Locating Tutorial One

This locating unit initially sounds quite exciting to me as I have the opportunity to get involved in live projects/briefs as well as work on my own chosen brief alongside it.

I have researched into some live briefs and the Bradford Textiles Society, ‘printed textile design for fashion on any base fabric’ stood out to me. Although I find myself designing for more interior products and furnishings, I enjoyed working and designing some of the more fashion-based products in my last project. Therefore, I would like to experiment more with a fashion context, which will hopefully help myself to decide which pathway is for me.

On the other hand, there is also a brief for the Bradford Textiles Society, which is a ‘textile design suitable for domestic curtains, upholstery, cushions and blinds, drawn in repeat’. Although this sways towards my specialist context approach, I am not overly delighted about the ‘drawn in repeat’ aspect, as I want to be more free in this project and not work to specific guidelines.

Over the Christmas break, I will be visiting the city of Florence, Italy. This trip was a birthday present for me off my sister. Therefore, I am hoping the inspiration for my drawing and this project will come from the architecture, gallery visits, colour, scenery etc. of Florence, where I will be taking photographs and a sketchbook over the 4 days. However, it is also a holiday break for my sister and me so I will not be dedicating all my time to the project.

To improve from my last project, I will research and chose my context before I start getting into this live brief, as ‘context’ is what limited me within my previous project. Due to not having a solid purpose for my designs, my ideas constantly seemed to change, however as soon as I had a strong context that I was happy with, my productivity increased. Therefore, I want to really research into my context for this live brief as soon as I can.

At this moment in time, I am a little unsure about the self-initiated brief. I have a few ideas from designing an interior textile design in comparison to the live fashion textile design to the idea of a ‘look book’ portraying my fashion ideas and designs from the live brief, especially if I spend more of my time on the live brief.