Plesner Patterns

Patterns that capture moments in time

It was only a few years ago when Kiki Plesner-Löfroth, sitting at a café, spotted a woman wearing cool, floral-patterned trousers. Looking to branch out from her job at a design agency, it sparked an idea. Wouldn't it be fun if she could create patterns too? From this moment, Plesner Patterns was born.

Kiki Plesner-Löfroth started her brand Plesner Patterns in 2018—but her path to becoming a designer began much earlier. After high school, Kiki studied art direction at Westerdals in Oslo, then travelled to Australia where she gained a bachelor’s degree in communication design.

She started Plesner Patterns whilst later working for a design agency. But, she says, the side hustle wasn’t enough. "As I started developing my brand, I decided I wanted to pursue it full-time. It was difficult to focus on it whilst having another job."

Since then, dedicating herself to her brand full-time has allowed Kiki to focus fully on her patterns, developing different practices and techniques.

"I often start working with analogue methods. I'll find objects in nature or at home and take pictures of them. A lot of digital editing then goes into transforming these pictures into patterns," she says. "But I like having the trace of a hand or a person in the pattern, so it isn't fully created digitally."

She gives the example of her Playclay pattern, which started from the simple task of cleaning up playdough after her children. A pattern revealed itself in the crumbs, which she went on to develop further.

"I would describe my patterns as freezing seemingly unimportant moments in time. The crumbs were almost in the bin but became the basis of a pattern that ended up representing the kids’ entire childhood."

The wish to capture moments in everyday life is a central inspiration for many of Kiki's patterns. "I want to freeze in time those small moments where our thoughts drift away. This is where my main inspiration comes from, but I also want my designs to give you that feeling of drifting thoughts. You should be drawn into the pattern and, for a moment, be able to escape everything else.”

Is there one pattern that Kiki is particularly proud of? "Proud might be the wrong word, but the patterns that are the most meaningful to me are these most personal ones—the ones starting from a place in my own life.” Two patterns in particular stand out: Playclay and Eggshell. Eggshell captures a moment when her children were crushing eggshells, which Kiki photographed and turned into a pattern.

Besides ready-made patterns, Plesner Patterns also offers custom patterns. "The custom design process is slightly different. I try to encompass what the client wants to express through the pattern,” Kiki explains.

One of the biggest moments for Kiki and Plesner Patterns so far was being chosen to participate in the Norwegian Presence exhibition—created by DOGA, Innovation Norway, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs—to showcase Norwegian design on an international arena.

In the future, she hopes to collaborate with clients to create unique textiles and products such as bed linen, rugs, and wallpapers, but she also wants to work with schools, hospitals, and institutions.

“I want to add colour into places that traditionally lack them, to add something joyful to the environment and to people’s everyday life.”

Instagram / @plesner_patterns plesnerpatterns.no