Please tell me what makes a GREAT tartan design.

[Amble]

Could you please let me know what you think makes a tartan design GREAT. For instance, do you like rich colours or weathered, ancient or modern, hunting or dress? Do you like tartans with smaller patterns and many smaller lines of colour, or larger blocks of colour? Do you like symmetrical or asymmetrical designs? Is your eye attracted to reds, yellows, greens, greys, blues, purples etc.? Please check out the Tartan Designer on Scotweb by clicking on the following link and tell me your favourites: http://www.scotweb.co.uk/tartandesig..._content=story I LOVE designing tartans and would like some feedback and suggestions. It would be great if you would try out the Tartan Designer yourselves while you're at it!!! ***Amble***

[Tartan Hiker]

One thing that the wise designer considers is how the tartan lends itself to pleating. Your option of many small stripes brings with it certain limitations when it comes to pleat style and reveal width that can only be fully appreciated (IMHO) if you have made tartan kilts and worked through the problems first hand.

[OC Richard]

My eye is usually attracted to tartans that have strong gridlike structure, tartans which are rather bold.

I've never liked diffuse tartans, tartans with dozens of fine lines everywhere and no "big picture" structure.

To me it's not so much about the colours, because I like dark green tartans, and red tartans, and new purples tartans, more or less equally. But though I'm more attracted to structure than colour, nevertheless some tartans have very striking colours that I love.

OK here are examples, in an attempt to show what I mean.

These three tartans, Jacobite, Tullibardine, and Wilson look a bit too diffuse for me. Wilson looks very nice actually, and I think it's lack of strong structure is saved by its very nice use of colour:







The following three have a strong structure. The first two are recent designs (Isle of Skye, Western Isles). Note that these tartans are rather effective even in cases where very little colour is present:







Now here's one of the loveliest tartans I've ever seen, a recent one, Auld Lang Syne. The colours glow like a stained glass window or summat:



Here's a tartan with a nice bold structure but the colours are just too garish for my eye. It's an old authentic 18th century tartan or early 19th century I believe, Bruce of Kinnaird:



Here's my own kilt, muted Drummond of Perth, which combines nice colours with a strong pattern, resulting in a very nice effect:

[ForresterModern]

I think that question, although it can be answered in somewhat analytic terms, is like asking what makes a woman beautiful. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and a very personal emotion based on one's own background, upbringing, history, experience, and sensorium. For an extreme example, what would some of our tartans look like to someone with color blindness, an example of how the sensorium can affect our response.

Although some generalities can be made (contrasting but pleasing color combinations, some rhythm or order to the stripe widths and color orders, sett not too big or too small) just like generalities can be made in the attractiveness of people (not too short or too tall, not too fat or too skinny, etc...) they are by no means absolutes. For instance, many like the Burns or Shepherds Check which only has two colors (natural white and natural black wool---no dyeing classically) it is a beautiful tartan but breaks nearly all the typical ideas of what makes a beautiful tartan (only two plain colors, tiny sett size).

I think what makes an aesthetically pleasing tartan is a very individual set of parameters for each of us that is in many ways intangible. Just looking at the tartans genereated on Scotweb's open public listing I find many that are pleasing and many that are just plain, or even hideous, in my own stylistic eye. What works for us just works, and sometimes analyzing that may actually detract from the beauty of the tartan.

One man's humble opinion.

[figheadair]

Beauty is certainly in the eye of the beholder but from an historical perspective it's was about the correct (and I use that term advisedly) of colour and shade to balance the sett. It is very, very rare to find an old, by which I mean C18th specimen, where all the colours are of a uniform shade as so commonly occures with commercial cloth today and which in my eye kills too many patterns. The other thing to bear in mind is that colour and shade are not the same thing and people often use the former to mean the latter.

[Lyle1]

Beauty is definitely in the eye of the beholder, and I don't think I could explain why I personally like a particular tartan. In general (even in things not related to tartans), it is not a specific color or hue that attracts me, but how it is used in a given situation. In tartans, I enjoy the variety of colors and hues, as well as the many combinations that are used. I prefer tartans that have a pattern that is easily discernible from a distance of twenty feet or so and that have an obvious repeat to the pattern. I am drawn to all of the tartans illustrated here, so far, except the Jacobite, and I think it is the shade or hue of the larger blocks of yellow that put me off. However, I would have to see it pleated to make a final decision.

I guess I know what tartan I like when I see it, but I might change my mind the next time I see it.

[OC Richard]

...I don't think I could explain why I personally like a particular tartan.

...it is not a specific color or hue that attracts me, but how it is used in a given situation.

I prefer tartans that have a pattern that is easily discernible from a distance of twenty feet or so and that have an obvious repeat to the pattern.

The first thing, explaining why we like something, is the hard part.
I took a lot of art classes and many instructors banned the word "like". Their point was that it was that it's very easy to say we like or don't like something, and doing so requires no thought. The hard part is to put aside like/don't like and to really discuss what makes a piece of art effective. This applies to tartans, as each tartan is a work of art, a painting or composition in a way.

It's extremely difficult to pinpoint what makes some tartans more striking to the eye than others. For my own eye, as I said above, much of it is about the structure. But on the other hand some tartans have such wonderful use of colour that the structure almost doesn't matter.

Now about the last statement above, about tartans having a pattern that's discernable at a distance, that's especially true for tartans used by a pipe band. Pipe bands oftentimes pick a tartan that looks good when worn by an individual and veiwed up close, but when worn en masse and viewed at distance, is too diffuse or has too weak a structure.

[McMurdo]

I don't think one colour really matters over another. If for example my clan tartan was a different sett and made up ofdifferent colours I'd still wear it. I think one of the important things to tartan design is meaning behind the colours you choose. The Isle of Skye for example uses colours to depict those of the island, often called the 'Misty Isle'.

[piperdbh]

Here are my top four picks from your list, and how I'd like to see them pleated:
Agate

knife-pleated to the blue stripe

Lantern

box-pleated to the wide dark stripe

Fireglow,

box-pleated to the black stripe

Holiday Dress (if woven in red and green, not pink and lime)

knife-pleated to the white stripe

Thanks for the link to your gallery.

[OC Richard]

I think one of the important things to tartan design is meaning behind the colours you choose. The Isle of Skye for example uses colours to depict those of the island, often called the 'Misty Isle'.

Actually, from the standpoint of design, what meanings people invent for colours is irrelevant. A rose by any other name smells as sweet, and colours strike the eye because of their hue and for no other reason.

It's a purely modern notion, trying to assign meanings to various colours used in a tartan. Originally weavers just picked colours they liked, and today most tartans are designed that way too.

Seems to me that picking the colours to be used in a tartan by the arbitrary meanings somebody invents for some colours creates a liability, a handicap for the designer and if a good design results it's in spite of, rather than because of, the method of colour choice.

A perfect example is all the awful-looking "American" or "American bicentennial" tartans which were created in the 1970's. Red white and blue looks great for flags- hey it works for the French and the British among many others- but it's a poor way to begin designing a tartan.
By far the most successful "American" tartan is American Heritage which seemed to say "the heck with it... black makes for a strong tartan, and red, white, and blue are going to have to take the back seat." And note the blue isn't the blue used in the US flag but a light blue. So the requirements of a strong design trumped the use of the colours of the US/British/French flag.