Prints

With my prints I didn't want to have any particular motif, more 'patterns'. I also did not want the prints to look like a collection, however I have created some colour ways as the whole point in creating prints for this project was to suggest how the trend could be translated in the trend book. I feel like they do represent 'Conceal/Reveal' and some of the print are quite in your face and some are more subdued. They are all digital prints as I wanted to use my digital skills within this project. If I was to produce these prints myself I would aim them at 20-30 year old women who want to add some colour to their workouts, without having to wear illumines clothing.

 

Front Cover

Currently I am unsure as to have it landscape or portrait, however after experimenting on photoshop I feel that landscape will work better for me as this is how I am used to presenting my work and it allows for a better canvas for the information I plan to display.

 Once I had came up with the idea of 'Foil' I started to play around with fonts, texture and layering. I took a photograph of some tin foil, slightly out of focus with my own Nikkor Lens. I then brought it into photoshop playing with the levels and contrast then inverting the colours to get the blue. The blue really stands out however I don't think its sophisticated enough for a trend book cover and would be more suitable as maybe a fashion magazine cover.

Also I looked at using different fonts, I want something that will stand out on the front cover and make an impact as although other trend books that I have looked at are very simple on the front I want mine to have visual impact from the start. I may play around with using tracing paper in the front cover, allowing that hidden texture underneath with a frosted top.

Concept Page

I have started to develop my Trend Book,(although I still do not have a name for the book or the trend!). I have interpreted the 'Distilled' trend in my own way and incorporated it into the styling of the book. Aesthetically I am pleased with the direction the book is going but I feel that I can push myself further and make it more exciting.

I'm still undecided on whether to make the trend book portrait or landscape, these are a few things I want to discuss with Alex in my tutorial tomorrow. I have written a list of topics I want to cover in the tutorial to fully use the small amount of time that we get to my advantage (hopefully). 

WGSN

WGSN has been a huge inspiration throughout this project. I have been referring to this website whilst trying to figure a layout for my trend book as I really like the aesthetic of site. Whilst looking through the website I spotted one of their predicted upcoming trends 'Distilled' it's about using abstract camouflage which gave me an idea of 'urban camouflage'. So I have started to use my own imagery to create this style. I plan to incorporate this within either my own trends or within the layout of my trend book.

Fabric Samples

My final designs have been taken to digital print. I chose Crepe De Chine as it was light, kept the colour vibrancy but also remained looking expensive and sheer. The outcome of my designs on this fabric is amazing, I love the finish of the design and has made me feel a lot better about this project as a whole. Putting my designs onto fabric has really put my work into context and I could see the prints as an actual fashion fabric, rather than just a 2D design on photoshop. Although I have experimented in the print room with fabrics I feel that using digital print was definitely the best decision for myself and my designs. This has also allowed me to view my work as a collection rather than a group of designs.

Concept/ Context

These are my final boards which represent my brief, showing my concept, the context and the results of my process. I will not present all of these boards in my area on the day of submission as I do not want to over load it. So some of these boards will be simply presented along side my sketchbooks. I am really pleased with the outcome of these boards as I feel they are cohesive and put my concept across well. For my main illustration board I chose my three favourite prints from my collection and really tried to work on the styling of my illustrations.

Final Prints

These are my final designs from this project. I am quite happy with the end result especially when I compare them to my first designs. The colour palette I have used works really well together and I feel has been used evenly throughout the designs. Also looking through my initial drawings and ideas, I feel that these designs are a reflection of my initial ideas and primary research. Using this amount of colour has definitely been a learning curve for me, as I was quite scared to used colour, so this has been quite a risk for me.

Layer Masking

After attending a digital workshop on monday I decided to experiment with my digital skills, as I love using photoshop but feel it is good practise to constantly upgrade your skills. So I started to experiment with Layer Masking. This is due to the fact that I have been trying to add my prints to my illustrations, although I have been successful with this, the final outcome could be a lot cleaner and neater.

The guideline uploaded to moodle suggests using a white garment, however I chose a grey background as it fits in with my colour palette. I also edited the print that I copied into the mask as I followed Alex's advise and toned down the colour palette. This was achieved by adjusting the brightness and contrast panel in photoshop.

I am happy with the result of this and will definitely use this technique in future and to give my work a much more professional finish. Also the 'sheer' effect that Alex suggested has been achieved here too, I will follow this through with the rest of my designs throughout this project.

Developing Designs

After creating my mood boards I began to scan in my current drawings onto my computer. When creating prints I prefer to work digitally so went straight into Photoshop with my drawings. I had also created some backgrounds as I did not want to have just a flat plain background, something I want to highlight within this project is texture within the design.

Firstly I began with making my drawings into brush tools on Photoshop. I also took some of my designs into Illustrator to make them more graphic as some of the pencil lines were quite sketchy which was not the aesthetic that I wanted with those particular designs.

Currently I am just in the experimentation phase of the project. Both of these designs were to see how the colours I had chosen were going to work together and the proportions of these colours. My favourite between the two is the one on the right. It is not perfect, and I have tried to stay away from repeated prints however what I do like about the print is that even though it is a sketch of scaffolding links, it looks like barbed wire where it has been put together and looks rather abstract.

After looking over these two designs and analysing them I have came to the conclusion that I would like to steer towards less repetitive prints with a low opacity within the brush tools. I would also like to explore placement prints.

Digital Printing

After a few digital sessions we had to decide upon one design which we would like to send to the digital printer, I had three specific designs to choose from as some of the other designs which I had created on Photoshop I was not very pleased with. Here is the final design which I decided to send to the digital printer.

I ended up choosing this design as I felt it reflected the mood of the image I had originally chosen as inspiration. It also includes all of the colours from my final colour swatch, shown in earlier posts. At first I really was not happy with the colours that I had chosen as I felt that there was no direction with them, and I am also not used to using so many colours. However, the amount of colours that I have chosen may have hindered me in my digital process' I feel that they have enhanced my screen prints.

Digital Designs

After developing my final colour palette I took my colour concept to my next digital session. Using Photoshop I developed a number of swatches, using every single colour that was in my source image. Although the amount of colour swatches I ended up with was scary it is also exciting because I have a lot of room to experiment and just enjoy using the colours. We also had to develop at least 6 more motifs and scan them into the computer. This was to create our own brushes from them, it was quite quick and easy once Sally had talked us through it initially, it is such a quick way to develop an idea I wish I knew about it much sooner!

Sally has asked us to use our colours in the same ratio as our images, so if there is a large amount of purple in our source image there should be a lot of purple in our digital design. It is very hard to find the balance between this and at first I did not get the grasp of this and have developed designs that I am not proud of but glad that I went through with them so that I could learn from my mistake and talk it through with Sally were I was going wrong.

Final Images for Screen

These are the final 2 A4 pages that I have decided to send to be developed onto screen for printing. To allow these designs to develop I need to photocopy these designs onto acetate, I then need to double up the acetate so that the black is very very black. This makes sure that no light can pass through the image whilst being exposed. The exposing process takes only 3 minutes. Once the screen has been developed I then need to double check the screen for any holes or gaps in the screen and I will also need to mask it off using gum tape.

Screen Printing

In preparation for the print room we have been asked to develop enough motifs to fit onto an A3 section of an A2 screen. The amount of motifs was not a problem, however choosing which motifs to include was. I had that many designs that trying to edit them down was difficult and definitely something that I had trouble with, however I managed in the end. The task then was to decide how thick the lines were going to be, were I wanted to designate the colour and I also wanted to have a variety of digitally produced motifs and hand drawn ones. I much prefer digitally produced motifs as I find them cleaner and more precise, however I am excited to see the outcomes of the hand drawn motifs once developed onto screen.

This image is an example of the different decisions that had to be made during the designing process for the motifs for screen. The black is were the colour will come through on the screen, were as the white will be blocked out. Although it seems a small decision it makes all the difference once the screen is sent to be exposed.