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