Week 19

Day One

Today I wanted to focus on using the laser cutter, I had never used the laser cutter so was very eager to experiment with the tool. First U went to Berwick street to find some fabric that I could use, I knew what colours I wanted, as there was a clear theme from my research. I looked at many different fabrics a majority of them were out of my budget especially for a sample as they were silks, however I found suitable replacements that were much cheaper. My fabric was satin Acetate, which I acquired in red, blue and orange. Then once at Ravensbourne I started to create the digital files I needed for the laser cutter. These were based on the initial prints I had made last week. Then I took these to the laser cutter. As I had never used it before I had a brief tutorial and realised that it was simpler than I had expected. I cut out four samples, one set was of a repeated coca cola logo pattern that had been cut out and also engraved and I did the same for a repeated random dragon print. They came out very successful although I had not anticipated for how long this task would take, this was due to my designs being complex in their detail which I learnt was not needed as I reduced the scale of them when I cut them.

Day Two

With the laser cutting samples finished and the deadline tomorrow I began to do some final developed designs that would enable me to progress onto my final designs. For my quick developed designs I focused solely on shape, as I would introduce my samples, prints and fabrics in later. My developed designs allowed me start designing my final line up. So towards the end of the day I had designed my finals, I scanned them in so I could edit them digitally however I started having problems with cutting the shapes on Photoshop, I ended up loosing a lot of time on this. Assessing my problem I decided I would draw them out again but in a thicker black pen as this should allow me to cut around them more successfully on Photoshop. This solution did work for me so before the day ended I was able to edit a majority of my designs, ready to be finished in the morning before my critique.

Day Three

This morning I finished off my line up and added in my colours and fabrications as well as my prints. I had decided to develop my prints when applying them onto my line up as my line up would give me a better idea of which prints would work best. Once again I had difficulty with the colours of my line up as they printed out different colours. The critique went reasonably well, I liked my final line up but looking at all of my work over the three weeks it did not work together well and appeared to jump from one idea to another. I feel that this sums up this project well, as although I didn’t have any blocks I had a lot of ideas that I wanted to carry out, which I di. However these ideas weren’t accomplished to the full which resulted with them being left unfinished.

Week 18

Day One

After exploring the fan shape last week, I wanted to carry on this way of working, as I believed it was working for me. I looked into my trip research and started doing the same exercise I did with the fan shape, however this time I used the shape of two Chinese bottles and also the coke bottle from and Andy Warhol piece in order to combine the two cultures together. So I created hand drawn and digital designs as well as collaging to develop these shapes. I collected a range of interesting structural shapes, which I really liked. Once exhausting the bottle shape I began to take interest in traditional Chinese dress. I chose to focus on the shape of the seams used, so I took the seam shape and placed it on the stand in a multiple of ways. Experimenting to see how it could feature on the body. I then developed off of my stand work and developed straight off of the traditional dress looking at ways I could reinvent it.

Day Two

Recalling my previous research and design developments I chose 4 of my favourite and began to design off of them in order for the shape to be developed to its furthest, I did a series of very quick designs, which I then focused on into developed designs. I did this for the whole day I believe that I worked well but possibly could have worked more efficiently by being faster and thinking less about what I was doing and just focused more on the shape.

Day Three

Yesterday I developed designs thoroughly, so today I wanted to look into the possibility of creating a print or using the laser cutter. For this I fixated on Chinese and postmodern iconography. I looked at the Coca cola bottle and logo, taken from pop art and the Chinese dragon, which I had noticed, had been featured on many Chinese artifacts from my trip research. I mixed the two together, combing the two cultures in a postmodern way. I did this through drawings which I developed into digital files as this allowed me to experiment in a more efficient way. I developed some ideas for initial prints and also possible laser cutting samples.

Week 17

Day One

Today was the beginning of the cultures project, therefore I started thinking about what two cultures I would base my project one. At first I chose imperial China and the Renaissance era. I used the libraries resources, finding many useful research points. Although once I had looked further into both cultures I felt that renaissance had many similarities to imperial china and as I wanted to combine two conflicting cultures I changed from the renaissance era to focusing on a postmodern culture. I chose postmodernism as I had already quite a lot of knowledge on it and I liked how it could be a playful and funny element to collection. For postmodern culture I looked into pop art, primarily focusing on Andy Warhol. I created a concept board after looking through all of my research.

Day Two

Today I wanted to start making developments off of my concept board. I looked into traditional imperial Chinese fans, I looked at their different shapes. This progressed into working on the stand by taking the fan shape I did this for a while collecting different examples. Although once I finished this I felt that it did not make any substantial development to my work, as I did not know how to progress from this, so I decided to look at the fan shape in a different way. I used the fan shape to create four different looks digitally. I felt that this exercise worked better for me as I then used the fan shape for some collages. I thought that these collages were very interesting as the shape was not confined to the body and was more experimental, and it also linked into postmodernism as it was similar to the Jean Paul Goude photography that I featured in my concept board. This lead me onto producing some quick designs that explored the fan shape.

Day Three

Today I went to the British Museum, as I wanted to gather more research on imperial China. I found a very detailed exhibit that had many different artifacts in it. I noticed how a engraved ivory or jade was a common decoration featured heavily. I thought this made for an interesting aesthetic and it made me think that I could recreate something similar using the laser cutters. I carried on around the exhibit looking at Chinese bottles and vases. I gathered all of my research together and sorted through the most interesting pieces I found in order to use in my work.

Week 16

Day One

I started today by looking at my research from day one, I was looking for the types of seams that are featured on sportswear garments. Once I found 3 seams I copied the shape and cut this out on paper I then began to arrange the seam shape on the stand, this helped me experiment by looking at the shapes of seams and where they can be placed on the body. Once I did this several times coming up with different results. I looked at the circular shape of the velodrome cut this out in many different sizes and did the same thing. I found this exercise really effective as it allowed me to look at shape in a different way. I believe that the velodrome shapes were not as successful as the seam shapes as they were not as interesting, so in order to develop from this I manipulated the shape on the stand, and I believe the results to be more successful. As I was going along I made sure to take pictures, then I sorted through my images selecting 8 of my favourite. With these 8 images I then began to develop designs off of them. I did a small series of quick designs that explored the shapes, I found this exercise very beneficial as it allowed my designing to be pushed further and more developed.

 

Day Two

As I had briefly focused on the velodrome I began to look more into this shape and how I could use this on the body. For this I cut out the shape several times and used it to collage off of. I also made some digital collages that used the shape. This development of shape showed me how I could take one simple shape and use in many different ways to create different designs. I later focused on developing my collages through hand drawn rough sketches. This enabled me to clearly see how my final line up may look after development. Once drawing my quick designs I added colour, yet regret the way I chose to add this colour as I believe it weakens the presentation, however I now know for next time to avoid what I did and apply colour in a simpler better looking way.

 

Day Three

After looking back at all of my research and developments I began to design towards my final line up. First I drew out some rough ideas of what my final line up may consist of, always bearing in mind the velodrome shape, and my chosen colours and fabrics. Once I did this I drew out my final 6 looks. I was able to do this efficiently as it did not take too much time. I scanned them in as I prefer to edit them in Photoshop, I feel that by doing this my presentation is much clearer and I also wanted to add prints and the fabric to the designs. This took a lot longer than what I had planned for, so when it came to presenting my work in the group critique my line up was finished however lacked on presentation and also the colours once printed came out different colours. So after the critique I changed the colours which did not take long and then I also adjusted the patterns and the sections where I had added the fabric, this then made the line up look a lot better all together.

 

Overall I really enjoyed this project from my initial concept and how I developed my ideas, I felt that this was the first time that I worked consistently as I didn’t have an issues or hit any blocks along the way. Things that I wish went better would be the way I designed because I feel that I could have exhausted the velodrome idea such as designing separate pieces, where as I feel that I was a bit safe in terms of designing for this project. But looking back I feel that this was quite a strong project for me as I began to design in different processes before which I would like to carry on throughout my next projects.

Week 15

Day One

Today was the first day of the sportswear project. Today I just spent the day gathering primary research this consisted of visiting shops such as lilywhites, Selfridges, Debenhams and Nike. The purpose of this was to gather up many different images that illustrated aspects of sportswear. I discovered the different types of garments for different sports, as well as spotting similar aspects that the garments feature such as fastenings and fabrics. This helped me decide what sport I wanted to focus on throughout the project, after reflecting on my initial research I settled on cycling to be my focus point.

 

Day Two

By choosing cycling to be my main focus point I wanted to create a concept board. For this I went to the library to find relevant resources, initially this task was supposed to be quick and straightforward, however it ended up being longer than I had anticipated as I could not find a substantial amount of relevant research. Therefore after gathering about five images, I started looking at web-based resources, by researching into the 2012 Olympic games and looking at the velodrome cycling and cyclists. I focused on what the athletes wore and was interested in how their apparel makes them streamline. I found 4 images that represented this idea and used this as the starting point to my project. I developed from my concept board my taking each image and representing the aerodynamics streamline idea by painting over them, that would represent the movement of the air over the athlete.  

 

Day Three

Today I gathered the research I conducted on the first day, I looked through this selected the best images, once I had done this I printed it out twice one for my sketchbook another so I could use it to collage from. I created four collages that used the different fabrics, colours and showed off the seams and stitches. This helped me to identify the colours and fabrics I could use for my finals line up. The colours I chose were neon yellow, neon pink and a royal blue. I wanted these colours to come in a neoprene and a sports mesh fabric. I chose these fabrics and colours because they featured heavily in my research and I felt that they related to the sports theme well, as they are traditional sports fabrics and colours. So for the rest of the day I decided to go to Berwick Street to find suitable fabrics. I found the fabrics relatively easy, and by doing this research trip into the fabrics and colours it enabled me to see that there was a huge range of fabrics and colours that I could use. However I decided to stick with my chosen fabrics and colours.

Week 14

Day One

After collating images of my developed stand work I began to design of them, my designs were quick only to experiment with the different ways I could reinvent a garment. After this I started to work towards making a final garment, I decided on using a pair of trousers and making this into a top. I began by placing the garment on the stand upside down and I then cut into the crotch seam to act as the top of the garment so the trouser legs were now the sleeves. I liked how this looked however I thought it wasn’t very creative and lacked in developments form the original garment. So in order to develop the garment further I looked into different ways I could alter its shape, in the end I decided upon having short sleeves. Once the garments alterations were pinned into place I started to think about creating some trousers. For this garment I liked the idea of layering and using the garments inside out so the seams and interfacings were showing. I played around with different ways of showing this in an interesting way. This lead me to the idea of having many different trouser waistbands layered on top of each other.  To create this I got four pairs of trousers and cut them along their waistband seam then I layered one on top of each other. This turn out to be more complex than I had anticipated because trying to match the waistbands up was not quick to do as I had to ensure that the sizing was correct. But after I did this they fitted correctly.  However to make this trouser garment I did not cut the forth garment as in order to leave the trouser legs still on. This meant that the garment had a larger waistband that consisted of 4 waistbands and then a straight trouser leg. Again I liked how this looked but felt it could be pushed further, so after developing different ways it could look I altered the trouser leg by aging in a large dart in order to make the leg a skinny fit. This worked well and gave the effect I wanted. But I still wanted to add something to the trousers, so by gathering the left over fabric from the other trousers I cute out their trouser leg seams, which had both edges overclocked, I liked how this looked and decided to use it as a decoration. By referring back to my collages I incorporated the foil effect onto the seams adding the rose gold foil. I then decided to place these separate seams onto the front of the trouser leg, however after realizing the problems this could cause me such as sewing the seams onto the leg would not be possible I rethought this. I still wanted to add the foil effect and liked the aesthetic of the seams but understood that this was not possible.  

 

Day Two

After considering my issue concerning the trouser leg I had found a solution. Instead of adding the seam onto the trouser leg I added it onto the shoulder of the top garment. Then as I wanted the two garments to relate to one another I added the foil effect straight onto the trouser leg fabric. This solved my problem and allowed my garments to be more cohesive. Yet I still wanted to make a jacket to complete the outfit. For this as I was looking at the insides of the garments highlighting the seams, fastenings and linings, I took the blazer jacket turned it inside out whilst placing it on the stand then I put it on back to front. I thought this made an interesting look, by having the high collar at the front. I then began to alter it, first I cut the sleeves off. This left me toying with what to do with the sleeves I tried different things like placing the sleeves on the back or having them pinned to the back but wrapping round the front. I felt that by reattaching them to the back and having them come round the front made the garment more interesting in terms of texture and visually. Additionally to again reference my collaging I wanted to stitched into the sleeves so the stitching was visible. When I sewed this garment together it was fairly straightforward however my needle did brake due to the thickness of the fabric in some places, but I ended up with a successful final outcome. The constructing of the other garments were also straightforward as I did not face any issues. But by taking the sleeves off of the jacket it left the internal wadding and padding hanging out so I pulled this out further so it stuck out, the raw aesthetic was interesting and I felt it worked with the idea of showing off the elements that make a garment.

 

Day Three

After creating and finishing all my garments I wanted to produce a photo shoot showcasing the garments. For this I asked my friend to model for me, I styled her in a simple way, as I wanted her hair and make up to simple and natural, I only added a dark eye shadow. In terms of location I wanted to have an industrial feel to it, so I walked down the riverbank along the river Thames and came across a Boat club that had high metal fencing and metal chains in the area, I felt that this would be to right location for the shoot. The shoot took about 40 minutes all together. Once I had uploaded my photos onto my laptop I could have a better look at them, I believe that the location was a good choice however many of them did not portray the garments very well in terms of the garments colours and the locations colours. However to solve this I chose the five best from the shoot and edited them in Photoshop. In Photoshop I altered the colours by making the background darker but the colour of the garments richer. I also added a purple hue to the photo in order to make the photos feel more industrial.  

 

Overall looking at this project I like my final outcome but believe that I could have worked faster. Also I feel that for this project I didn’t do enough work in my sketchbook in terms of illustrating designs as most of my work was done on the stand. I think I will bare this in mind for my next project so I can achieve an even mix of work in and out of my sketchbook.

Week 13

Day One

Today was the first day back after Winter break and the beginning of the deconstruct reconstruct project. To begin this project I had prepared by going to charity shops to gather a variety of different garments, this include eveningwear, outerwear, work wear and knitwear. I started off by placing the garments of the stand and experimenting with how they can be worn in different ways. I felt that this exercise went well for me as it gave me a better understanding of how the garments can be worn differently. I proceeded to look at the construction of the garments such as the type of seams and how the fabric was used. I photocopied close ups of the garments, which I used to collage with. When collaging I tried to use a variety shapes, which I later developed by adding a foil effect and stitching into. I enjoyed collaging because it enabled me to look into how different fabrics can be used together. However I found this activity took longer than I would’ve liked as I was spending too much time deciding the shape.

 

Day Two

I started today by looking at my completed collages, I began to develop these taking inspiration from the shape, this then lead to me doing a small selection of quick designs that took similar shape and techniques from the collages. After this I looked back at the garments and began to take them apart in order to understand the ways they were made, by looking at their fastenings, seams and interfacings or linings. I pinned the pattern pieces to the stand and manipulated the fabric so the shape was different from its original. I didn’t find this to be that affected as the shapes were not very interesting, therefore I decided to take the garments and take off some aspects such as sleeves or collars and then placing them on different parts of the body such as making a pair of trousers a jacket by using the trouser legs as sleeves. I found this technique more effective as my results were much more interesting.

 

Day Three

Throughout the morning I carried on with using the modified garments in different ways. For some I took particular aspects from one garment and then mixed it with another garment. Or even take apart a garment and then pining it back together in a different way to create a different garment, I carried on developing these throughout the day. I liked the results I was getting however felt that I could push these ideas further. I could develop them further by incorporating different fabrics or referring back to my collages, I could include the foil technique or even the repeated stitching.

12 days of Christmas

Day Twelve

Day Eleven

Day Ten

Day Nine

Day Eight

Day Seven

Day Six

Day Five

Day Four

Day Three

Day Two

Day One

Week 12

Day one

Over the weekend I had carried on with researching into my words and presenting them in different ways in order to represent my ideas. I carried on with this during the day. I looked more in depth into the mismatch idea, so as well as using the anges I looked at nuns. I felt by researching into nuns it represented mismatch as itnuns are a juxtaposition to prostitutes and I had learnt from my research that Jack the Ripper's victims were all prostitutes. So I used the resources in the library found some interesting images, some which focussed on corsets and that portrayed 19th century prostitutes, as this was the era Jack the Ripper was from. I like the route that I have taken for this project however today started off very slowly and I think that I struggled with getting ideas as I knew what I wanted to look at but just didn't know where to start.

Day Two

Today I found better than yesterday as I struggled less and I work through my difficulties just by planning out what I wanted to look at and how to present my ideas. In the morning I worked on my mismatch idea between nuns and prostitutes, and then for the rest of the day I was using the heat press to make samples. For these samples I was heat pressing red foil onto black satin, I really liked this technique because I think it tied in nicely with my overall them by using the black to represent hiding and conceal and then the red reminded me of blood so made it look quite violent and represented Jack the Ripper. I kept on using this technique in different ways, sometimes pressing the foil onto lace and then pealing it off to create and interesting texture. I really liked the samples I came up with and I plan on using them in my final designs.

 


After this I carried onto to develop the nun idea which then lead me to start designing. I did some quick designs first which I then developed into sixteen initial ideas, I liked my sixteen ideas I thought that I had a variety which I was ready to develop further.

Day Three

So today was the final day of the 3 words project, which ended with us presenting our work for a group critique. However before this I was finishing off my designs and with the samples I created the day before I added them on Photoshop to four of my designs. Although leading up to the critique it became apparent that I would not have enough time to finish off all sixteen designs. I was disappointed with this as I wanted to finish them off and then develop them into finals.

When going into the critique I was disappointed and was reluctant to show my work because I felt that my ideas and development were represented poorly. The group critique was interesting though as I enjoyed looking at other peoples work and seeing how they had represented their ideas and interpreted them. When I showed my work I felt that the feedback I got was mostly helpful, so when the critique had ended I was motivated to improve my work substantially as I felt that I could improve it greatly and make it a lot better.

Day Four

As the project ended yesterday I still wanted to improve my work. I feel that today I have been able to do this as I have taken another look at my sketchbook, I have rearranged and taken pieces out as well as developing my ideas even further and also improving my designs so they were less literal and represented my theme more clearly. I believe that I have done this as I am now happy with the work that I have produced.

Overall looking at this project I am pleased with the final outcome however looking at how I got to this stage I think I could improve greatly, as I found myself stuck at the beginning of the week I could have avoided this and managed my time a lot better which would have let me meet the deadline with work that was successful and of a high quality as my work had been of a low quality.

Week 11

Day One

Today was the beginning of our two week individual project. The project that I had opted for was the three words project, I was looking forward to starting this as it seemed really interesting. Today consisted of attending two exhibitions the first was the 'Only In England' this included photographs from Tony Ray-Jones and Martin Parr. I really enjoyed looking at these photographs as I felt that they had a clear and strong sense of occasion and celebration as each photograph was interesting to look at as I felt that it represented a story. The second exhibition was of Sarah Lucas's work. This collection of work was very different to the previous exhibition. I found Lucas's work interesting as I felt that it tried to objectify men as well as women, in a variety of different medias and methods.

I found today interesting although I think that if I spent a bit more time looking at the exhibitions I would have been able to deduct a stronger meaning from the pieces.

Day Two

I started off today by choosing my three words, I found this very difficult as I kept changing my mind. I kept switching from using Tim Walker or Jack the Ripper, in the end I decided to base my project around Jack the Ripper as I felt that I could look into many different aspects, I also found the story very interesting which I wanted to overall portray into my designing. My other two words were conceal and mismatch.

The first thing I did after selecting my three words was to create a mind map, this allowed me to discover ideas that related to my three words. Once completing this I had I began to create my concept board, I struggled with this a lot as we were not able to use the internet so I used the resources iin the librabry however found that there was a lack of resources that related to the subject I wanted to explore. I gathered a variety of images some from books and then others from television programmes and films, I looked at 'Ripper Street' and 'Plunkett and MacLean'. I also read up on stories of Dick Turpin the highway man. I wanted to research into the highwayman route as although different to Jack the Ripper I felt there were some similar attributes, such as they were both criminals from the same era, I also noticed the way that highwaymen hid themselves with capes, hats and masks and I found this interesting as it related to my second word, Conceal.

AS i had collected imagery for my Jack the Ripper and Conceal words I needed to find images that represented mismatch. This lead me to looking into angels as the opposite to Jack the Ripper and Criminals would be angels. I found a book that included many different images of angels which I used in my concept board along with my other images.

Day Three

Today consisted of completing two workshops the first was working on the stand. I really enjoyed this as I was able to represent my three words through fabrics and shaping them on the body. I felt that I came up with some interesting ideas that I will develop further. Although some things that I would have liked to have done better would to have worked less around the neck area and focus on other areas of the stand and also to have focussed on manipulating the fabric a bit more to come of with a variety of different shapes and techniques.

The second part of the day was drawing our three words. This included a series of different exercises. At the beginning I struggled quite a lot in trying to represent my words through drawing, however once I had started to think less and focus on what those words made me feel I was able to represent my words in different ways with different medias. However I think that with the drawings I created I would've liked to use them in my research and development but I feel that they are not strong enough to use, therefore if I did it again I'd like to think more of the emotions these words presented rather than the literal meaning of them.

Week 10

Day One

Today I started creating my prints as I had scanned in my drawings, however before I could start designing them we had another group meeting to see the groups progress over the weekend. Everybody appeared to be on track for our group presentation later this week. However I had heard that the colour scheme had been changed, our original one was supposed to be Grey, black, Red and Lavender. This had been changed to Black, Red, Lavender, Pink and Light Blue. In our group meeting I bought this up as an issues because I believed that the additional pink and blue would make our collections appear to be more spring summer, as well as this these colours did not go without theme. After pointing this out to the group we changed back to our original colour scheme, Luckily this did not affect anyone's work dramatically and we were able to move on with our work successfully.

After that I carried on with creating my prints whilst checking in with the group so we could discuss the prints that would work best with the designers creations.

 

Day Two

As I had created some prints yesterday I started to edit them and add them to the designers eight designs. I found this to be time consuming although worth it as I was deciding which points work best as well as the scale of them and where they should be placed on the body. This meant a lot of trial and era coming up with the right prints for the garments as well as showing the designers which prints I thought would look best with their designs.

Towards the end of the day I had placed my prints onto 16 designs, I was pleased with how most of them looked however with trying to meet the demands of the designers it was difficult as the prints I created did not always go with the designs. This meant changing them and rearranging them in order to make the designs look as a collection.

Day Three

Today was the last day of our group project which meant that we were to present our work to the tutors and the group. After watching the other groups I felt that my group could've worked better together as towards the end of the project tension started to build up and it was difficult to present our work successfully.

After looking at the past two weeks if I were to do it again I think that I would put myself forward to have been a leader, as this is what our group lacked. We needed a leader that would've made quick and decisive decisions, which would've helped to push our ideas forward as although I was pleased with my prints I felt that due to a lack of clear direction from myself and the group everyone's individual work did not work fluidly with each others.

Week 9

Day One

Today was the first day of the two week project. The brief was to create an A/W collection for next February. My group was given the task of designing for the Comme Des Garcons label. In this each memeber was given a seperate task that they needed to complete. The group consisted of; three designers, two print designers, two accessory designers and two promotion. My task was to design the prints for the three collection alongside another member.

So on the first day of our group project we started off by having a group discussion deciding on which direction we would like to take the project in. Previous to this we had been given two quotes, we selected the second one which was: 'All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.'.

Firstly the designers split this quote up into three and decided they would use that as a starting point of development, I however used the whole quote as a reference as I believed that my prints would be able to connect the three different collections together. So as my independent initial research I looked into the meaning of the quote discovered that its meaning was about communism and used that as a starting point. I that that this would be an interesting starting point for the project as I would be able to create bold prints that would represent the meaning.

Day Two

Today started with the group having a meeting in the morning discussing the areas that we would be researching. I started looking into communist iconography and I started to create some initial prints. For this I used an image of some dead flowers with drips falling from them, I placed this onto a garment in Photoshop to see what it would look like. I felt that the print was interesting however lacked as the colours were clashing and were not the colours from the groups chosen colour scheme. Although overall looking at them I felt that they were an interesting starting point as they  had inspired me and pushed me to come up with some more interesting ideas.

 

Later this evening as some of the images on our concept board were of dripping ink and images that representing melting and floating, I started dipping the nib of a paint brush into black in and then into water, this allowed me to see how the ink floated delicately in the water whilst mixing into the water, I took images and a video as I thought this would inspire me.

Day Three

After creating three prints yesterday that I found unsatisfactory I researched more into the groups designer, I looked at previous collections, noticing their use of print and colour. I found that they used a lot of large bold prints as well as prints overlapping each other. I wanted to create some prints that I thought would be similar to this Comme Des Garcons style but also included my individual style.

I looked at my communist research and took some popular shapes and symbols and see how I could represent them differently. For this I drew out the Hammer and Sickle as I knew this was a popular symbol that represented communism. I also used the dripping of ink affect as this related to my previous researche and the quote, I used the inky effect in my communist drawings and I also included it in the drawings of dying flowers because this related to the quote as well as to the fact that the collections were for A/W. These drawings were a good starting point for me as I was able to develop them over my SDS days, ready for when I returned back to the group.

 

Week 8

This week and over the weekend in preparation for the assessment on Thursday I needed to finish off my sketchbook, create my garment and do a photo shoot. So over the weekend I finished off my concept board, I then started designing, I came up with 5 designs that I felt represented my four key words. I then edited them in different ways on Photoshop, to see the variety of colours and styles I could have them in, I did this until I decided on my favourite one. So ready for Monday I began to finalise my final design so I could start creating the prototype. I made the prototype fairly easily as I just used the fitted dress block pattern which I did not need to adjust very much, only to lengthen the skirt in order for it to be below the knee. Also I did not need to create a prototype for my body piece as it was to be constructed in a similar way to my accessory. After this I then spent the next couple of days creating my garment. I chose to make the dress out of a silk organza because I looked at other fabrics and found that they did not have the same texture and aesthetic I wanted to create. The organza was coloured cream but as I wanted to make a dusty pink colour I soaked in wine, I did this after speaking to my tutor as she told me about the use of soaking the fabric in wine or herbal tea. I tried both techniques but found the wine worked better as the colour was stronger. SO when I had sewn the dress together I soaked it in wine for about 5 minutes then hung it up and let it to dry. I found the colour came out really well and it looked like my final design. I then started creating the body piece I found this to be the most time consuming part to the garment only because I needed to cut out 80 shapes and then fold them. For this I made my print which was similar to the print I used in accessory week which was taken from my photo shoot in week one, however I changed it by taking out the blue parts of it and having less green, as I wanted the main colour to be pink. First I printed this onto 3 A1 acetate sheets, but after cutting out the shapes and Realising that each sheet would give me around 12 shapes, I went and printed a further 3 sheets and found that I had enough for my garment. I ended up cutting out around 80 shapes all the same size apart from four which were smaller. After having all of the shapes I folded them into the right shape, stapling them to keep in place and then I started layering them up and attaching them together with staples as this was the most efficient method.

After finishing the body piece and having the dress soaked and dried I was ready for my photo shoot on Wednesday morning. I did the shoot at Ravensbourne as I just used a plain white background, I chose to keep the setting simple as the dress had different layers and textures in it. After doing my photo shoot which was straight forward to do, I started editing them. The editing phase lead down a way I didn't expect my photos to come out like as similar to my garment I added different layers on top of the photos, such as I overlaid a black and white layer and then a layer which was of the pattern I used for the body piece. I changed the opacity and colour burned the layers so the photos were visible but had a pink hue to them. I liked this effect as I felt it portrayed the theme of the project and gave them an interesting mood. However after this photo shoot I still had some ideas that I wanted to explore so I had organised to do another one on Friday morning, which although was after my assessment I may still use as they show the garment in a different way. However on Thursday in time for the assessment in the afternoon all of my work was complete, all I did was print off my photo shoot images, first onto glossy paper and then onto acetate to see what they came out like. I liked both copies even though they showed the photos in a different way.

In the afternoon I felt that the critiques went well and I got positive comments, however felt like I would've liked more constructive comments in order to allow me to prepare my work to the highest level for the final assessment, which I will prepare for next week.

Overall looking at the past couple of weeks I feel that I could have planned my time and used it more efficiently, as although I finished all of my work I would've liked it to be in a better quality for the assessment.

Week 7

This week I focussed on developing my work so I could start working towards my final product of the project in order to meet the deadline next week. The week started off quite slow for me because I felt stuck with the direction I wanted to take the project in, but after looking through my sketchbook, my ideas became clearer. But with my sketchbook I had quite a bit of work missing so throughout the week I worked to finishing off my work from the previous weeks whilst playing with ideas of what I wanted to create. When looking at my book I looked at my mood board and I went to one of the first pages which was a spider diagram that featured key words related to me that I had branched off of, I chose four words that related to me which were: Ruined, Trapped, Soft and Feminine. I then Created some fabric samples that I felt represented these emotions. I used different fabrics like silks, organza, PVC and cling film. Also after looking artists like Karla Black and Kyle Thompson and to reference my photo shoot in week one I smeared chalk onto the fabrics to see what affects I would get. After this I definitely knew that I want to use chalk in my final garment and I had decided upon a colour scheme which was to be pink because throughout the development of the whole project the two colours I have focussed on the most are dusty pink and a pale green and I felt that the dusty pink related to the feminine and soft aspect of my project.

Then after my sketchbook was up to date on the previous weeks work I started developing the work I had done, this included exploring my chosen words in more depth and trying to exaggerate the emotions. This then helped me to create a concept board that explored these ideas and summarised them.

Also this week, my group spent the day learning about creating a fashion film, I found this day to be interesting especially learning about how and why fashion films are created, we were also shown a few examples and then we needed to create our own concept and show this on a story board. I had made storyboards in the past and shot a music video which I found helped with this task, however the storyboards I had created were different to the one my group needed to make. I enjoyed making the storyboard and trying to show the concept through a series of stills.

Week 6

This week was my accessories week, I enjoyed this week more than I had anticipated as I found it really interesting as I was working with different shapes and where I could place them on the body.

 

The week started by me brining in an object that has meaning to me, this object was a bracelet. I wanted to present this object in different ways so I photocopied it, then changed the scale and colours and repeated it, I then looked at the bracelet in more detail so I focussed on one particular element which was a shell. I then reproduced this shape and made it 3-D, however because it was quite a boring shape I changed the scale of it enlarging it and shrinking it then overlapping these shapes onto one large image of it, which resulted in me having one 2-D large shape that was very different from my original shape, but as it was 2-D and I needed it to be a 3-D shape I folded it in different ways, so that this final shape was interesting to look at as it has different layers and each edge is different creating an interesting aesthetic.

Then to develop this I created smaller versions of my shape and then placed them onto to images of models that I found in some magazines. This helped me to see what my accessory might look like when worn on the body. When I did this I found myself placing the shapes mainly on the head and shoulders to work more as a body piece which I think I preferred doing, other than designing accessories like shoes, jewellery or handbags. But after creating four small designs I then developed these further into more designs which either had the shapes in different places or took a section of the shape and presented it in a different way. These designs then allowed me to progress into creating my final design and to actually make it. I made the body piece out of acetate as this a strong material and is also transparent , as my design used a see through material, I was also able to print onto the acetate, so I made a print which was taken from my photo shoot in order to link the project together by using the same colours and to create another interesting aspect.
 

I believe the final product to successful as I am pleased by it and I feel that the use of the acetate works well especially the parts with the print as they add another layer to it and make it look textured as well. Overall I learnt form this week that although I had never really thought that I would want to go into accessories I have found that I really enjoyed working this way, as I feel that nothing went wrong as I was working effectively and efficiently as I did not run out of time and was able to perfect the accessory, also after this week and having a presentation from my tutor I think that it is a possible pathway for me to explore further.

 

Week 5

This week consisted of learning to knit on machines instead of hand knitting, I had never used a machine to knit before and was looking forward to it. When we got started and were shown the different techniques that we could create I found that I picked it up fairly easily and was able to make quick but effective samples such as the honeycomb, polka dot and also how to hem the sample. I enjoyed using the machines although there were many elements to remember such as when casting on and making sure that all of the needles are threaded up, because if they weren't this resulted in having hole in the samples, fortunately this did not happen often   and I was able to avoid these issues. I think the sample I struggled on the most was probably the polka dot sample as I did this a couple of times and each time either the thread was loose or the sample had laddered. I think this was because I kept on forgetting to do particular things on the machine such as change the settings into hold, but then after realising my mistakes and checking with my tutor I was able to create a sample that had no issues.

I really liked the variety of samples that I created as they are all different and showcase different shapes and textures such as the bubble or pyramid shape as well as the tucking. As I liked the use of the tucking I wanted to start incorporating my own fabric into it which was not knit, I used quite thin fabrics as these would work best with the machine so I used long strips of chiffon and organza's, I feel that they created an interesting outcome as I didn't just use wool. I then moved on to using a stronger thicker fabric which was PVC, I really like the effect of this because I think that it is quite unusual and I believe that the mix of the soft wool and the hard PVC create an interesting aesthetic.  

 

I think that maybe if I was a bit slower on the machines such as checking I have the correct settings some of my samples would have come out better and would not have any loops in them, but the majority came out as I wanted them to, which I think is why I enjoyed the knit week as I was able to understand the machine and create samples that I liked, whereas before I did not believe that I would enjoy this week as much as I did, but I found that I really enjoyed working with the different textures and shapes that I could create easily.

Week 4

Throughout this week the focus was print, which was to be inspired by our family history. I wanted to look back at my family history focusing more on my grandparents and how my family developed from there. After looking into my history more I found that we have a family crest. I really liked the look of it as it has many interesting shapes such as the floral aspects and the helmet with feathers.

I then focussed on these aspects wanting to incorporate them into my print designs. First using the skills I had developed at the beginning of the week I used the magnetic lasso tool on Photoshop to cut out the helmet part of my crest. After doing this I improved the image by changing some of the effects such as the colour of the image to a darker colour so it was clearer. I then incorporated the helmet into a half drop repeat pattern which was more complicated to create however looks better than having my shape appear in straight lines, by having it as a half drop repeat pattern it will having the shape running diagonally instead. I wanted to create the half drop pattern because I felt that once I had placed the print onto a model it was more interesting to look at and looked better.

I then created several more patterns some featuring the feather aspect as a repeat half drop pattern, which I then layered across other patterns and changed the opacity and colour burns and saturations to create several different patterns that featured the same layers. I also incorporated some of the filter tools into my designs learning that they could change the patterns, by blurring, twisting and pixelating them, I found the twirl tool to be my preferred one which I used on different prints as although they still included the inspiration of my family history it was not obvious and generally made some unusual and exciting prints.

After playing around with the layers and settings I started looking into a different way of creating a pattern, so instead of repeating the same shape I created a cluster of the same shape, this repeated the same shape which in this case was a feather, I then layered multiple feathers of different sizes and at different angels on top of each other which flowed into a gradient of fewer smaller feathers. I liked this pattern the most because it was the most unusual and pleasing to the eye due to the overall shape the layers created and the raw visible lines, which I feel created quite an organic print as it was not too computerised and looked more natural as the lines and shapes were not perfectly accurate.

I think that if I were to do this week again I would manage my time better, as although I was able to create 20 different prints I felt that my presentation was weak due to the quality of my prints, because I had ran out of time to print on higher quality paper. Also I would have lightened my images as they appeared very dark when printed which meant that the effect of the print was lost as it was difficult to make out the print because of the use of dark colours.

Week 3

This week we focussed on designing, where we had to finish the week with a capsule collection of five looks, but before designing the collection I started by looking at shapes, for this I picked one shape that related to me so this was my birth sign which is Virgo and is a similar shape to an 'M' I chose this shape as it has lots of curves in it so after cutting out 20 A4 size symbols I took them to a manikin, but before I started arranging them on a manikin I worked with 4 other peoples shapes, I enjoyed doing this as I was able to work with a variety of shapes in different ways, and whilst I did this 4 other people worked with my shapes, this helped as it showed me many different ways I could work with the same shape. I then started to work with my own shapes on the manikin, I created 6 different looks through a variety of ways by manipulating the shapes or the way I placed them on the manikin such as layering, placing them sideways, upside down or even changing the shape by folding. I really enjoyed doing this as I hadn't worked in this way before but it allowed me to explore a different way of designing as after this I chose 2 of my favourite looks and created 3 designs inspired by them.

Then I looked at my designs and picked one recurring shape which was a scallop shape then I used this shape as the focus for a series of quick designs I did, so for this I created a page of pockets, trousers, skirts, sleeves and collars that all included the scallop shape in one form or another. I liked doing this task as it was a quick way to coming up with initial ideas and as they were quick thought I didn't think or focus so much on them which allowed the designs to be freer and less restricted. I then developed these initial ideas by designing whole garments and looks which lead me onto creating the capsule collection. I really enjoyed designing the collection as I picked one key feature which was the use of the scallop shape and sheer fabrics and then 4 colours.

 Although what I found with designing the collection was that it was different from my usual style as I tried to make it more commercial as opposed to more couture style that I usually opt for. Which I think in future I will decide to stay with my usual style however I am pleased that I explored a different way as it has allowed me to develop my skills.  I also showed the collection to my tutor and peers where I feel that the feedback was to develop my presentation skills such as try to differentiate the different types of fabrics used. I also had to create flats of the garments I had designed, I had never done this before but after initially finding it difficult I soon was able to improve, yet after working through the difficulty of that task I did find it to be very time consuming as although I did meet my deadline I believe that some things were rushed, therefore to prevent this from happening I think I will work at a more productive pace.

Overall this week I am pleased with the work I produced however I do feel disappointed in my final designs, but I do feel that from this week I will be able to develop my skills.