Unit evaluation.

This unit has been amazing for me as I have loved being able to concentrate of surface pattern design and my love for nature. This has allowed me to create a body of work that represents my aspirations as a designer, which hopefully I can send to companies for possible placements. I have also enjoyed working for a specific target market, and always having the products end use in mind. I feel like this project has therefore made me a more commercial and marketable designer.

Undertaking various live briefs has helped me to juggle multiple projects and enhance my time management skills. For me it has been a valuable experience, and being part of competitions has enabled me to see what companies and clients are after in response to briefs. It has also helped me to get my designs into the design world. Another way I have been doing this is by emailing lots designers and companies about work placements, and using twitter, linkedin and websites to extend my contact with the design world.

For me, although being able to do this as part of my project has been really valuable, it has given me less time to work on my main project. I therefore feel like some of my ideas and designs could have been developed and pushed further, and with more time, I could have created even better, more striking and unique designs.

This project has also allowed me to improve my Photoshop skills dramatically, and realise the way I work best. I love to scan in drawings and manipulate them on photoshop, as well as drawing with my graphics tablet to keep designs looking hand drawn and quirky.

Overall, this project has allowed me to develop my style as a designer and allowed me to practise surface pattern design. I am therefore really looking forward to Unit X, so I can further improve these skills, and embrace whatever challenges I am faced with.

Final Collection

Here is my final collection. I have spent my time this week selecting these images and remaking them all 30x30 cm, and some in repeat. I am happy with the selection, as there is a variety of geometric and floral designs, as well as some all over pattern and some motif designs. I think the colour within the collection is cohesive which I am pleased with because usually I find colour hard! 

At one point there was a possibility of developing two different collections consisting of geometric and floral designs. Unfortunately this wasn't possible within the time constraints because it took a lot of time to redraw designs and make them the right size and scale. Although I am really pleased with the final collection, I can see potential for more of my designs to develop in the future.

Context images

Throughout this project, the end use for my designs has been in the forefront of my mind. I have decided that for this project, my designs are more suited to stationery accessories rather than gift wrap or cards. Here are some of my final context images.

Creating context images has helped me to develop my designs and edit them to ensure they are suited for their end use. It has become an important part of the design process for me and it helps to represent the scale and context of my designs.

Learning to draw in repeat

For my final collection I have decided that two of my designs need to be redrawn to make more of the pattern. I also thought that as I needed to redraw them I should learn how to draw in repeat. For this project they might not need to be in repeat but I thought it would be good practice. Below are the two designs scanned in, and then photoshopped so that they neatly fit into repeat.

Below is a section of the designs shown in repeat. I am glad that I spend the time doing this, as even though it took a long time, it will be easier next time I come to using this technique.

Context images.

This week I have started taking a range of photos of products that I intend to place my designs onto including notebooks, photo albums and wrapped presents. I have found that taking good photos of wrapped presents has been hard so far as I couldn't get the right effect, but I intend to try again with different shaped gifts.

Creating context images for my designs helps me to decide which designs are working well, and whether the scale and composition of my design suits the product I intend it to be on. When I have placed an image into a product I usually go back to designing and rescaling the product to make the design look its best. I will use this technique to help me develop a strong collection

Designing with motifs!

This week I have been developing some design ideas based on the motifs I have created, and the work I have done so far. I have really enjoyed being able to use my hand drawn elements to create these designs, which I feel are coming along nicely. I have been playing with colour and scale, to create a range of different styled designs. I have found that my designs are developing in 2 different directions, as some have become more geometric due to the use of lines and strong shapes, and some have hand drawn qualities and look looser. This therefore has also led me to consider having 2 different collections as a final outcome, but I have decided to develop one collection first and if I have time, split this into 2 and develop 2 collections.

I started the week by putting the patterns I was creating straight into repeat as shown above. But I soon realised that as I am new to this the technique was restricting my creativity so I started designing out of repeat. This helped but I also realised that for the type of designing I am doing, unless I want the design to be used on wrapping paper my designs don't need to be in repeat. I will therefor put the designs into repeat if I select them to be used on gift wrap.

When I started designing out of repeat with motifs I didn't like the results such as the design above. But after a tutorial with Alex I soon realised that it was working onto a white background that was putting me off. He suggested that I worked onto a coloured background and that automatically made my designs better, such as the ones below.

The next stage with my designs is to start using context images to try and narrow down my designs to produce a final collection.

Placement Enquiries

As part of this brief I have been extending my contact with the outside world in a variety of ways. This includes taking part in Tigerprint competitions, local art competitions and contacting companies regarding work placements. Here is a screen shot of some of the emails I have been sending, but I have also contacted some people through their websites and phoning people. Its been great to see how people react to my work, but unfortunately most of the people who have got back to me have offices in London, or offer yearly or 6 monthly placements. I intend to keep searching for a placement for a few weeks in the North West, and I would love to arrange something over the summer break. I have had one offer from a company called Hobzy who I could see myself working for in the future. Although they are based too far away, in Birmingham, they have offered for me to visit for just a day which will be great experience. I am looking forward to arranging something with them.

I have also updated my CV and created a linkedin profile as part of this aspect of the project.

http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=303008842&trk=nav_responsive_tab_profile_pic 

Preparing for designing.

This week I am planning to put together some more designs based on motifs that I have collected during the project so far. I also have a few different ideas and concepts which I am looking forward to combining in photoshop.

Below are my first selection of motifs that I intend to use when designing. I think that when I have created some designs I will see if any types of motif are missing (such as mark making) so I can make more for the final design process.

I have created a selection of motifs that include line drawn ones and solid designs so that my design can have different depths.

I have also started putting some of my patterns into repeat because they needed to be smaller scale on the the products I am placing them onto.

The aim for this week is to create more designs, and play around with motif designs rather than all over pattern. 

Tigeprint Design Competition: Surface Pattern Design.

After entering the last Tigerprint Competition and making it to the top few selections, it made me even more determined to carry on entering them. I think its great that this project has allowed us to undertake these types of competitions as part of our brief for locating.

This brief was based on surface design in general which gave me an opportunity to submit a mixture of designs from both this project and some previous work. Below are my designs, and as with the last brief, I wanted to submit a mixture of styles with the hope that a few of them fit what they're looking for.

Khristian Howell

One of my inspirations for this project has been Khristian Howell. I love her use of colour and hand drawn elements combined with digital elements.

She also designs for a similar range of products to those that I want to design for in this project, including phone cases, stationary, note books and cushions.

I also like the way that she uses motifs. A lot of the elements are hand drawn and scanned in, and some are purely digital. She then plays with opacity, transparency and lines to create a design with different qualities and depths.