Evaluation...

As this project is the smaller one out of the 2 in this Locating Unit, I did not spend as much time on this project so I feel disappointed with most of what was produced. I think that given more time, my ideas would have developed and been a whole lot better. Given the time scale that I had, I used the first week researching and gathering my thought and ideas on where the research would take me and what I wanted my designs to be inspired by.

                After all of my research the Spring/Summer 2013 trends were broad, a lot of trends were expected to be in fashion that summer. Finding what specifically my designs will be inspired by was a hard choice as there was a lot to choose from. I decided to have 2 themes that were opposites and bring them together, these were: architecture and floral. It was about bring structure from the architecture which are man-made and the floral elements of flowers that are natural. However, narrowing down to these specific themes limited my ideas and what was developed.

                This live project gave me the time to experiment with my drawing. All of the floral elements were drawn from primary photographs of flowers from gardens; the patterns were also created by hand. The patterns were created by layering up different pastel coloured card in different ways and seeing the outcome. The floral elements and patterns were scanned through together creating all of the designs. If I was to do this again, I would experiment with some designs on Photoshop. I did this project before I learnt the basic skills so everything was done by hand, limiting what could be created. I would also create many more patterns and floral elements, the more I had to choose from would of benefitted the design outcomes.

My Final chosen 5 and Trend Board...



My Trend Board that I will be sending off for submission along with the 5 designs above.

Tigerprint:Structured backgrounds with floral overlay...

 

As the linear structure of the architectural design on top of a pastel coloured background works so well, I decided to explore this idea but this time round using my flower drawings. To begin with, I used a floral element off the internet to experiment with on different checker backgrounds that I created using thick pastel card. Because some of these experiments worked well, I decided to try out some more but this time using my flower drawings and onto different structured backgrounds. Below are some of my designs, some have been put into repeat, creating lovely patterns that would be suitable to become gift bags, tags, wrapping paper etc. 

Tigerprint:Architecture design...

 

Going back to architecture, I took a photograph of an area at the Trafford Centre that captured a glass ceiling roof shaped like a palace roof, from the architecture and structure this glass ceiling carries the elements of stripes and checks all in one. I played around with this image by drawing from it, adding colour and the de-constructing it to form other layouts and arrangements. Here are some of the designs I came up with. I like each design but I think they could become something more and are in no way good enough to be considered a design for my final 5 designs.

I then went on to use this design structure to further another idea but bring in more structure and a little bit of the pastels colours that I want to focus on as well. I created a couple of different versions, the final design works especially well with the pastel coloured backgrounds.

Tigerprint:Floral...

 

The floral part of my designs will be inspired by my own primary photographs of flowers  that I will then draw and explore from using a variety of different media’s. I began drawing from my primary photographs and discovered that the flowers drawn using inks and had a linear aspect worked better than some other flower drawings using other media’s. I think the linear ink drawings are the ones that I will focus my design work at.

Tigerprint:Architecture...

 

Firstly, I began looking into the checks and stripes elements but focusing more towards architectural influences. To do this, I gathered together some interesting images and photographs of architectural buildings and spaces that had the themes of checks or stripes running through them. Architecture has always influenced fashion, even if it is just through linear creations. I did some small scale drawings from the images and photographs gathered that I will then use later on in the project to connect together with the floral elements I will now go and explore.

Tigerprint: Making my choices...

 

From all of the trends that I have discovered will be popular in Spring/Summer 2013, I narrowed my list down to what my project will focus on, I have chosen to focus on floral as well as checks and stripes. I chose floral because this element always seems to be a prominent figure in fashion and stripes and checks because I think architecture connects with these themes. I want to bring together natural and man-made and entwine them together to create a surface pattern aimed at females. I have also decided to stick to using a pastel colour palette.

Tigerprint: Research...

 

Out of my 2 chosen live briefs, this Tigerprint project is the shortest. I have a little less than 3 weeks before the deadline hits. I am going to treat this competition with a fast moving approach that focuses and develops from my primary research that I am going to do.

                The Tigerprint competition is asking for at the most 5 ‘show stopping collection of surface print’ that is focused and inspired by my primary research on the 2013 Spring/Summer Trends. They are also asking for a Trend Board that will demonstrate my research and how I got to my final designs. The main point they are trying to get across is that this competition is all aimed towards colour and that should remain the number one focus.

As I know very little about fashion and what people consider fashionable, I began researching straight away using the internet as well as some recommended magazines. After researching through, there are a lot of trends that are in fashion and will be in fashion for 2013 Spring/Summer. From looking through magazines such as Elle and Vogue, the clothes being put into fashion collections for 2013 Spring/Summer are expensive as well as connected; all of the designers have connections with other designers work through the use of similar trends such as checks, stripes, floral, graphic, oriental, pattern and even more themes. There can be so much in fashion at one time that it seems unreal for someone to be considered out of fashion. From my research, the expected trends for Spring/Summer 2013 vary from pattern to oriental pattern, to cropped clothing to baggy clothing, to pastel colours to neon colours and to busy floral to minimalistic. In some ways from what is seen as fashionable at that time can be complete opposites like the examples above.

Evaluation...

This project has been one of the most challenging projects since I have started university. Mainly because the end result had to be a digital print design and digitally I am flawed, so alongside this project I have been attending digital workshops that have been extremely helpful. I came out of every lesson having learnt something new, being able to use Photoshop improved my design work incredibly and my final outcomes were digitally printed and by the end I enjoyed using Photoshop.

                I started off with a live brief and began working by hand creating stitched floral designs inspired by the original Bradford piece. I began creating different combinations of colour and media. I enjoyed working with the needle and thread because it was something very different but the samples were time consuming and by the end result, the samples had no connection, other than that they were all inspired by the Bradford piece.

                I drastically changed the format of the samples and applied a circle format; this allowed me to capture a certain area of the design, an area that grabbed attention when I first saw the original design. I also tried this format out in different media’s and colours.

                After attending my first tutorial and taking on board the comments, I wanted to change the floral elements as well as the leaf elements. I wanted to change these elements and make them more realistic and natural, I started off with the leaves and got my imagery from the gold leaf experiments I did. As the leaves worked so well realistically it determined my idea of applying this to the flowers. I started by drawing from primary images of different flowers but nothing seemed good enough to use.

                After taking a break to work on another live brief project, I came back to this project after 3 weeks with a clear head and new ideas I wanted to try. Having a pair of fresh eyes in the end proved beneficial but at the start it seemed challenging and risky because the change of direction was so drastic. I completely left all of my other design work behind and focused on new elements from the original design, elements that was not the prominent motifs in the original piece. I draw linear drawings of them and applied them digitally to Photoshop to get a feel of certain layout formats.

                As the original drawings were only linear and the digital experiments being simple, I decided to create different combinations and compositions that included more than one of the motifs, I added shading and highlights to give extra detail. I created 10 different compositions which gave me the opportunity to explore digitally. I also made the decision to use the same colour palette as the original Bradford piece as I found it fitting with the natural elements in the design.

I continued to experiment digitally adding backgrounds, more pattern and creating brushes but the new motifs were still small on scale and pattern. I began playing around with rotation and reflection and through these aspects; I created 10 more design patterns. These patterns are my final patterns and they will play a major part in my outcomes. All of these new patterns are made up of the previous motifs.

After creating these new patterns and digitally experimenting with them, I created a number of design outcomes and I chose my favourite one as my final outcome. I chose 2 different outcomes because there were 2 different expectations. I chose one specifically for my tutor as it clearly demonstrates a repeat and the design is beautiful and the other one was chosen because I thought it suited the projects brief better, it also contains a repeat but it is not as clear.

If I was to do this project again, I would have not spent as much time on the hand-stitched samples at the beginning and I would have created more hand prepared backgrounds to then scan through, to create a freer field.

Overall, I have enjoyed this project and I am pleased with my progress, I have loved watching my digital skills grow.  

My A1 board submissions...

My Final Design...

 

I have chosen 2 different designs as my final choices. The first design above is the final design for the overall project as it includes everything that Teresa has asked to see. The 2^nd design below is the design that I am thinking about sending off as my Bradford design. I think the 2^nd design is more fitting because it has more in common with the original design.

More detailed final design developments...

This full design was shaped by creating a smaller repeat using a variety of different brushes that I had previously made using other designs. I had intentionally made this design for a background but it looks just as good placed on its own. All of these layers have a side by side repeat and vary in shades of green. Having an opaque pattern as the background brings out the darker pattern on top. Adding another design on top of this, using a darker green or sticking with black would really portray that pattern. I tried this out and the design below is the outcome.

This half drop repeat below is another one of my favourites and could potentially be my final design. It is a half drop repeat that contains a number of different motif designs layered upon one another. The layers can be differentiated through the colour palette. The design motif in white works exceptionally well against the green solid coloured background, as well as on top of a darker design motif.

I wanted to create at least one subtle pattern that looked delicate and less detailed than all of the others and I think that this design below achieves it. The design is simple and holds no background other that white. The floral detail looks elegant with simplicity. The way that the different designs have been layered makes the design look like a fade out which works fittingly. This layout is very similar to the layout in the original Bradford design; it holds a prominent column in the middle that holds most of the detail and other columns that lead off the page. This is a delicate and simple design that would work especially well on silk curtains or a cheaper option of voile curtains.  

This idea could be my new final design as it looks exquisite.  The detail, the background and the colour palette all suit each other and placed together with different design works wonders.  The background pattern is in a side by side repeat that had a border design running through it. The middle and top layer are also side by side repeats. Sticking to using different shades of green was successful. All of the design motifs were found from the original Bradford design work, I think this design modernises the orignals.

 Experimenting with more compositons...

Final design idea developments...

Starting off on the development of my final ideas was exciting and different because my outcome will be a digital print; I have never done a digital print on Photoshop before. Going to the digital workshops have been exceptionally helpful, I now have skills that I can apply to this project that I would not have had if I did not go. I wanted to start off by experimenting with basic repeats and develop from there. I began repeating some of the new combination motifs and this design above was my first outcome. It is hard to tell from the image but this design did not work out, as the original was a croquet design the stems coming off the floral elements did not match up like I thought they would have. Even if the stems matched up to how I wanted them too, I would have not taken this design any further as the pattern is too busy and too dark especially with the flowers.

This design was a little more complicated as it involved colour that was applied through Photoshop using the gradient overlay. I created the half-drop repeat first and then tested out different backgrounds. I added the green gradient overlay to the background but the opacity made the pattern look faded to I applied the gradient overlay to the pattern itself and this above was the result. As a simple repeated pattern this would work satisfactory but I want something better than it just be satisfactory.

This design above is a simple side by side repeat with a coloured striped background. The minute I saw this finished design, I knew it would work wonders as a wallpaper design. I think I knew this through the striped vertical background. It would work especially well as a singular lined pattern border. I could not see this design on a couch or cushions as I think the design is too straight for that.

This design above is a simple side by side repeat that shows off the motifs clearly. I applied a solid coloured background that does not distract from the pattern. Even though I do like this design, the plain background stood out too much for me so I went on to develop this pattern by adding a second layer of pattern and a lighter coloured background. Being able to create something as detailed as this on Photoshop gave me the confidence to try much more and create more intense patterns, through using brushes, other patterned backgrounds and multiple layers. Applying all these new techniques more interesting designs were made.

This design uses the same techniques as the previous one; the only difference being is that the motif combinations are different. Both layers are in a side by side repeat.

This design below is one of my favourite designs because it is so different to all the others. Creating a side by side repeat using a brush pre-set, allowed me to change the floral colours to a negative white. I also played around with the faintly striped background to create a negative colour setting that matched up with the pattern. Even though this is one of my favourite designs, a couple of people have said that it just looks badly printed, so maybe this is not the best final design idea to choose.

This has to be one of the most detailed patterned designs of mine that has been created so far. Both 2 layers are side by side repeats placed on top of each other, the middle layer pattern has been faded out to add extra detail to the design but not to distract away from the prominent pattern. I also developed the scale of the striped pattern background. Not only do the 3 layers apply together fittingly but the different shades of green also blend together attractively.

Another design that focuses on a side by side repeat. The layers are distinguished through different shades of green, there are 3 different layers that create this pattern. 2 of the layers contained the same pattern just at different scale levels, the bottom layer which is the darkest is a different motif but is still a side by side repeat.

New combination motifs...

As the previous motifs were from the original Bradford design, I wanted to create a number of different combinations that could then be scanned and experimented with on Photoshop. Creating these new motifs allows me to be more creative and allows me to add more than one motif to a design, this could generate a number of final design outcomes. Here are 9 new design combinations that had been developed and inlfuenced by the original motifs of the Bradford design.