Collections A1 Boards

JW Anderson A1 board

Thursday 14th November

Today we carried on with our group work, i created my invite and poster design using the drawings from another group member.

I plan on printing this onto acetate to fit with our theme of Solid Air, I also decided on the models that i would use on the catwalk. below are 2 examples:

I decided that the models would need to have a "Victorian look" to suit in with the past J.W.Anderson's models. They also needed to have a slightly edgy look especially the men. 

We had a group meeting today to see where everyone was with their work and to make sure all our work was going to work well together and look like it was from the same collection. For tomorrow i will have all of my prep work done so i can finalise all my plans tomorrow and look for the location. I am really pleased with how well our group is working together and how our ideas are coming together.

November 11th 2013 - Industry (2 week project) DAY 1

Today we were split into groups of 6 and each and were given a designer, my group had J.W.Anderson, we then had to plan a concept for Autumn winter 2014 and plan the catwalk. In our group we had 2 fashion designers, 2 textiles designers and 2 promotors. I was given the task of marketing, meaning i was planning the catwalk, picking models, designing invitations, deciding who would go to the catwalk and advertising the show. Today i worked on making moodboards as inspiration and working around our tittle of "Solid Air". We had lots of ideas as a group, and discussed them all together and created a group moodboard before working seperatly to come up with ideas for our own work. We created a mini presentation to present to the rest of the class, which is here, it shows our roles, concepts and inspiration.

 Our roles 

 J.W.Anderson mind map 

overall presentation

what worked and why? 

Our ideas together worked really well and i was really pleased at how well we worked together and that our discussions were fair and that we all were able to put forward our ideas. 

I was quite surprised by how quickly we formed our ideas, and got how ideas flowing so that we could come up with a good concept that we could all work on together and individually.

By thursday i will have all my moodboards and inspiration ready and thought through in my sketchbook, and start preparing my rough ideas for the layout of the show and the models to use.

I looked on J.W.Anderson's, Instagram and took screenshots to get a grasp of how he promotes himself and what his lifestyle is like. i found this very helpful as it gave me more of an idea about him so i can therefore plan this to suit his type of work.

18th October - Knitting day 3

what worked and why? 

I really liked how my large sample with 5, although there were a couple of mistakes the whole piece looks very effective. 

How can i prepare for next week? 

make sure that i have completed my booklet of knitting techniques. 

Today was a day for finishing off all my samples, learning to cast off and completing a big piece of knitting which i really enjoyed. 

16th October - knitting day 2

what worked and why?
I really enjoyed incorporating another colour into the knitting and really liked the effect that it created. 

what didn't work and why?
i really struggled with the orange peel as i couldn't get the effect right, and i made my sample too small so that you could not tell it was diagonal.

what, if anything, surprised me?
I really liked how simple and effective the weaving was once you, had a good width ribbon and got into the rhythm, i really liked how the effect looked on both the right and wrong side of the knit. 

what could i have done differently/ better?
I would have liked to have done my fringing better as i think i should have used a thicker ribbon to create a more full look and to have put them closer together.

How can i prepare for tomorrow?
Finish off all my current samples and bring in more ribbons, to create more samples. 

Monday 14th October - Knitting week

what worked and why? 

I got the hang of the basic knit and then became very comfortable doing the basic knit on the machine and how to set up the machine.

what didn't work and why? 

I really struggled with the more complicated knits, like the cable knit as i could not swap over the yarn to the correct places and just ended up with holes in my knitting. 

what could i have done differently/ better? 

I would like to have had a chance to pracise more on my different styles so i could create an effective looking piece of knitting

How can i prepare for wednesday? 

To go over all the notes i wrote and to summarise them and write them out clearly so that i understand how to do each type of knitting we were shown.

Digital print Week

(A1 board on Digital print- authors own) 

what worked and why? - my use of colours and my use of various prints and objects to make my patterns.

what didn't work and why? - my pattern overlaying each other and trying to make my patterns look like they are really on the garments. 

what, if anything, surprised me? - the ability to easily manipulate images so easily on photoshop, and to learn how to make a repeat pattern.

what could i have done differently/ better? - try to experiment more with colours and scale and using repeats, which i plan to do more and come up with some more designs, i also want to render the prints to my own drawings to create a personalised collection. 

How can i prepare for tomorrow, next week, project etc? All my print variations will be finished before monday and my sketchbook will be up to date so that i can focus on my knitwear next week 

Week beginning the 30th September

This week was all about my final outcome, we also were taught the basics of how to create a fashion film, we worked in groups to come up with a concept and  story line and then wrote and drew it all out. I enjoyed doing this as it made me understand how to set up my film and how to plan it so the minimal about of things go wrong.

what worked and why?
Our timeline worked very well and we could easily imagine our final outcome, it taught me a lot about how to plan my own film and i now feel i can do this with confidence.

what, if anything, surprised me?
How much more efficient it is to fully plan out every part of my film before i shoot it.

How can i prepare for tomorrow, next week, project etc?
By getting all my planning for my film done so that i can focus on next week which is digital print. 

Tate Modern visit

The exhibition, Energy and process at the Tate Modern, the photographer was William Eggleston, and Simon Baker and Shoair Mavlian curated the exhibition. It as about Life today, when asked Eggleston says he purely photographs life today.

The exhibition is retrospective in the pretense that it is being viewed today and not when the photos were taken. The exhibition is not laid out chronologically, but the photos are still easy to follow. The images are from two collections, Chromes from 1969-1974 and Election Eve was taken in the run up to the 1976 presidential election and records a road trip. Both collections show his distinct style, and his interest in bold colours and cars, also with a mixture of strangers he meets on his travels.

The exhibition was incredibly well laid out and easy to look at, all the photos were at eye level in simplistic black frames, which made the exhibition flow very well.

The work represents daily life in his hometown, in Tennessee, the work is simplistic but very effective.

This work is inspirational as it is so simplistic and could inspire many to elaborate on his basic principles. There is a lot of work you could do from this, you could explore a lot with colour and compostion.

“Whatever it is about pictures, photographs, it’s just about impossible to follow up with words. They don’t have anything to do with each other.”

Friday 27th September

Today we edited our photos from our photo shoots we had taken over the week, i took over 150 photos and narrowed it down to 12 and then to my 4 final ones, i then edited these. I enjoyed today as i liked choosing my photos and displaying them. I really did not enjoy the crit as it made me very self conscious of my work, and i felt uncomfortable doing it.
I know i need to work on talking about my work and being confident to talk about my work, i really enjoyed seeing everyones work, i found some shoots very inspiring, and i left today with lots of ideas of how i could develop my shoot.

Wednesday 25th September

Today we looked at trend reporting, on the tuesday we were asked to look in shops and look at current trends, i chose to do online shops, so i looked at net-a-porter.com and matches.com, the main trends i found were leather and tartan. I enjoyed putting together our A1 trend boards, and organising together the pictures into mini groups of different areas of the trend. I also enjoyed looking at the cultural influences behind the trends.

Monday 23rd September

Today we had an introductory talk on Photo shoots and styling, then we showed each other the photos we had taken to show our personality , i really didn't enjoy this part, because i hate having to talk about myself and to describe something i have done.
We then went on to create our moodboards that would inspire our photo shoot, i enjoyed this and found it very helpful so i could come up with ideas for my shoot.
In the afternoon we used pieces we had bought in to style each other , i found this really fun, i did however not like using other peoples props as i was so terrified i was going to break something. I plan to shoot my photo shoot over the course of the next to days so i can start editing them, before friday.

A1 board for design collection

Prep for accessory making

A1 board, with final piece

Final Headpiece

Friday 20th September

Today i created my design, a headpiece, and i created an ear cuff. i found the process quite enjoyable and i liked creating a 3D piece. i was pleased with the overall outcome of my headpiece as i felt it was very effective and wearable.
After i finished making my prototypes, i went on to drawing them and recording them in as many ways as possible. if i could have had more materials at my disposal i would have liked to have made more jewellery pieces following a similar style to create a collection, of bangles, earings, necklaces etc.
At the beginning of the week i was really struggling with being creative but as the week as progressed i have thought of a lot of new ways to be creative and to explore different ways to design.

Wednesday 18th September

Today we worked on developing our designs for our accessory piece, first we collaged our design onto a magazine tear, then i took this and traced over them. i then decided on some final designs, then worked into my final chosen design.

I really enjoyed today as i could easily manipulate my designs and used various layers to design my final piece. i also thought a lot about what materials i would use to make my design and how i would stick it all together.

Monday 16th September

Today we started looking at accessories design, we took inspiration from a special object, i used a perfume bottle. we then had to record the object in as many ways as possible, i used photocopying, overlapping tracing paper and used different colours to draw the bottle. I enjoyed today as it was clearly set out and we could see how our work was developing.

When we had to create 3D shapes i struggled more as my object was rounded it was hard to make it 3D again, so i decided to overlap the images and then turn them into a circle so that it became a 3D piece, i found this quite easy once i had tried lots of ways of making it 3D.  I enjoyed incorporating my main colour (blue) as it is now a theme across my sketchbook. and shows the links to my personality.

Friday 13th September

Today we focused on creating our final collection and collating this on an A1 board, i found this quite stressful, as i struggled to be continuously creative and to plan out the space on my A1 board correctly, i ended up working on A0. I found that it was a lot more time consuming than i previously thought and i felt like i should have been more prepared with my flats so that i could spend more time on my sketches and so that everything would have fitted on one A1 sheet

Wednesday 11th September

Today we started by creating our unique symbol, i used the D in my initials then manipulated it to create an interesting shape. when i was happy with the symbol, i then made 15 copies of it in a 15cm squared size then a one 1m x 50cm, out of brown paper. With this paper we created shapes on a dummy then moved around each others work to create pieces on each others work. once this was finished we went back to work on our original dummy and created four different looks, which we photographed. We then drew from our dummies, and turned them into sketches of garments.

I really enjoyed creating shapes on the dummies as i found it easier to get my point across, i like quite a few of the designs i came up with and found them very inspirational for my drawings. I have learnt that in some cases it is better to go straight to working 3D rather than sketches so you can explore the shapes on a body rather than drawing on paper. I think my use of creating shape, and making the waist evident was very successful, i also thought about how i would achieve this look on a garment. i was not happy with how some of my sketches came out as i did not feel that they showed the movement of the garment ( i later worked on this is in my final sketches).

Looking at New York Fashion Week trends was our work to do, i selected various trends that i saw come up across various designers.

Week two, Day one (9th September 2013)

Our first task of the day was doing as many drawings in 5 minutes, we then went on to develop these. In the afternoon, we practised drawing our basic body shape, which was a lot more complicated than first thought.

 I really didn't enjoy this task as i really struggle with drawing and it is my biggest weakness, although i felt that i did become more comfortable doing it as the day went on. i have learnt how to draw faster and an easier way to get my thoughts across. this will help me to draw down my ideas faster and also how to abstract and develop from my original symbol. 

I think my final drawings are successful as they get my point across, and they show sufficient detail, i am also happy with my body outline, i photocopied it, so i could edit the size, and have multiple copies of it. i wasn't happy with my drawing technique for a large proportion of the day, as i struggle with it a lot. I also really struggled to come up with lots of very creative designs and to abstract the shapes from my original symbol, which was my glasses. 

Week one

Monday 2^nd September

Day one:

We were introduced to the brief, and were asked to explore and explain the items we had bought in (10 items that represented/ had memories from your past and present) we then photographed them and sketched them. I then stated and analysed why I had chose these items, and what they meant to me and how they made me who I am.

Tuesday 3^rd September

Day two (SDS):

Today I created my 3D moodboard based on my personal objects, I decided on a colour for each aspect of myself and outlined the object with that colour so I could keep it organised. I then photographed it and added text to I, so I could put it into my sketchbook easily.

Wednesday 4^th September

Day three:

We worked on creating a mind map about ourselves and as we got further out in the branches the words became more abstract. I then selected 10 words to find pictures of, this was to create a moodboard, and then we did a mini workshop on how to create an effective moodboard.

Thursday 5^th September

Day four (SDS):

I created my final moodboard on A1 paper of my images to describe myself, I used pictures from the national geographic greatest photographs book, and various pop and hunger magazine articles, to create an interesting moodboard.

Friday 6^th September 5

Day five:

Today we had a talk on our sketchbooks and how we should present them, we then individually did work on our sketchbooks and had a one on one with our tutor about our work and which way we want to go with our work. I was set work to look at 2 new stylists and 2 new illustrators (in theatre) and to look at the work of Rebecca Horn.

Weekly summary:

This week we did a lot of initial research on our brief, and we explored different aspects of our personalities. I then decided what I wanted to look into more and to be prepared for next week which is design development.