Trend Forecasting

Discover profitable design trends before anyone else – and create artwork with mass appeal!

Are you ready to create artwork and designs that will become insanely popular and earn you passive income for months or years to come? That’s completely possible once you know how to key into trends!

Skill Level Required:

All levels

Number of Students:

18,285

Class Length:

1 hour 8 mins

One-Time Purchase:

Get lifetime access to this course with the one-time purchase option. No subscription fees. 100% self-paced, so you can watch the pre-recorded videos on your own schedule.

$55

Enroll through Skillshare:

With a membership to Skillshare, you’ll get access to my entire class catalog, including this class. New members can unlock a free one-month trial.

$168 / year. (Price varies per region.)

Why do trends matter?

For me, staying relevant is crucial to my success as a creative business owner.

In this class, you'll get insider tips to identify trends early, plus actionable steps you can implement in your creative work today. Once you understand how to leverage the powerful tool of trend forecasting, you will unlock the power to create work that will rise to the creme of the crop.

Implement strategic trend-tracking insights to grow your audience, establish your brand as an authority, and earn more money.

Color Trends

Color is one of those things that everyone has an opinion about. And it’s not such a trivial thing: colors shape everything from our mood to the products we decide to purchase. Color trend forecasting is a vital part of the trend projection industry– it contributes the massive market of product design and influences fashion, textile and accessory development, and more.

In this class, you’ll get links to the exact resources I use when I’m developing color palettes for best-selling artwork.

Surface & Substrate Trends

Textures, patterns, and substrates are pretty often overlooked. Chances are, they’re usually intended to be fairly subtle and allow something else to take the spotlight. But just because backgrounds aren’t as overpowering as a central motif, doesn’t mean they’re not overpowering in the industry.

Learn how to leverage surface and substrate trends to add some oomph to your product photography– whether you’re snapping pics of your new artwork or photogrpahing new product for your Etsy shop.

Typography Trends

Creatives fonts not only carry a message, but they also can have a strong visual impact– typefaces can evoke emotion, express nostalgia, can make you laugh, shiver, and everything in between. And just like every other visual we’re talking about today, fonts absolutely adhere to trend cycles.

Learn how to select on-trend fonts to incorporate into your branding, design projects, hand-lettering artwork, and more!

Pattern Trends

As a surface designer, I use patterns all the time. I leverage pattern and texture trends with just as much enthusiasm for potential as I do with other visual categories. Patterns, no matter how innocuous they are, can have an insanely strong potential for customer sales.

You’ll learn how to identify high-potential textures and patterns to incorporate into designs for wallpaper, gift wrap, fabrics and more.

Motif Trends

This is the biggie– learn what iconic images, subject matter, and overarching concepts are on fire at the moment and learn how to leverage their popularity into best-selling artwork!

Fashion Trends

Even if your brand isn’t fashion-focused, you can still learn a lot from fashion, especially during pivotal occasions in the industry that trigger trend changes, like Fashion Week in New York, Paris, and London. Learn how to identify what is on the runway right now, because this will affect what we see in mass retail for the next few years.

What you’ll get out of this class:

• Insider tips to identify trends early

• Actionables: loads of links, resources, and downloads

• Concrete steps you can start implementing in your creative work today

• Insights to establishing your brand as an authority

• Mini projects along the way

Who this class is for:

• Visual creatives of all types:

  • Artists

  • Designers

  • Illustrators

  • Photographers

  • Content creators

“It’s a perfect course for anyone who’s getting started with selling their designs or feel like they are stuck in the process.”

- Elena S.

“I loved this class! I feel like I've learned so much practical stuff that I can implement. I'm a beginner designer, still trying to figure out how to make money from illustrations, so this class was very helpful! I now have a clear idea how to proceed and what my next steps are.”

- Mina A.

“Thank you, Cat, for your wealth of information. I am new to surface pattern design and this class certainly gave me a desire to not only keep learning about it, but to dive right into this industry. I highly recommend this class.”

- Jo Marie M.

“WOW! I was not expecting such a detailed and engaging class. I was cooking and said I'd play this and make my meal... well let's just say I paused and had to rewind the video 100 times bc I was so into it! I took so many notes. Thank you so much for sharing your insight! You are an excellent teacher and your generosity with spotlighting other artists is absolutely wonderful!”

- Kalenah A.

“This class is an absolute gem. You will want to save it somewhere to come back to it. It is very organized. Thank you for sharing your expertise in such an open, clear fashion Cat!”

- T. Y.

“This was a great class: logically organized, packed with examples and references, interesting visuals, multiple ideas on how to track trends.”

- Nancy O.

I use trend forecasting to create designs with mass appeal and high sales. In fact, my livelihood depends on this– I’ve been licensing my artwork since 2014 and I’ve sold over a million products with my designs on them– everything from art prints and tapestries to apparel, home decor, and tech accessories.

Trend forecasting has opened up so many opportunities for me as a professional illustrator. I hope you’ll join me inside the class to learn how to leverage the power of trend tracking to create opportunities in your own creative business!

–Cat Coquillette

One-Time Purchase:

Get lifetime access to this course with the one-time purchase option. No subscription fees. 100% self-paced, so you can watch the pre-recorded videos on your own schedule.

$55

Enroll through Skillshare:

With a membership to Skillshare, you’ll get access to my entire class catalog, including this class. New members can unlock a free one-month trial.

$168 / year. (Price varies per region.)

Cultivating Color: Vary Palettes in Original Art & Grow Your Portfolio

Do you want to learn how to duplicate your original artwork into a variety of brand new color schemes? With just a few clicks, you can turn one piece of artwork into an assortment of color palettes!

Drawing Seamless Patterns in Procreate + Professional Surface Design Tips

Learn how to illustrate professional seamless patterns and surface designs using only your iPad! In this class, you will learn how to use your artwork to illustrate professional, infinite patterns and surface designs that easily line up into perfect pattern blocks.

Procreate for Beginners

What if you could learn one of the fastest and simplest ways to create professional and sellable artwork using Procreate? By the end of this class, you’ll have the skills to do exactly that. This is a comprehensive, all-in-one Procreate course. You’ll create five cool illustrations, each lesson focusing on a core skill in Procreate.