Do most web designers make their own textures?

Question

I'm a web developer by training who is branching into UI/UX design. One of the things my design work lacks compared to experienced designers is subtle use of texture, such as on these sites: http://www.trendkite.com, http://chartbeat.com

Do designers generally make these patterns from scratch, and if so, what is the best way to go about learning how to create them? The only freely available, subtle patterns I've seen that are as nice as this this are on subtlepatterns.com. I've had an equally difficult time finding tutorials on how to make nice patterns from scratch. Any resources you could point me to would be very helpful.

Answer 1

Generally yes, In my experience the designers will create most texture effects like that on their own, if they feel confident they can do it. There are of course alternatives like free image sourcing sites, and paid sites as well like istockphoto.com etc.

When I'm designing a website, I tend to make the textures myself to avoid copyright violations on images. If I see a texture I particularly like I'll always try to recreate it myself before using an already existing image.

Hope that helps somewhat.

Answer 2

The good ones do.

Generally a good designer has a library of custom patterns they refer to. Most "found-on-the-web" patterns are lacking something whether it's good seams, transparency, or whatever. There are some good one's out there (subtlepatterns.com being one of those). But they are rare.

There are millions of tutorials on creating patterns.

Once you understand construction, it's merely a matter of proper artwork and a designer's eye to know what is too much.

In addition, many textures are created by layering various patterns on top of one another. It's helpful to construct transparent patterns with minimalism in mind, then stack them for more complex appearances. This method offers far more versatility when creating.