Major project : open for inspection!

Hello All!I believe I owe you an explanation :) yes, the big question of  what 'my major project is all about'!
Its a little hard to explain it in all its entirety within the one blog post but Im going to give it a crack ;)

THE PROJECT : Instanostalgia (you saw the cover in yesterdays post!)

Below are a few extracts from my design report - Its a bit wordy, but grab a cup of tea and read up! I think you might find that its more interesting that it looks :) (if I do say so myself!)





THE PAST IS THE NEW PRESENT! The world we live in is driven by speed,technology and fleeting moments.

This rat race is stirring within us a desire to make lasting emotional , spiritual and tactile connection with our everyday lives , the people we meet and with the things we have.

In an age of cutting edge technology and sleek modern aesthetics , we crave for an alternative lifestyle, an 

approachable form beauty and the authenticity of a life of simplicity.

While on the one hand we seek the beauty of the past and the simplicity of a bygone era , we are still influenced and powered by advancing technology. These two conflicting and contrasting needs are being brought together with a fast emerging trend that can be termed as TECHNOstalgia - the merging of advanced technology and human desire.We are turning to new-age digital technology to give us the old-world charm of the past.

Parallel to the present being the new past, there is also the unchangeable fact that the past will always remain.While the trend is to convert the present to the past , the very concept of a nostalgic connection starts with the latter. Our past and the memories associated with it , trigger this need for staying connected to it.

For this textile collection , inspiration comes from a personal connection with a land rich in cutlure and colour.Ancient Indian architecture , all its splendour and granduer yet with the ability to establish a connection on a humble , personal level will inform print and pattern concepts for a range of fashion fabrics for Summer 2014

Insta-technology creates a ‘rose-tinted’ visual of the ordinary everyday. This ‘rose-tinted’ aesthetic informs the colour palette for the collection.

Tinted pinks , clear sky blue and light filtered tones of brown and yellow are grounded with a deep , forest green.

And speaking of colour...thats what I spent today working on!8 hours in the print workshop , an aching pair of feet later , I still need to do more tweaking until I'm happy with all the colours and get the fabric dyes looking exactly as I want them too.

It is as painful as it sounds, but I realised while working today that there wasn't anything else I'd rather being doing and even not succeeding at colour matching was better than doing something I didn't love!

I did take photos of our print workshop and our dye dungeon lab to show you..in the next post!

Thanks for your time and support everyone(you know who you are!)I really do hope you love reading this as much as I love writing it and sharing it with you!

Until tomorrow...

T

Bull's Eye!

Hello friends ....three posts later, if you're still reading then I think its time to introduce you to the BIG GUN of this semester...The one , The only, FINAL MAJOR PROJECT!
This one is a BIG deal because its going to be the feature at my graduate exhibition in December ( more on that in the months to come...)
I've had to really think this project through and now have to put in everything and more to make it work!
So,first things first.Under the broader umbrella of being a textile designer , comes my area of specialisation,pretty much like being a doctor and specialising in surgery...Equate this to textiles...Im a textile designer with a major in screen printing and surface pattern!

Image credit

SNEAK PEEK of what Screen Printing is.I won't go into too much detail of what its all about because in the weeks to come I'll have a photographic documentation of the whole process,which by the way is SUPER EXCITING to watch!

In the meantime, the first thing to do was to decide WHAT this project would be about. We had free reign to do whatever our heart desired. Normally this kind of freedom when applied to life is AWESOME, but when it comes to making a design decision, I personally DREAD IT! I like working within constraints and a brief set by someone, so open-ended projects aren't my best friends.


However, after a couple of weeks of NO ideas,lots of research figuring out what I DONT want to do...it finally came to me one lazy Sunday afternoon while I was pointlessly trawling about on Facebook I mean the internet!


Here's a peek into my design report which is a document that explains my concept, inspiration and design plan for my project.


Here we go...!

PROJECT CONCEPT!

Project title and front cover...Do you sense a theme ? Does the styling remind  you of something? :)
I'll talk more about the concept and inspiration behind my project next post,for now this will have to do.In the meantime, feel free to interpret as you wish!

Snapshot of the others pages. I will break them down and explain in the next few posts. Key areas of study are 
1.Colour (ofcourse)
2.Design inspiration (in this case Ancient Indian Architecture)
3.Printing techniques ( screen printing and digital printing onto cloth)
4. The final product (in this case a fashion collection - hopefully!)


Tomorrow I will be in the screen print workshop mixing colours (yes!again!) but this time in fabric dyes which is twice as meticulous and time consuming!Yay!
Lets see how I go!


Have a Happy Monday everyone (Friday is only 4 days away!) and see you soon,
T

Put a lil'paint on it!

Hey Y'all! Thanks for sticking around ! Makes me happy! :)

Speaking of happy...HAPPY TGIF to everyone! My weekend kind of begins today (CHEEKY!) because I don't have uni tomorrow but that said , I do have my very first project deadline tomorrow (more on that next time!) and today was quite a packed day as well!

However the day started off a little left off centre with me sleeping through my alarm and waking up blissfully at 9.00 am for a 9.30 class! Eeep! Lucky I've learnt over the years to take the 'Oh sh*t' out of situations like that and put in the 'LOL' into it! Works like a charm...

Anywhoo, at uni I spent some time discussing my take on the Oriental theme for my project.

I've called my project 'Akina' which is Japanese for 'Spring flower'...quite fitting I thought! 

This board is a work in progress and will get refined as my project evolves, but for now its my starting point for colour , pattern and design inspiration!

Before, the design brainstorm begins,comes the process of what I like to call 'THE ART of colour mixing'

I have specific set of colours that I have to work with and because this project involves alot of hand painting...I have to mix these colours up in a textile specific paint called , gouache (have fun pronouncing it as you like!)

Check it out !

Ready set ! paint , pantone deck , patience , iPod , iPad (+ masterchef finale!)

Colour is key in textile design. It defines the mood of the collection and is a HUGE selling point when it comes to commercial design...So its important to get it right..

We have a match! or not...it IS as meticulous as it looks but I actually find the process quite enjoyable and with time + experience it gets much easier than it looks!

I had all my  (6) colours mixed and ready to go after about 3 hours of mix and match! What I do with them ? Well, you might have to stay tuned for that one! :)

LATER TODAY...

WHO NEEDS CANDY!!! The paint section at an art store in the city...DROOL!

As weird as this sounds, sometimes I just like to stop and stare...

THATS ALL FOLKS!

Back soon,

T

Couch traveller!

I remember reading somewhere that books allow people to travel the world whilst sitting on their couch...

Sometimes I feel like textile design makes me feel the same way...I feel like I can learn and immerse myself into a particular culture or a period of the past purely through flicking through an amazing book on textiles and its connection with a particular place.

In the textile world we often look to culture rich countries for inspiration and pattern ideas.We draw on inspiration from the master craftsmen and textile experts of these cultures and attempt to break it down and allow it to inspire our own interpretation so that we can create contemporary textile designs with a traditional soul...

SO! Where am I going with all of this...?

Well, this semester Im working on a project for a home wares brand , Ladelle and part of our briefing included three themes from which we had to choose one to base our personal projects on.

The themes were Oriental, Floral and Professional. Having never done a far east inspired print collection I decided to go with the oriental theme.

The designs are for a collection of kitchen textiles including aprons,tea towels,oven mitts and so on. Its a very commercial brief so ' WILL THE CUSTOMER BUY IT' is a question I need to focus on while designing.

First step however is to : RESEARCH and so my 'couch travel ' begins...

And because words are too fancy ( and can be slightly boring ! ) I'm going to let the photo do the talking!

I love the www. but I also love books. So when it comes to researching a project I often use a combination of both....Books for some beautiful traditional inspiration and the internet is great for contemporary ideas.

Also ephemera ie:  things lying around the house that I've hoarded for years can come in handy...like that origami paper flower I've had since 2007...!)


I'll be back tomorrow with more details on my final concept board and my initial design doodles or 'textile croquis' as we officially call them !
Tomorrows a big day in the studio getting messy with paint,inks, watercolour and all those sort of lovely things!
Until then...
T

NOT FASHION...TEXTILES !

Hello friends, family and anyone else reading!

WELCOME! to the final lap of my journey with textile training! Hopefully this end marks a new beginning but for now I plan to focus on and soak in every 'last time I will...' moment of my final semester.

For the past three years I have shared (on and off) aspects of my creative life but this time I want to dedicate this space to the 'behind the scenes' action and what it takes to do what I do and how I personally go about doing it...

So whether your an accountant or a pilot or an IT tech or maybe a textile enthusiast yourself, I hope you find my tales fascinating , colourful and hopefully inspiring!

Before I launch into any more posts I just want to share with you in a sentence or two an accurate definition of what all this TEXTILES business is all about! 

So..

With a little help from Wikipedia ...

Textile designing involves producing patterns for cloth used in clothing, household textiles and decorative textiles. The field encompasses the actual pattern making as well as supervising part or all of the production process.In other words, textile design is a process from the raw material into finished product. Fiber, yarn and finishes are the key elements to be considered during the textile design procedure.

And coz us textile geeks believe in the ' no post without picture' policy here's one of what my desk looks like at the moment!

Back soon,

T