound could gently surround the commuter, and are only possible in VR. 

I also created a simple pattern that could be multiplied, rotated and resized to be used as a design on one of the project elements.