Inspiration

Throughout this project I have learnt the importance of research and inspiration. Looking through websites such as Vogue.com has helped me to stay on track and to develop and challenge myself in my work. I have put together some images that I feel relate well to my work.

 Stella McCartney has used a similar colour story here, using a bold orange as a statement colour were as I have tried to keep my bold colour as more of an accent colour within the collection.

 As soon as I saw this piece from the SS13 collection from Fendi I immediately saw a connection between that and my own work, the graphic print on top with a more simplistic basic colour below. The print is so graphic it almost feels like it is coming off the fabric which is something that I feel I have achieved within my own work.

Fashion Illustrations

After doing drawing after drawing after drawing I have finally done some fashion illustrations that I am happy with. At first my face were horrible but I found a way round it and feel like the final outcome has really worked and that my illustrations suite my designs. Things that could have been done better are the eyes on the faces on the illustrations, also I need to work on drawing hands and feet. I can get the basic outlines right just on the details which is a bit of a let down for me.

I had a tutorial this morning and showed my tutor my illustrations that were different to these examples here.

I wasn't really happy with my work after the tutorial and this gave me motivation to improve my work and to really put all my effort into my designs so I have spent my full day drawing and redrawing my illustrations and redesigning my prints.

Final 6 Designs

since developing my colour palette I have been able to progress with my designs and develop them using this chosen colour palette. I feel that the orange and blue combination give the prints a modern twist as well as the bold geometric shapes. I feel that my favourite design is the second one down as its interesting and bold, I feel that I would wear it myself. The design which I feel has not worked the best is the design with the hexagons, although it is in keeping with my theme it does not fit in with the rest as well as it possibly could and I feel that in the future I will improve upon this. The one thing I have been struggling with is who my customer is. I feel that she is bold and edgy and not afraid to be centre of attention. She can afford to buy one off pieces that can be warn once to make a statement.

Colour Concepts

I have been asked to create a Mood Board, Colour Board and a Customer Profile Board. I am still really unsure of who my customer is at the moment so I am currently searching for a muse, someone who isn't afraid of graphic prints or colour, but still keeps their modern and sleek style. Here are a few examples of my boards so far.

Experimentation

Basically I found an image that I loved and tried to draw it.. unsuccessfully!!! So I took the image into Illustrator so that I could get the lines right and add colour into the image.. I love it! Although the design is quite graphic which is not usually my style I really like it. I'm still unsure of the colour but I feel that the orange gives the image a modern aesthetic.

Messing with Multiples

Photoshop has became my best friend over these past few days as I received quite a bad tutorial the other day. But it was exactly what I needed to jump start my motivation levels again! I feel like I was stuck in a rut a little, not getting out of my flat to become inspired and just browsing blogs for secondary sources rather than getting out there and creating my own.

However I have began using my drawings and developing them into prints using a range of colour-ways. I think I may have came up with a definite colour scheme but I am still a little unsure. As part of this project is to come up with a Customer Profile, Mood Board and a Colour Board I feel it is important to develop my drawings to have a greater understanding of who would wear them.

Throughout my experimentation with this drawing I felt that the bright colours were not me and did not represent my aesthetic. My tutor suggested adding an accent colour of ed but when I have tried this I really do not feel like it works very well and dates the geometric, modern shape. I also tried having the background in red to make it more vibrant but that did not work either. In the future I plan to experiment with different colour ways to give the pattern a much more modern feel to match the modern shape. Although I do like the grey scale and feel that a accent colour would compliment it really well, its just a matter of experimentation. I also feel that this print works better as a placement print than a repeat pattern.

Fashion Illustration

As part of the TD4F world it is important to know how to draw the human figure, and to be able to show our designs on this figure. So we had a illustration masterclass, the basics of it are quite simple - use a fashion magazine, find a model doing a simple pose and do a quick trace of the pose. This is such a simple way of creating an illustration and you can put your own twist on it! Also hair magazines are great for sketching faces and different hair styles. Personally I always struggle thinking of a different 'out there' hair style to put on my illustrations so this was a really useful tip that I took away from the day. I went straight out and bought a magazine and started to draw. Unfortunately some of my drawings were unsuccessful but this is what experimenting is about, learning your strengths and weaknesses and putting your strengths out there.

I tried to experiment with different medias throughout this process too, but I much prefer a good old pencil! Although some people can make their illustrations look amazing with different medias I'm a detail lover. I feel that my faces are definitely holding me back here and are something I vastly need to improve upon, but I know this and have been practising ever since. I find simple faces much easier for my style of drawing. Also I prefer shorter hair does or up-do's when creating my illustrations.

Concept

After a series of tutorials looking through one anothers drawings we have all been asked to come up with a concept for this project. At first I found it quite difficult as I felt that non of my drawings linked with one another at all, also finding the difference between a 'theme' and a 'concept' was challenging for me, knowing that the subject had to be broad but also not too broad but not pin pointed. It needed to be an idea. So I drew out a mind map of what I like to draw and what my drawings represent. I also drew inspiration from my surroundings in our studio space, as there were still some inspirational images left up on the walls from a previous task. On my mind map I listed things such as:

• Texture
• Architecture
• Geometric
• Graphic
• Repeat
• Layer
• Stacking
• Multiples

The one word that stood out to me was multiples! As soon as I written it down it all clicked in my head, I started thinking about layering my images and building them up, and things just started to click. Also my tutor liked the sound of the concept which made it a lot easier for me! So from this concept I am going to go around manchester and take photographs of things i see which I relate to as a multiple whether it be multiples angles, multiple layers or a repeat of a shape. I will also use everyday items as inspiration as this concept is quite broad and I am yet to know what I want to pin point at this stage.

CAD Workshops

Each week we have been attending CAD workshops in which we have been learning the basics of Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. I have really enjoyed these workshops as throughout my Foundation Diploma I was always in the CAD room experimenting with my designs and find these a really fun way to see my designs come alive and to see them in different colour-ways and scales. So to start with we learnt how to make our own brushes which is something really useful to know as its such a quick and easy way to begin a pattern or a print (once you've learnt how!). We also scanned in our technical drawings and enhanced them on Illustrator, this allowed me to make my work look more professional and presentable, I definitely prefer this method to a hand drawn flat. Here is an example of something which I created, showing easy ways in which to show a print on a garment.

Here I tried to experiment with colour and scale as at the moment I am still unsure of what my colour palette could be. The final image here is a preset tool within Photoshop which created this weaving look for me, although I think the pattern is interesting it does not work with the drawing that I have scanned, the colours also are too random and are not my style at all. In the future I will experiment more with colours, preferably bolder and much more vibrant colours.

Shop Report

To help us understand how textiles within the fashion industry works and to learn more about trends and what is happening right now within the fashion world, we were sent to different shops to analyse everything from the clothes that were stocked, the price, materials used and what trends were popular in each store. My group were asked to go into Primark, Miss Selfridges, H&M, All Saints and Urban Outfitters. Personally I found this task really interesting as when I usually go shopping I realise that I dont really observe anything or take much of the shop in. Primark was really going for it with the Goth trend, using wet look materials and fake leathers. There was also a lot of studs going on in all stores apart from Urban Outfitters and All Saints. I feel that these two stores don't particularly stocks 'trends' they very much have their own look and tend to use basic silhouettes to portray them. Also Peplum tops are really popular within Primark, Miss Selfridges and H&M. The style is really complimentary to any figure and I imagine is a huge seller. Looking around these stores gave me inspiration towards my own project within TD4F as our end result must be a collection. As I want my prints to speak for themselves basic silhouettes such as a peplum top would work really well with the road that I am following at the moment.

Getting Technical

Technical drawings or 'flats' are really important within the fashion and textiles worlds as they show the garment to scale and show the technical details within the garment, something which a fashion illustration would not show. As I had never done this before I found it quit difficult and baffling at first to be honest! But with a bit of time and practice I feel that I have definitely got to grips with the skill and have been practising ever since. Basically we got a simple shirt, laid it out flat and then started to measure every detail of the shirt. We then divided the number by 5 and drew it onto the page. To help us with this we used equipment such as the Flexi Curve and a steel ruler. This took a while to complete so we decided to work in teams to speed the process up. Although when I got home I found it was easier for myself to concentrate when I was alone and had no one looking over my shoulder. I then went on to practice different garments such as a pair of jeans, and some dresses.

We started out by drawing our shirts free hand to see what the difference in quality and precision would be. I feel that between the above and below image there is a certain difference between the two.  

Opposites Attract

We have been put into four different groups within TD4F. Each group has been given different sentences to produce mind storms from and then to proceed with a inspiration board within the studio space that we have. Over the next few days we went into the space and added images and 3D objects to our space. Unfortunately the work that we had produced was not what our tutor wanted or expected from us, we were meant to use mainly 3D objects so that we could draw from them. This lead to us being separated again and given another sentence, this time it was 'Dark and Light'. I found this a lot more inspiring as I looked around the studio I found a lot of pieces to take influence from, beginning to draw these boards then inspired me to come up with a concept.

TD4F

To move forward within the course we have now all been put into 4 different pathways or 'worlds' - Textiles Design for Fashion, Embroidery, Print and Knit & Weave. From my drawings the tutors decided that I would be best suited to TD4F and Print which I was really happy and excited about. Firstly I will be doing 6 weeks of  Textiles Design for Fashion, which although fashion is in the name it is definitely more textiles based, I feel that this will be a perfect pathway for me as it combines two of my passions, I love mixing textiles with fashion as I am not very interior based and I am now excited to begin with the project.