#surface pattern designs

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.