Collaborative Competition

Three of my peers and I decided to work collaboratively to enter a competition. Feathr’s ‘Make Wallpaper That’s Art’ (see link below) was a great chance to respond to a highly relevant brief for me; the task was to produce a repeatable tile (to specified dimensions) that would be used as a wallpaper design. 

We met weekly to discuss the project and show work.

Group members:

Safia Kukaswadia
Krista Murtagh
Leahna Maciocia
Claire Owens

We decided on a Seaside theme, as it suited our research and is a popular current trend. We used a shared colour palette, extracted from our existing Practice drawings; the warm range came from my shell drawing, below, and cool range from Krista's water photographs. The shell has good tonal range and many neutral colours; this should help designs seem commercial yet interesting.

Close up of shell drawing - basis for warm colours

I drew from shoreline photographs I had taken previously, trying to achieve different line qualities and textures to make suitable motifs.

The others drew from various sources, and we shared motifs; each with different styles, and the result was a varied body of motifs; mark making, and linear, textured, filled and photographic motifs.

Motifs: Top and Bottom left, Claire, Centre, Leahna, Top Right Safia, Bottom Right Krista

I worked with the less photographic motifs to achieve a hand drawn feel. I enjoyed using another person's motifs, and felt more free to be experimental as I see this as a side project, with less pressure attached than the Practice Unit. I was less organised and rigid when arranging motifs, and this comes through in the feel of my finished pieces. I am happy with the results and now need to apply this freer approach to my practice work.

My submission to Feathr.com, below, seemed the most commercial, had a good balance of background tones and foreground motifs and had a good sense of movement. Depicting a landscape, I felt that it fulfilled the brief, which directed me to create a design that is not purely decorative and could be seen as art.

Unfortunately Feathr's main competition page has closed, but below is a link for my entry. 

http://www.feathr.com/wallpaper/by-the-sea/

I chose from the context settings provided, (in this case a hatstand) and selected the one that complemented my design in terms of colour so that it wouldn't eclipse my work, and people could imagine the paper working well with everyday belongings in a home. I then asked my social network on Facebook to vote for my design several times to include those who missed my first post. Voting was only part of the process, Feathr will ultimately choose winning entries.

Reflecting on this group project, we gained a high volume of work quickly, introduced different colours and more variety into motifs than if we had worked individually, and worked well as a team to include some of everyone's ideas. It was a really positive experience, and I would enjoy working as part of a design group again.