A year in the life of…

Designs for the Major Study Project are shown above. As preliminary sketch work and photographs are at sketchbook stage for a few more weeks, it is mostly the finished design work I am working on as there are so many of them to complete with each one having four different colourways, and a branding guideline for the book. There will also be card and fabric printing, so plenty to work on. So for the moment, the design sheets remain in the A3 and A4 sketchbooks… Finally, a taster for the New York Pattern Book – a hardback A4 landscape reference book for designers to use with a smattering of lighthearted historical facts and figures. This is a book for the english lady or gentlemen who appreciates colour, form and design.

Evaluation

For the Major Project I wanted to show the breadth of my abilities within art and design craft. My strengths are in ‘ideas’, and in the production of craft-based work within a range of designs in a project. This New York project would be an ideal subject to explore and redefine works within one subject. The initial approach was to record as many subjects about New York as possible, starting with taking photographs around New York City, and writing notes during the seminar we were invited to at Chermayeff’s Studio in the city.

The idea came to me that as I felt we were in such as busy place that I was safer taking photographs looking down at the ground. This meant I was taking photos of gutters, pavements, litter, fire hydrants, et.. This also grew out of insecurity that my rented SLR camera may be grabbed from my neck. As I reviewed my photographs each evening, I realised that the beauty of the mundane items was growing important when I saw the beautiful patterns I had captured in the manhole covers on the streets. I saved the digital files and cut them out, and when carried on taking photos of items I saw from the ground upwards. When I got back to the UK I did some research on the background and manufacture of all of the items I liked the most Including the Yellow Taxis, the Manhole Covers, Fire Hydrants, Tree Paving, Empire State (details), Fifth Avenue, Central Park, etc. The idea came to me to produce a book based upon the patterns I saw during my stay, and a visual map of the journey and the time we spent as a group as a chronological record which would stay with me, and be a good graphic communication to use as a guide to others visiting the city.

I allowed myself four weeks to produce the seven patterns I liked the most and the ones which had the most potential to relate to patterns which would be interesting and unusual enough to appeal to young people (the visual map); and to the business entrepreneur in interiors or graphic design (the pattern book), to use as a resource aid for them to produce items for sale. I interviewed John Hall, one of the exhibition organisers as he has a business designing and producing his own patterns on licence to the interior design industry. He gave me his opinion about what he thought would work, and then advised me to concentrate on one area for patterns and see where the subject could lead. It could turn out to be an in-depth book about manhole patterns, in the USA for example. and the related structure beneath our feet, but he advised me not to try to cover too many topics within one outcome, i.e., a pattern book. I think that this proved to be the best source of advice during the whole of the project, apart from the suggestion of the company about wallpaper design – http://www.wallpaperdirect.com from my tutor David Osbaldestin. So the centre of my project was now established, and it would show all of the most inspirational patterns with different versions associated with a colour branding which covered greys, blues, classic and linear versions for each design. Therefore I would have at least 28 different colour ways based upon only 7 patterns. I then decided to make the book more enticing to an audience who might see the book in a visitor centre, so I put designs and colour ways on the left-hand side pages in an A4 landscape book, with some interesting facts below this, and on the opposite page the facts would have some established figures and historical facts about the piece of equipment, i.e., fire hydrant that a New Yorker (or an english visitor) might find very interesting, as he may not have come across these facts anywhere else… The work would be sold with greetings cards, greetings wrapping paper and bespoke items made from the fabric I designed with the patterns.

The additional parts of the project included the design and production of a specific ‘Fall 2016’ edition of the ‘New Yorker’ magazine, which I designed with a topical Donald Trump presidential candidate for the US presidency as the subject. He would be introduced to the reader as sitting in my back garden on my garden swing amongst the apples, pears and pumpkins looking at the reader while contemplating the enormity of the task of winning the election would bring. Interestingly enough, I think because I decided to use screen printing as a medium for producing this cover, the expression I managed to get in his face looks inscrutable. Therefore, it would do just as well for the cover even if he loses the election, and so all my bases would be covered. This was quite a challenge for me as I have not done a huge amount of screen-printing. The Caitlin Moran cover was done with five colours, whereas this one would be produced with seven colours in total, and could be printed onto a coloured paper stock to introduce another colour, such as the orange representing Halloween, or deep brown for a night time shot.

On two Wednesday afternoon session last semester, we had the choice of taking drawing classes with Stephen Earl Rogers, a renowned artist. So in observational drawing class Part I, we had slow and careful school of drawing which I really like as it suits my style, (see above two teddy bears holding hands at school).

This is a final major project from the first year of my HND in Interactive & Visual Design, a level 4 project leading up to my degree. I find I am inspired by my preliminary work by this for my Major Project based on New York, to create a pattern book using some of the learning outcomes I have from this project. This would mean trying the ‘step and drop repeat pattern’ for some of the designs in my New York Pattern Book, and manufacturing some products from these designs as well. A poster map-book could follow together with an animation of my journey around New York as a first time visitor would push the outcomes from the major project to the required level 6. 

The above piece of fabric print was inspired by a poster produced for the ‘Glug Birmingham’ competition, showing positive development and tourist spots around the city, and then applying it, cross-discipline to textile design. I produced all of the above items myself with professionally printed cotton sateen from Hatley Print in Hertfordshire. Three metres of white digitally printed fabric enabled me to make eight products with accompanying embroidered items as well which I felt would make a good exhibition piece.

Hatley Print produce high-end digital printing on fabric for the BBC for drama programmes and to interior design businesses, so I found this to be the best outlet of its kind to produce my work. DMC printed the t-shirt locally in Birmingham. 

We have a digital fabric printing machine in the Fashion & Textiles department at Parkside where a technician will give me assistance to print work on site, or have it printed professionally. My outcomes for my Major New York Project will be directed not at the public, but more towards businesses who would be interested in buying finished designs or the copyright to them. After having a meeting with John Hall at BCU, I was advised that designs produced in his business are sold as work that can be altered within the copyright, to give the buyer more flexibility with designs bought.

I found this mini competition advertised at the Packaging Innovations Exhibition at the NEC on 25th February. This is my dissertation topic – branding for female-targeted drinks packaging and its future…

So I picked up a few blank templates of this visual and mocked a few up; this is my favourite and the one I entered into the competition on 31st March. You can use the name of the company you work for to design a new drinks label around that concept, or use a fun name – so as I am a student I used an imaginery name – ‘Imaginative Drinks’ wearing clothing or in this case a funky bra strap so its female-targeted!

This is the sort of brief I like. 

Following my dissertation on female-targeted drinks packaging, for which I produced a female biased wine box and label for one of my negotiated study briefs, I have decided to do one more gender-related project towards major study to run alongside my New York based major.

These photographs are examples of clothing that can be worn by male or female – I decided that fashion would be too large an area to cover alongside my New York major project so I have found a smaller project run by DandAD called ‘Design Bridge’ which bridges the gap between the genders and explores cosmetics for both genders…

Will the packaging (example, near top, appeal to a man and a woman of a similar age, ie, 25 years of age. See what you think… and later on I’ll give you my version which aims to follow on from a branding exercise started a month ago with Jane Anderson on writing a campaign for a product called ‘Birch Water’ (the sap from the native birch tree), aimed at the UK market.

A YCN Brief for Fedrigoni Imaginative papers, March 2016.

I felt that a 3D approach to gift-cards, books, advertising, point-of-sale (POS), and that retail space may look appealing to customers when treated this way on counters and wall displays…

Some ideas for the Adobe Creative Cloud identity – Adobe CC – which are initial ideas and some finished design and artwork. The theme is ‘biblical’, old school, and based upon the creation in 7 days theory, with the advancement of technology emerging from them. Coming from this idea, was the use of ‘bubbles’ (being blown from the mouth of the Botticelli Angel, and from the fishes ‘gasping’ for air in the sea, and from the swooping birds ‘flapping’ in unison with each other, making a new CC icon pattern…

Another entry for the Secret 7″ Vinyl collection at Somerset House in London on May bank holiday.

An entry into Secret 7″, March 2016.