fashion and textiles taster week evaluation 17/10/14

At the beginning of the week I was unclear in general on what Fashion & Textiles was actually all about. After looking through past students' work it became apparent that texture, appearance and cataloging garment ideas and concepts is vital.

When it came to the practical side of the week I was surprised how quickly my ideas came about in relation to the brief given. Doing research on designers such as Alexander McQueen and Yohji Yamamoto, I was interested in the shapes and geometric angles that can be involved in these pieces. After being given a concept image to work off of, I started to use different types of paper and transferred the colour scheme of the image onto said paper. This resulted in around 14 sheets to use on the final piece. 

                                         

After this I drew thumbnails of what I wanted the piece to look like, and stuck to a general 'triangular/geometric' looking  design. The outcome was fairly consistent in terms of my original thought process, and I was very pleased with the overall colours, the shape and how it look both on and off the body. 

Using simple black paper bags to construct the piece seemed daunting at first, however reconstructing the bags around my initial designs then made it clearer as to how I was able to limit there being too much black, but also making black a stand out focus colour, as in relation to my concept image.

Using leftover colour samples I then attempted to reacreate the overall shape of the piece using only the sheets of paper. This didn't prove as successful, however, I think it does show how the colours and shapes in both pieces compliment eachother.

Overall, while Fashion isn't necessarily and area in art and design that I aim to pursue, I was intrigued learning about the processes designers go through and then putting them into practice within my own work.

3D media taster week evaluation 10/10/14

Starting the week off by looking at different types of 3D media artists was generally interesting as it opened my eyes to the multiple areas of 3D design. Looking at ceramicists to product designers, I was really able to see the wide range of different forms of media that come under this genre, some of which I was completely unfamiliar with.

The first workshop was very unique in the fact that whilst feeling the objects given to us in bin liners, and then constructing them from card, I was really able to understand how different people perceived each object and how I, and others, came about in actually re-creating them. This process was strange and extremely unusual in the sense that having to recreate something from a quick sketch after feeling a bizarre object was quite difficult at first.

However, this was mainly the initial stage and I began to find it much easier to establish some sort of familiarity between my recreation and the object. I felt that my recreation resembled the object considerably but my perception of it was definitely influenced by the media at hand and after studying the object itself, I was able to see where similarities and differences did lie.

By Friday, we were in the silversmithing studio. Surrounded by different tools and pieces of equipment I had never used before, it really made a difference listening to the tutor instructing on how to use them safely and properly. Then being able to create our blocks of wood with the metal outer surface was a lot of fun and I felt it really beneficial to be able to be hands on with the equipment, some of which a week prior I would never have trusted myself using. Each was different and equally odd to wrap my head around, but by the end of the day long session I felt easily comfortable with the thought of coming back, should I want to, and using some of the equipment. Shaping each bit of metal and forming it around the block, as well as burning it and creating new colours and forms, really impacted each piece and I think

mine was considerably successful in being both unique and structurally relevant to the brief. At first I was hesitant in overworking the block of wood but generally came more at ease as the day went on in discovering how to manipulate certain textures and effects and how to bring them together. Overall I really enjoyed this taster week, and whilst it may not have persuaded any increased interest into pursuing 3D media studies, I did enjoy learning new skills and discovering new techniques. 

visual communication taster week evaluation

Over the visual communication taster week I learned that there is much more to areas such as Illustration and graphic design than I had previously thought. Looking at different artists at the beginning of the week, I became very interested in illustrators Dennis Chapon and Olivier Kugler. Being shown their work lead me to understand the differences between artists in illustration as well as prompting me into doing my own research. Through this I began to look at the work of David Litchfield as his work is similar in style to those we were shown. I think I have been able to draw inspiration from all the artists I have looked at through this taster week and that this has helped me in getting closer to figuring out that visual communications is a field that I would be interested in pursuing.

 Then looking into hand rendered type, Tim Yarzhonbeck's work particularly  inspired me to create unique type and try and stand out. This wasn't very transferrable into the practical side of the week, as observing packaging and creating hand rendered type from that left little room to expand the type's uniqueness. However, I did transfer the skills learnt in observing type closely and analysing it. This then helped me to draw more accurate type within my work.

 Creating our final piece of work for the week then taught me that composition and minimalistic, thought provoking ideas are generally the more successful ones in a sense that obvious thinking and overmaking a piece, specifically within hand rendered type, could ruin it. Experimentation with types of media and the use of shape and line also was extremely important whilst creating hand rendered type.

visual communication research

www.illustratorsillustrated.com/books-without-words/

I chose to look at this article because it, in detail, explains the use of literature, or the lack of it, within illustration. The article's author, Anna Ridley, looks at various different illustrators and explains how they have used the idea of enforcing a story without the use of words, and how they have managed to do it differently. This is something I have taken particular interest in as I studied English at A-Level, and find it fascinating to discover how illustrators tell their stories and the ways in which they do it.