Project- Our own tartan design

[Purgy]

Hello everyone!
How and why did I decide (to try) design my own tartan?
It seems to me that the answer is similar to wearing a kilt, and very simple: I just like it, and I wanted to make something personal and special.
Why new tartan?
The obvious reasons are no connection to Scottish roots, non-clan affiliation and the absence of a tartan related to my family.
To make things better, at the age of 18 I changed my last name, which none of my parents, brothers, sisters have... so I in a way I started a new family line
(which at that consisted of only one member )
The advantage in designing is definitely freedom and creativity in every way, but again it should not be exaggerated, and that's where your advices step in.

The process looked something like this to me: After making the decision to try designing, I read a number of tips and recommendations, about tartan design,
(we’ll see if I learned anything ). At the beginning, I decided on 4 colors, but the first choice was red, white, blue (since these are the colors of the Croatian flag) and black.
The process was neither easy nor simple, at the core of each attempt were certain numbers of threads that represented something related to my family.
After about 10-15 attempts, I I gathered my courage to show my work in public ... and then a dozen more followed, where the noticed "flaws" were corrected.
Comments ranged from: "No!", "Boring!", "Tablecloth!", "To awful!", so I was sometimes happy when I went back to “just” boring.
I finally guessed, a few more minor corrections and that's it ... we got it.
When I finally finished and looked at the size of the sett, it was clear to me that I had greatly exceeded the usual measure of 6 to 8 inches.
After a few days of rest, I decided to make a total turnaround. I came up with the idea to “write” our last name in our tartan.
For a start, this meant a big change of colors, ie the introduction of some that were never even considered as realistic options: black, red, orange and gray.
What follows is the final result, the colors and thickness are the letters of our last name, followed by 2 colors whose thickness is the sum of the digits of my wife's birthday, and then the same for me, and finally the date of our wedding, when we actually became a family.

TartanK1.jpg

TartanK2a.jpg

TartanK3a.jpg

As I said in an earlier post, you have seen everything and anything, and you can help with your comments here.
Colors and seeing them is a subjective thing, I don’t expect everyone to be thrilled with this design, but nor do I expect all comments to be negative either,
don’t hold back in honesty, it’s something I appreciate the most.
In order to direct this topic a bit, I bring a few questions, and your answers will help me in further activities.
1. Have you seen a similar tartan
2. How do you like the color combination/composition
3. To see the kilt of this tartan:
a) You would ask for information about tartan
b) You would cover your eyes with hands so that this image would not stuck in your memory
c) Some other reaction (which?)
4. Your comment/impression of this attempt

Maybe I'll ask some questions later, but this thread is already long enough ...

[StephenA]

Hi good work, it is close to the Canadian Tartan it is green, gold, red, and brown

FIY: A lot of designs have a reason for the colour choices
eg: Inspired by the colours of the maple leaf through the changing seasons, the tartan’s pattern incorporates the green of summer leaves, the gold of early autumn, the red of the first frost and finally, the brown tones of the fallen leaves before winter.

[Father Bill]

Hi good work, it is close to the Canadian Tartan it is green, gold, red, and brown

FIY: A lot of designs have a reason for the colour choices
eg: Inspired by the colours of the maple leaf through the changing seasons, the tartan’s pattern incorporates the green of summer leaves, the gold of early autumn, the red of the first frost and finally, the brown tones of the fallen leaves before winter.

For reference: The Maple Leaf Tartan; officially accepted by the Government of Canada, https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-he...canada.html#a3 and registered with the Scottish Register of Tartans https://www.tartanregister.gov.uk/ta...tails?ref=2824 and listed by the Scottish Tartan Authority: http://www.tartansauthority.com/tart...-leaf-district

This may perhaps show it somewhat better:

[OC Richard]

To me it feels like there are too many things competing for my eye's attention.

I think tartans work best when the eye is given resting-places.

For sure there are traditional tartans that have a congested feel, but whether a tartan is old or new doesn't matter to the eye, and good design will always be good design.

So much of good design is balance. Designs look best if there's a balance between active areas and restful areas, warm colours and cool colours, light and dark, etc.

With your tartan I think the solution to the congestion or hyperactive feel would be easy. See the black stripe in the red area? My eye wants to see that black stripe narrower, the red field a bit wider. That would create a calm/restful area, I think.

OK I tried it real quick, the colours I have there are bad but you can see that the design is less congested, more open-feeling, and the eye has a resting-place in the red field. Sorry it's just a screen shot with my phone, I'm not a registered user with that Clan tartan thing.

[kiltedsawyer]

I am okay with the color choices, however I have to agree with OC Richard that some simplification might be in order.
Good start, best of luck,

David

[OC Richard]

Just to clarify, I followed each stripe of the tartan in the OP as exactly as I could, so my mockup should have all the same stripes in all the same places as the original. My only change was to adjust the relative widths of some of the stripes.

I pretty much left the main motif the same (the most complex/dense part of the design) but made the red field wider and the black line within it narrower to give a calmer, more restful portion.

This balance of a complex/dense/busy portion and an open/restful portion is a feature of a large number of tartans, perhaps most of them.

[Purgy]

OC Richard,
Thanks for the comments and clarifications, I’m thinking and “playing” with the new designs, so I’m not responding detailed, at the moment, to replies,
but as soon as there will be something "important" from my side, I will definitely share it with you.
I understand and accept the suggestions and I'm in search of balance, as we speak/write.

[OC Richard]

An example of a single change in proportion making a big difference in the overall effect is Royal Stewart.

The same tartan, but with the red field reduced to a stripe, is called Prince Charles Edward Stuart.





Now one could rightly say that which of the two is "better" is simply a matter of opinion.

However the upper version, with the wider red area, is incalculably more popular than the lower version. I think it's because the busy/congested area of the tartan is balanced with a calm/open area, while PCES is busy/congested all over, giving the eye no rest. My old Pipe Major called it "the test pattern effect".

This is precisely what I saw in your upper image, and the thing my version tried to address.

I will admit that mine might have gone too far the other way, in an effort to make my point.

[Purgy]

OC Richard
Thanks for the message, but from the beginning I understood what your advice was about, and I accepted it as a well-intentioned suggestion from the first.
I work on the design every day, for at least half an hour and since writing this thread I have made at least 15 new/similar versions.
Following all the advices, I will never cross the line that tartan lose special meaning for me/my family.
I hope to publish a couple of the most acceptable versions soon, so we will continue to comment and collaborate further.
I am grateful for every comment/reply and help.

[OC Richard]

Sorry I didn't want to beat a dead horse, but give an existing (and well-known) example the thing I was talking about.

Actually the same thing has happened with many of the tartans that have been around for a couple hundred years.

In The Setts Of The Scottish Tartans (1950) DC Stewart writes

"...changes of fashion are to be observed in the relative proportions of the elements of which a design is made up.

A comparison of the setts given by Logan (1831) with those used now shows a change during the interval. Many of Logan's counts give patterns that seems weak when set beside more recent examples. The fine lines are relatively finer, and the open spaces more open; there are greater differences in the widths of adjacent bands than we see now.

Unfortunately there has been a tendency in recent years towards a thickening of the patterns, giving a clumsy and congested rather than rich effect. Greater refinement would not always entail weakness."