Digital Design Work

I created digital designs throughout Unit X starting in week two, and discovered I work well this way. With weeks until deadline I felt I had time to adopt a playful, free approach and this resulted in an improved quality and variety of work. I now have many designs to select from to form a final collection. I used tiling and geometrics (current popular trends) as inspiration for the designs below, but they were formed from my drawings of personal effects and so exhibit my handwriting as a designer. My colour palette is varied and bold, with good contrasts and the mixture of photographic and drawn elements work extremely well. This approach of both responding to external influences and showing my personality through my work makes the resulting designs exciting, up to date and successful.

Finalised digital wallpaper designs

I also allocated time to learn to draw using a graphics tablet; I produced one finalised repeat design in this way and was satisfied with the results; motifs look sleeker than hand drawn ones, but it's obvious that lines have been drawn rather than formed using Adobe tools. At Arthouse designers solely use tablets, and drawing digitally is common in industry, so it's important that I further develop these skills in future.

Digitally drawn print design

Borders

Borders are now becoming a fashionable choice again; they can currently be seen at established companies including Cole and Son and Graham & Brown, and even Timorous Beasties' new 'Kaleido Splatt' Superwide Wallpaper resembles a large scale painted border. So, I decided to adapt my motif arrangements to form complementary borders for my wallpaper designs. Now my prints can appeal to those who want a small area of print, or can't afford to paper a whole wall but still want high quality, modern, eye-catching design.

Original design and matching border

Screen Printing and Visualisations

Trends and Visualistions

Inspired by research into designers (see below) and publications (such as Elle Decoration) that indicated that opulence and metallics are currently popular trends in fashion and interiors contexts, I decided to use foil and flock on my prints to add texture and shine and keep them looking up to date.

Graham & Brown 'Majestic Teal' (left) and Arthouse 'San Remo' (right)

These images are the types of visualisation I hope to use to show my work in context. I am collaborating with Charlotte Davies, an MMU Photography graduate, to produce professional level images of my work; during a shoot next week she'll photograph my prints, and rooms in Didsbury House Hotel, a trendy boutique hotel with suitable modern, quality furnishings. I'll then use displaced images together with simple photographs of my prints to create a look book for the degree show. This will provide inspiration to viewers and show how well my designs function in interior settings. To make it I'll use 'Blurb', a reputable publishing company that uses custom templates. I'll need to learn basic Indesign skills for this, which Charlotte can help with.

Screen Prints

My screen print fabric samples are bold, eye-catching, and closely follow my colour palette, which helps to convey a fun lively feel. I printed each design in several colours on an assortment of fabrics, including heavy viscose satin, 100% textured cotton, medium weight cotton, synthetic suede and polyester chiffon. Printing on this range shows off my printmaking skills, achieves a range of textures and finishes and demonstrates my versatility as a designer.

Foiled screen print on Chiffon

Screen print samples on various fabrics

Unfortunately when foiling and flocking onto digital designs, the fixing heat faded the printer's ink. This wasn't a problem with lighter designs but darker ones were ruined (see below). However, an interesting wax-resist type effect formed on the back of the paper. I took advantage of this by scanning and manipulating this 'motif' and using it to create a new design.

Heat fading, interesting resulting motif and resulting design

This unexpected glitch forced me to thoroughly investigate alternative methods of producing a metallic finish on my designs, including use of glitter glue, acrylic and gouache paint, self adhesive foil, and the manual addition of flock instead of traditional screen printing. By using several techniques I successfully produced a wider range of embellished designs than I would have achieved by screen printing alone and I am extremely happy with the final pieces.

Flock added with double sided tape

Screen printed, painted and self adhesive foiling

Now that my fabric collection is nearly complete, I intend to create more designs, this time on paper. I visited York Castle Museum over Easter, and was attracted to their collections of tea pots and clocks, which I then photographed (see below). I intend to draw from the photographs and compose designs for screen, so that I may pigment print onto metallic card sourced from Paperchase. Printing on paper worked well for me in 'Practice' and adding colour to a metallic background is something I haven't tried before. It's also a quick and relatively cost effective way to include larger areas of metallics in my work, and hopefully will create spectacular results.

Interesting shapes, colours and detail - York Castle Museum Collections

Tigerprint 'Make Your Mark' Competition April 2015

To add breadth to my portfolio and practise responding to an external brief, I entered the April 'Make Your Mark' Tigerprint competition. The brief requested patterns made with different tools and media, using spring/summer 2016 as inspiration, so I researched trends including bohemian, geometric and colour accents before drawing. 

I experimented with mark-making by using a toothbrush, paintbrushes and crinkled foil to lay down watercolour, and also used pencil, pen and pastels. These drawings were the basis for 22 print designs.

For submission I selected five that convey a festival-like summery mood, and display a range of colours and scales of motif. I was happy with the results of my mark-making, and feel that my designs fulfilled the brief, are bright, exciting and youthful, and would look great across a range of products.

Tigerprint Final Entries

I wasn't a winner, but it was informative to see their winning selections. They generally contained quite a lot of black with pastel colours and a geometric, graphic style. This experience taught me that in future I should ask for a specific brief from senior designers or clients, and try to ascertain which specific styles to focus on before starting research. This should lead to a quicker design process and satisfied clients.

Artist Research and Development Work

To gain inspiration for composition and mood I looked at wallpaper designs. Harlequin's focuses on natural forms presented in a variety of bright colours and compositions. Eleanor Rudge's work (found on Twitter, below right) reminded me that keeping colour simple is best for screen print and is extremely effective; this is a style I intend to use when planning my screen prints.

I also observed examples of tiled and patchwork-like designs; the ones below most resemble my work, which is fun, bright, and patterned. The groupings resemble Paolozzi's pop art and sculptural works (researched during 'Practice') and demonstrate a new, modern way to show several patterns on one wall. Wendy Kendall's arrangement of complementary designs would be a suitable way to display multiple paper samples for the degree show.

To extend my print collection I drew from further collections of objects, focusing on the detail within them and organisation on the page. The larger scale of my initial Unit X drawings worked well, as it enabled me to capture more detail, so I continued with this. When designing I played with the scale of motifs and type of repeat (where present) to bring more variety to my collection (see examples below). I tested different spacings and compositions based on my research above which helped my designs to be fresh and exciting. I hope to create mis-matched stripy designs formed from accumulated patterns for my design collections.

Hand Drawn Designs

All Content, Designs and Images Copyright © Leahna Maciocia 2015  

Start of Unit X and Portfolio Day

For Unit X I continued with the theme of 'Home' I used in 'Practice' but later adapted it to become 'Collections', focusing on groups of objects mostly found within my home. I kept working with my 'Practice' colour palette, extracted from my gathered objects, (below) so that I will continue to convey a playful, eclectic mood in my prints. I wasn't selective enough with final 'Practice' designs, so I chose key examples of 'Practice' work to form my mood board for Unit X, to help guide and maintain my focus. In Unit X I aim to produce screen print and digital collections on paper and fabric for high end interiors contexts.

Mood Board and Colour Palette
All Content, Designs and Images Copyright © Leahna Maciocia 2015  

A combination of hand drawn and photographic motifs worked well previously in digital designs, and flock and foil provided interesting texture and focus in my screen prints; I will experiment with them in combination to form dynamic, exciting collections.

Reviewing previous work helped me form a clear direction for this project, and so I produced good croquis designs quickly. I varied scale and the level of detail and avoided repetition of motifs, allowing designs to be sold individually to buyers.

I am again drawing directly from collected objects, to a larger scale, (to avoid pixelation when increasing scale on Photoshop) arranging drawings as I create them. This will show my composition ideas earlier and form a body of attractively presented drawings for my portfolio. My highly detailed drawings are most successful, as they bring texture to my work, captivate the viewer and encourage them to look closely.

Drawings of rocks and coral, detail and composition
 All Content, Designs and Images Copyright © Leahna Maciocia 2015 

Initial croquis designs using a variety of motifs 
All Content, Designs and Images Copyright © Leahna Maciocia 2015  

Portfolio Session

I spoke with graduates Katrina Mclaughlin, Hannah Kirkbride and Elizabeth Winstanley about showing work to companies and creating an online presence. This was really useful; a slick look book with context images and professional looking website are key when showing my work, while directly approaching companies with confidence is a good way to gain opportunities and experience.

Protecting my work is crucial; this is done by using watermarks or copyright and low resolution (< 100 dpi) when sharing images online and with companies, which I have now started doing. I now have an Instagram account so I can easily share low resolution images of my work, and use social media including LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook to expand my network.

Paper Screen Printing and Experiments

Last project, my screen designs worked well partly because I spent time deciding which motifs to put on screen and made a plan for each design on Photoshop before printing. I revisited this process, adding in areas to be foiled or flocked, to add texture and depth to my work. By using three screens I worked efficiently in the print room, and was able to quickly produce layered pieces using the nine colours that I mixed to match selected colours from my palette.

Motifs for screen, Right hand side are flock/foil motifs

Plan for Screen: yellow flower shapes are gold foil, red houses are red flock

To bring areas of colour and interest, I experimented with different ways to prepare a ground on paper using acrylic paint. I used textured effects from my initial research as inspiration for this process, and used paintbrushes, a toothbrush, a sponge and rollers to form a variety of marks. This brought a distinct character to my work that had been lacking with some of my digital samples. 

Actual print based on plan (above) pigment, flock and foil detail

Completed screen prints demonstrating pigment, foil and flock techniques

When glueing flock it was difficult to achieve a uniform effect due to the watercolour paper's rough surface, even when using a variety of pulls through the screen, plenty of glue and the correct technique. Although the resulting antiquated look complements most of my motifs and is appropriate for my concept (homely, well worn), I will try the technique on a variety of papers, rough and smooth for Unit X so that I can be selective and optimise each design. I would also like to increase the scale of my work to usual wallpaper dimensions.

After printing, I was inspired by a zested lemon was used in baking a cake; the patterns and ridges made were interesting, so I painted the lemon with acrylic and rolled it across some paper. The marks made are bold and quirky, which fits with the feel of my project, and this could be a useful technique to lay down grounds for future printmaking. These experiments are included with my body of work.

One to One Review and New Digital Designs

Observing all my work in the 1-1 session was very useful; overall it has good variety of motifs and use of colour, forming a good base. Most of my designs are placement and large scale; to improve them I will consider use of space and scale, and demonstrate how each motif would be repeated in a final design, as most interiors designs are made in repeat. I should also adopt a looser approach to design and composition.

Sometimes I find it challenging to visualise the end result in terms of composition for wallpaper designs while I am working, as the size of a wallpaper roll is so much larger than my laptop screen. This may be part of the reason that I wasn't including enough variety when it came to composition in prior designs. To solve this I could zoom in and out constantly while working on Photoshop to get a good view of the bigger picture, but this seems inefficient. Determining which product I am designing for would help determine scale in advance, and would enable me to work in repeat from the beginning if the product was wallpaper.

After Christmas, I realised that over-thinking composition had made my designs too similar. To combat this I worked at a faster pace, and in repeat from the outset, producing a repeatable tile. I then put four of these tiles together in an A1 document, to approximate the width of a wallpaper roll. This technique I developed was successful; the resulting designs were superior in terms of variation in mood, scale, colour and movement. The tile can be modified if I'm not happy with the repeat and the process forced me to think about scale more carefully.

Simple Tile (Left) and Repeat (Right) with hand drawn motifs

More complicated Tile (Left) and Repeat (Right) with adapted photographic brickwork

Complicated Tile (Left) and Repeat (Right) with photographic flower elements

I'm now happy with this wallpaper collection, so will focus on screen printing motifs onto paper, adding background texture (from existing drawings and photographs) with paint and experimenting with foreground texture using foil and flock.