Locations Evaluation

Working with two briefs at the same time has surprisingly been quite challenging for me. At the start of the project I don’t think I thought thoroughly about both briefs and instead just dived into the live brief straight away. After a while I realised I had spent more of my time on the live brief and hadn’t really got a solid idea for my self initiated. From then on, I began working on the end of my live brief and the start of my self initiated brief at the same time. Although this seems like an unorganised way of working, it worked quite well for me. I would try to split the week up in half, however mainly worked on both each day.

Spending up to 80% of my time on the live brief, this project was definitely my strongest. I chose the Bradford textile society’s project for the printed textile for fashion. Working with a fashion context is unfamiliar to me, however I wanted to challenge myself and have a go. Therefore, I chose to focus on a more high end approach, researching into fashion designers such as Valentino, Alberta Fereetti and Naeem Khan. Their work not only inspired my samples but also garment shapes in which I visualised my samples onto.

My initial starting point for the project was the primary research I gathered from my trip to Florence in December. Focusing on the stunning cathedrals and their marble walls and its impressive details, I started to draw from them. My progress at the start of the project was a bit slow, as I didn’t know where to go from my drawings. Therefore, I decided to create screen designs, as this idea was the only one that excited me and motivated me to get into the print room.
When I got into the print room, I knew I wanted to combine different techniques. One of these techniques was devore, which was something I had never experimented with before, yet became my favourite technique to use. I practiced the technique to overcome my shyness towards it and surprisingly started to produce beautiful samples after some of them failed.

Weaker samples vs stronger sample

I combined this technique using digital designs as a background to work onto.

The devore enable the digital prints to come through the fibres that were left on the fabric and created delicate samples that reflected a Florentine theme. I wanted to take the use of subtle colour further so I started to experiment with the dyes in the print room. Before finishing the colour samples they seemed to have been a success. The colours were slight and reflected the colour from the Florence Cathedral. However, once I steamed and washed the samples, the colours changed and became too bright. Time was limited and therefore I didn’t take it any further. 

Failed colour samples

If I had more time, I would have experimented more with getting the colours right. I also would’ve painted a blank screen to create a background for my devore prints. This would have brought my project together as I could have created a wider collection made up from white fabrics and coloured fabrics. 

Overall, I am pleased with my outcomes and final sample. The devore technique onto digital prints was very effective in creating a beautiful, delicate piece for high-end fashion. The context and theme are portrayed within my samples really well, however not in the way I initially thought. Starting from a majestic cathedral and finishing with a delicate sample portrayed a dramatic change, which I did not originally expect. 

Final samples

From what I produced in the live brief, I decided I wanted to present my samples in a different way.  For this reason, I decided to produce a fashion illustration look book for my self initiated project. Creating a link between my two briefs meant I could see my samples in a different way and visualised on garment shapes. 

Fashion Illustrations

I spent less time on this project, however I still produced what I wanted to. Using fashion illustrations, drawings and sample photographs, I created a look book that shown my samples and brought together my project. It was something I had never done before so I knew it was going to be a bit of a challenge. I research a little into look books using pinterest to get a few ideas. In the end I used what I had produced and brought it all together in a book format.

It may not have been the best look book I could’ve produced with what time I had left, however I believe it was a nice way to portray my live brief. It brought together my ideas, themes and outcomes and pushed it within visualisations in a professional format. 

Look Book 

If there is a time in the future where I want to produce another look book, I will take it further by booking out the studio and a camera and photograph a model with the garment shapes on to create a more professional and contemporary look book.

I have learnt from the experience of taking on two projects at the same time. In the future I will plan my time a little more wisely and make sure I give myself enough time for each project. I will also set myself little deadlines that give me more time at the end to polish off my outcomes. Although I achieved what I aimed for, there is always more experimentation I could have done. If I did do more, I wonder if I could’ve pushed myself to achieve even better. Despite this, I am delighted at what I have produced and although some of my time management could’ve been improved, I still managed to achieve the briefs. 

Locating: Final Week

In this final week, I have been focusing on my final print designs and making my fashion illustration look book.

I really enjoyed this week in the print room experimenting with different fabrics and techniques. I used white flock, foil and puff on paper and fabric to create bases for my look book as well as original samples. I furthered the idea of white on white, using the opaque white pigment on both acetate and silk fabrics. These samples brought together my final collection of samples as they are original and unique, however still fit in with the theme.

Experimenting with different techniques

The look book was a challenge to create. I only ended up producing a mock-up of the look book, however it still includes all the ideas I wanted. Some pages are fashion illustrations and others are drawings/photographs and acetate pages. If I had more time, I would’ve made a more professional look book by taking photos of a model and applying my samples on the photographs as visualisations. I also would have got the look book professionally printed, however it would have lost some of its originality such as the acetate pages.

Look book 

I also brought together both projects by finalising boards and presentation. For example, I needed to create two boards for the Bradford live brief. I included main samples, smaller samples and visualisations.

Overall, I am really pleased with my final samples as they are all different and explore the same theme. 

Final samples

Locating Tutorial Seven

My focus this week has been my self-initiated brief of a look book. My ideas include creating a fashion illustration look book, visualising my designs and samples on garments. Therefore, on Illustrator I have drawn up some illustrations portraying garment shapes in the styles of Valentino, Naeem Khan and Alberta Ferretti to depict a higher end fashion collection.

Fashion Illustrations 

In order to portray the white on white devore fabrics through drawing for my illustrations, I used white gel pen and white paint marker on acetate and thin tracing paper. The effects I got from this were really quite alluring and dainty; similar to my samples.

Drawing on acetate and tracing paper

 In the shapes of the drawn up garments, I cut out the drawings and stuck them onto print outs of my fashion illustrations. I drew up different compositions and scales of elements from my designs to portray the potential they have in a fashion context. The style of cutting and sticking appealed to me for the fashion illustration look book as it interprets my approach to the illustrations. It also has a sense of delicateness which ties together the style of my samples and the style of the illustrations they will be visualised on.

'Cut and Stick' Visualisations

Another way I experimented with visualising my designs onto the fashion illustrations, was using my actual devore samples. I took some photographs of my samples, edited them and applied them onto the garment shapes. Changing the scales and colours, I attempted to create a collection. However, it didn’t really come across as a strong collection. I believe after producing more samples I will be able to scan them in at high quality and try to create a fashion illustration collection to portray within my look book.

Digital Visualisations

This week, I will focus on producing more print samples as well as embroidery samples to support my visualisations. I will also be creating the look book itself. Therefore, I will have to make sure I have enough content for the look book for example, enough illustrations, acetate and tracing paper samples, fabric samples and embroidery samples. Using acetate and tracing paper as the foundation for some of my look book pages is original to my project as it represents my designs, samples and ideas. I could even experiment with using print techniques such as flocking and foiling onto acetate and tracing paper to use as a page in my book.  Overall, I want the look and feel of the look book to represent my live brief project in a different format. 

Locating Tutorial Six

This week was a success and I am delighted with my outcomes. I booked myself in the print room and worked with the devore technique using the screen designs I finally put in. I used three different fabrics which would work with devore as well as my digital designs.

Inverted screen           Original screen 

The two screen designs are made up of the same composition, however one has been inverted allowing me to burn away just the back ground on some samples and the original screen design allows me to burn away just the design on other samples. When working with the original screen on the digital prints, it creates completely different effects which I believe are not as compelling compared to when I have used the inverted screen.  Although I am using the same design, I feel like the screen which allows me to burn away the background, leaving just the design in the silk fibres, works the best. It has created delicate, feminine fabrics which acquire a higher end look. The design allows the subtle colours from the digital prints to make up the design which is left in the fibres on the fabric. 

Inverted screen sample   v  original screen sample

It has also worked well using white fabrics alone, which has made up most my samples. Alberta Ferretti works with white fabrics in some of her work which inspired me to take a white on white approach. The slight colours from the digital prints combined with the white fabric devore'd prints work together making up a strong collection.

White Fabrics

Therefore, I will most likely continue to­­­­ use more of the inverted screen for the rest of my samples as well as my final sample for the Bradford printed textile design for fashion. The designs portray a Florentine elegance and would make beautiful fabrics for garments in a high end collection similar to the garments used in Alberta Ferretti’s collections.  

As I am using a technique I am not comfortable with and have not practiced much, there were a few failed attempts. With my first few attempts, the design wasn’t clear as some of the fibres hadn’t fully burned away. I realise I had to bake the samples a little longer and spend more time rubbing away the fibres before washing them. Although this was my first attempt at using devore I was surprised how quickly I was able to overcome the failed attempts and how strong my samples turned out.

Failed devore sample

In order to produce more samples, I need to book myself in the print room, however, there is no more space to book this week. Although normally this would be a problem, fortunately the print room is now open until 8pm and therefore I am able to check if any spaces become available after 4.30pm when people normally go home.

To produce the delicate and subtle samples I am aiming to achieve, I also need to create bigger and more polished digital prints that are faithful to the refined colour palette I am using.

My self initiated brief also needs attention this week. Therefore, I will start doing some fashion illustrations and visualisations to understand what garment shapes my designs will work best on. These fashion illustrations may also be the subjects for my look book which will make for an interesting illustration book. 

Locating Tutorial Five

The realisation of the fact that I have three weeks left of this project and I have not yet been in the print room is quite daunting. Therefore this week I have been focusing my attention on Screen designs and compositions.

I have made up a few screen ideas in repeat and placement so I could get started on experimentation in the print room, however I felt as if the designs were too plain, all had the same line work and were all made up of similar shapes and I wasn’t really sure whether to go ahead with them. I waited until this tutorial so I could get advice from Rachel and the others in the group.

Screen Design Ideas

 I was told to include more of a contrast in shapes/lines/repeats etc within my designs to create a more visually pleasing and dynamic screen design for experimentation with devore. I believe, although my designs need to be clear, they should be as small and as detailed as possible in order to get the soft, subtle effects I want to achieve. Hopefully, this will echo a Florentine style with the details inspired by the details of the marble cathedrals. To achieve this, I will experiment more with compositions, lines and shapes to create an effective screen design.

As well as working towards designs onto screen, I have been working on digital designs which will create a background for the samples. My digital designs have been created from my texture drawings, which have then been edited on Photoshop. Although the colour in one of my samples came out a little too bright for what I wanted to accomplish, I will still use it and the other prints to experiment with when I get in the print room. Eventually, I will most likely need to create more digital samples anyway which will give me the chance to carefully depict and edit colour in order to produce a subtleness and lightness to reflect that of the Florence cathedral colours.

Digital Print Designs

Apart from the one failed sample, I do believe the colours work well on the silk viscose satin as the fabric adds a shine to it. It’s a good coincidence in reference to my context, as the fabric looks and has a feel of high end fashion which could work well as scarfs. Although I haven’t been focusing on scarfs as a possible outcome, I don’t want to rule it out. Therefore, I should do some fashion illustrations in order to work out exactly what kind of garments these prints will work well on.

Digitally printed fabrics

When I get into the print room and start producing samples, I will understand more about what garment shapes to portray my designs onto.  

Locating Tutorial Four

Due to the lack of work I did last week, I realised I needed to plan my time a little more carefully in case of things going wrong. Also, today’s one on one tutorial gave me a good chance to put across my ideas for my live brief as well as come to an agreement for a good self-initiated brief with Rachel, as I feel I have been giving more of my attention to the Bradford printed textile piece.

After doing more drawings this week, I experimented with portraying them on garment shapes, naturally composing them to create different designs. I also used Photoshop and Illustrator to mock up some garment shaped screen design ideas.

First Screen Designs

 However, I believe this will limit me when I am in the print room and have therefore decided to create screens with repeated motifs on so I can experiment more in the print room with different techniques. After today’s print room tutorial, I am interested in practicing the technique of devore and creating some samples from my designs. Hopefully using the devore technique will give my samples more of a high end appearance in order to connect with the context I am trying to stick with, influenced by the works of Valentino.

I have researched into the designs that explore devore techniques by Alberta Ferretti. Her designs are more free and playful in contrast to Valentino’s precise patterns. The use of white on white and devore on white fabric alone has also inspired me to take forward similar ideas. I will work with white fabrics alone as well as fabrics I have digitally printed on.

Alberta Ferretti

This week I have also been playing with creating textures in which I can use for a base digital design for my sample backgrounds. The marble textures on the cathedral walls from my Florence photographs interested me and I believed I could create some nice textures for my samples. Therefore, to mimic the marble textures, I chose to use marbling inks on paper and fabric; however, this seemed too obvious and not original. Therefore, still experimenting with inks I brushed black, green and red inks to create the same colours within the photographs, on fabric. The texture I created was quite original and more interesting than the initial samples. To further these samples, I hope to edit them on Photoshop, layering and experimenting with effects and finally creating digital prints from them in which I could devore/dye on top of.

Rachel and I spoke more about my self-initiated brief that I haven’t thought much about. Due to the time I have left on both the projects, I have decided to create a fabric book. Using different fabrics combined with digital and screen prints as well as embroidery, I will create a sample book. Therefore, this week I will research into how and what to do in order to create a solid fabric book. 

Locating Tutorial Three

This week has been a slow week for me due to an illness lasting a good 5 days which had a huge impact on my productivity. Although I found a bit of time for some drawing, I didn’t produce much to inspire me.

Fine liner Drawings

Using black fine liner as my choice of media, I have begun to draw some of the elements I found in my drawings. In using fine liners, I have been able to depict details within my drawings. Also, the marks made from black fine liner will be easily transferred onto software such as Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop which will able me to duplicate, change and edit my drawings to create more complex patterns. Therefore, I will be able to save some time as I will create different compositions quickly without having to re draw the elements.

Using my photographs for drawing inspiration

Although I didn’t have much to show in my tutorial this week, I still wanted to show Rachel and the others my little progress and hoped they would be able to motivate me and give me new ideas or advice as to what to do to improve my drawings. However, it was clear the only thing I needed to do was produce more drawings and elements to work with to give me a wider range of motifs.