Technical Exercise

After GNCCF I thought about freelancing; to be successful I would need commercial designs and have a good sense for trends and the market. I thought about commercially viable screen printed products I could make relatively easily to the required standard; tea towels and cushions seemed a good solution. I researched fabrics and the type of designs used on them from a selection at John Lewis.

John lewis products

Most tea towels used 100% cotton. Sizes ranged from 45 - 52cm by 70 - 78cm. and prices ranged from £9 - £15. Cushions were £25 - £120, and most were 43cm x 43cm. Linen and cotton (durable, washable, practical fabrics, suitable for everyday use) were most common, and I aim to use these when screen printing according to the sizes above.

The designs were in repeat or placement, and use few colours, with one main motif used. As a result I challenged myself to make designs with limited colour, using 3 similar motifs. It was a chance to experiment with different compositions, use of scale and spacing.

Analysing the 25 designs afterwards, they seemed too similar to each other, and were formulaic. Because of the lack of variety of motifs, I felt stuck for composition ideas and designs ended up too 'safe'. Some could potentially end up in my final collection, but deliberately limiting myself didn't help to advance or portray my full range of ideas.

Competition Entries

I entered Tigerprint's October competition 'Christmas Pattern' to create a repeat design for Christmas themed wrapping paper. I used my Christmas colour palette and motifs from my 'Home' project, and was also inspired by old paper prints and collographs I found while tidying. The leaves and dots' colours lent themselves to the festive theme and had interesting texture, so I scanned them to use on Photoshop. Entering was good technical practice as I hadn't used repeat recently and it will be needed for my wallpaper designs. I was happy with the designs which are bold but not too busy, appropriate for Christmas and commercial.

I observed winning entries after the competition closed, and they were more involved in terms of drawing and use of motifs. This was surprising; usually commercial designs are simple. They also liked use of figures in one design as it was unusual. In comparison my designs look generic; next time I might inject more character and spend more time drawing.

Patternity ran a photography competition as they needed images of interesting pattern to be featured in their upcoming book. I submitted a mixture of old and new photographs and tried to convey different colours, textures and moods in my selection. 

Timetabling, Research, Colour and GNCCF

Timetabling

To allow exploration of a second theme, such as architecture, my tutor suggested that I split the Practice Unit into two blocks. This would enable me to combine blocks or refine one for Unit X. I respond well to structure and deadlines, and expect that having a shorter term goal to work towards will encourage me to work at a good pace. 

Research

To provide a new perspective on objects, I scanned them. To save time I laid them together in a way that was visually appealing to me. This allowed me to see how they interact in terms of shape and colour and see how patterns sit well together despite being quite different.

Scanned Pottery Collected From Beaches

Colour

I extracted colours from my drawings and photographs to form four colour palettes, grouped by theme or colour type (see below). 

Top Left, Christmas themed
Bottom Left, based on my bathroom
Middle, warm colours
Right, cool colours

All share a common mid tone green, and there are also other crossovers so if I decide to use them in combination for digital or screen print collections, they will complement each other.

Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair

GNCCF was a chance to be inspired by the variety and high standard of work produced by freelancers. I spoke with recent TIP graduates there about starting a business and opportunities they had, and realised I should consider freelancing. To do this I would need to invest time in making, branding, networking and presentation skills. 

I gathered and arranged a selection professional yet enticing business cards to analyse their qualities. Close up photographs draw the viewer in, as you want to see the rest of the product. Although practical to have the maker's name on the front, here the names distract from the designs.

GNCFF Cards

It was clear that each maker's character and passion came through in their products; I need to inject that sense of individuality and fun into my work. I looked back at one finger drawing (based on my bathmat) that really captures this; there is a community of finger-creatures that seem to have a collective personality. By placing different objects together and focusing on their interactions I can create a new, fresh feel to my designs while making them feel homely. 

Bathmat colony

HOME

Over summer I was away from home (Manchester), and missed the relaxation and personal space that comes with it. I then reflected on the different meanings of home:

people, places, tradition, culture, animals, objects, food, body, feeling, language, retreat, building

I focussed on my collected objects as they are easily accessible to draw directly from, and there is good variety of content. I was also inspired by the experience of moving house; many objects such as tools and boxes are bland, neutral and dark in colour. By using them as contexts for prints I could give them a homely feeling.

When photographing and drawing from my items I selected attributes of each to focus on, such as colour, texture, mood, movement and pattern. I used a variety of media to capture these elements, including acrylic, pencil, watercolour paint and pen. I may later introduce embroidery, typography and laser cutting if appropriate. Also I will use the overlocker to finish fabric samples.

collected objects

drawing research

Initial research was successful; I worked small scale to quickly generate ideas, and was able to achieve a range of effects. I tried to stay true to the objects' colours in order to capture their essence and mood; this will help to convey the feeling of home. 

My designs will be for an interiors context (including wallpaper, home accessories, blinds, cushions, tea towels, curtains), and for stationery. I have previously designed for several contexts simultaneously and it helped me consider aspects traditionally used in each sector and analyse where my work fits within the design sphere. I will produce several collections, using digital and screen printing on paper and fabric. I want to further develop my photoshop and illustrator skills, and learn to use a graphics tablet for drawing, as this will be useful for working in industry and help my design work.

Orla Kiely Bedding, Paper Tiger Notebooks, Annabel Perrin Mugs, Caroline Pratt Cards

Examples of other designers' work I looked at are brightly coloured with a vibrant, warm feel. There are intricate patterns, motifs arranged in stripes, half drops, geometric arrangements, and placement designs. I will aim to retain this variety in my collections.

Tigerprint Competition June 2014

June's Tigerprint competition focussed on florals. Using existing motifs and colour palette from a previous 'Camouflage' project I formed 'flowers' and worked in repeat. I tried to achieve variety in terms of scale and line quality, creating a sense of movement, which I feel I did successfully.

2014 Manchester School of Art Degree Show

The standard of the 2014 degree show was high but some designers had particularly creative formats alongside sleek, well thought out displays. 

Stephanie Lawton

Stephanie presented a wide variety of work and utilised a limited colour palette well to highlight material qualities and form a cohesive collection. Her wooden ladder formed a focus for professional display and made it easy for viewers to visualise products in their homes. The wallpaper was most visually engaging; the single colour focuses attention on patterns which emerge depending on your distance from the work. Fabric swatches were shown in small ringed books, which are a good way to show ideas to clients. Pantone references mean colours could be easily recreated. Context images showed ideas well, though some edges were uneven.

Stephanie Lawton detail

Stephanie Lawton presentation

Jessica Brown

Jessica created an eye-catching, shop-like world filled with designs on various products; this successfully demonstrated her prints' versatility. Her colours are appealing and on trend, but experimenting more with scale could yield more interesting results. A business card on her portfolio linked it with her collection; this made it easy to find. Branding work with a logo gave it a professional identity. Each sketchbook page is composed carefully with white borders left around drawings; they are visually appealing and each can be appreciated individually. I need to apply this to my drawings as they tend to be crowded; by spacing them out each one receives attention.

Jessica Brown

Jessica Brown 'shop' (left), notebooks and folio (right)

Emily Woods

There was a good range of drawings and design ideas in Emily's portfolio and she used a variety of media to achieve this. Simple marks worked well, especially when used at different scales. The large scale drawing is amazing, using bold, pure colour. Selective foiling on fabric adds a glamorous touch and contrasts well with background colours. This caught my attention from across the room, and I could use foiling to show contrast and make designs stand out. Presenting scarves in front of wallpaper works well; it demonstrates a wider range of colour, and shows how wallpaper could coordinate with other designs. 

Emily Woods scarves and wallpaper

Tamara Andric

Tamara's colours are beautiful and clear, (achieved by hand-dyeing threads) co-ordinate well and have been used in interesting proportions. Textural variation is impressive, but doesn't distract from the sense of colour and movement. The display is simple but allows samples to be seen in different contexts. Tamara's sketchbook is well laid out, and boards are well done, with images grouped creatively. Her photographs are of professional quality, so including enlargements would show off the detail in her work to its fullest. Having photos of different samples on one sheet demonstrates how they work well as a collection. Presenting colour ideas with a stripe, photograph, setting and palette shows her good eye for colour, and this preparation comes across in her final pieces.

Tamara Andric samples and display

Presentation and Reflection

Presentation Review

For my presentation to Debbie from Digetex and Teresa I chose to talk through selected pieces of work that have been filed or printed out and mounted. Showing digital work on a screen is a useful way to show work to the world at large (such as on this blog) but I feel that if someone is there with you it's often better to show original work. This demonstrates colour use best, and shows how a design looks when printed out; digital designs can be very different on a screen compared with on paper or fabric, but ultimately they will be printed when sold and it makes sense to me to show them in this way.

I looked back through my blog to plan my presentation, and marked individual drawings and images to mention. I attempted to be brief, highlighting relevant points for me during the project. I focussed on my ideas, as the narrative of a design is important, and it's what gives the final product an extra special quality.

It was good to see how other people presented their work and there are a few things I noticed that worked really well; putting a context image below each design on the same piece of card looks really professional, and it makes it easy to compare how the design works at different scales. Although I like to work on separate pieces of paper and put them into a lever arch file for presentation, it is easier to flick through a sketchbook and it just looks and feels better. It also helps the viewer to see the drawings or designs as part of one collection, and provides a white background to see them on. So I could still work on separate pieces of paper but present them in a book afterwards. My portfolio case is looking worn round the edges, so I'll invest in a new one that has internal clips for next year. Generally saying less and grouping several images together worked well as a way of giving information, looking back I could really have cut down what I was saying further and given Debbie and Teresa more time to just look at my work, without me explaining it. Also, well put together boards look really slick, are a great way to show information quickly and help with selecting down the best images.

It was really useful to get some comments as we went along; Debbie seemed to particularly liked that I had shown my prints on a car, as this is something that she has recently seen at shows and is generally something that is becoming trendy with designers. I had seen cars coated with print a while ago with Mini's 50th anniversary, and a competition I think an MMU student won to get their design painted onto a car, but generally thought it would be appropriate for this project as it is a large scale object, that doesn't usually have print applied to it but due to new technologies could become popular as a way to show off design. This seemed to be in the Digetex spirit and I wanted to try something different.

Project Reflection

This project has been really fun and challenging, and the chance to work towards a live brief was exciting. The factory visit gave insight into how a company like Digetex is set up and works on a day to day basis and inspired me to think BIG in terms of scale and ambition.

Working as group to research the company was good as we each brought a different take on things to the discussion and I picked up useful ideas for presenting boards from the other group members.

I instinctively felt drawn towards 'Camouflage' but wanted to mix it with the more technique - driven trends to make it more diverse and appealing. The idea of presenting images where motifs don't resemble the source material and using visual trickery stemmed slightly from my previous WWII based project where, for example parachutes became hot air balloons.

Sketching quickly at Manchester Museum was something I hadn't really done before, but really altered the way I looked at the subject and produced surprisingly good results. I will definitely do this again in future, and might draw inanimate objects, while setting short time limits to test my skills further.

Using bright colour was something I was keen on coming into summer as my previous palettes this year have been more muted. Looking at Clarissa Hulse's work helped me to be more bold. Selecting my colours relatively early helped push my work forward, and experimenting digitally before going screen printing helped to sort proportion and placement of colour. It also clarified which motifs worked well together and at what scale.

To avoid using pigment unevenly and having to re mix colours, I planned each paper print in advance digitally. This helped to create a good colour range and saved time in the print room. Also I had 3 screens which meant more efficient printing. I knew my time was limited, so I painted backgrounds first to add texture and limit the amount of printing to be done.

The resulting final paper designs are bright and busy, which was what I was aiming for, and I am happy with the results. During our final tutorial, Teresa suggested producing a quieter digital collection to lend more variety to my work. This was quicker to do after my initial more complicated designs, as I knew which motifs would work well, and to give a feeling of space I used lighter backgrounds and left more negative space between motifs. This would allow some of my designs to be used together in different ways, and is definitely something I will consider earlier on in future.

For my context images I wanted to contrast my traditionally made screen printed designs with a modern feeling backdrop and my digitally produced designs with more timeless contexts, including gazebos, a castle and a car. The images for my second digital collection (cars and castle drive) were more successful; they had a better feel and the designs didn't look as out of place.

Overall I'm really happy with this project, and feel like I learned a lot. I feel more confident working to a large scale and being bold with colour, which should help me for next year.