Description of Project

My project is based on the theme of "Fantasy Vs. Reality" and for the final outcome I have designed a series of prints for a Ted Baker home ware collection based on this theme. The main objective of this project was to visually combine aspects of "Reality" to create a new "Fantasy" version of it, changing people's perception of the world around them. The creation of another world might be what some people do regularly as a form of escapism from their reality. I wanted to communicate the fact that everyone does this is some way or another wether they do it to get away from stressful situations or to imagine what their life would be like if they had done things differently.

Review/Evaluation

For my final project outcome I have designed a series of prints for a Ted Baker home ware collection. I did originally intend to print my designs onto fabric to be made into home ware products but the actual content of my designs differs from my original plans in my project proposal. Initially I aimed to make my surface designs more illustrative, perhaps using more traditional methods such as drawing and painting. I have still integrated these methods within my designs however I have merged them with digital photography on computer software that is much less traditional.

I have used my sketchbook as well as my blog to note down and document my inspiration and contextual research from other artists/designers. During the project I used a smaller sketchbook to make rough notes and jot down quick ideas that came to mind whilst also using a larger A3 sketchbook to present and organise my ideas, making them clearer for myself and others to understand. I liked having the smaller and slightly messier sketchbook as it was useful when talking to tutors to make notes and write down any ideas they had that I liked and that I thought might make my project stronger. For example one tutor suggested I make posters or tags for my collection of prints, and with the smaller sketchbook I was able to note this idea before I forgot and make any quick sketches of ideas for possible tags.

I have experimented with different methods of creating imagery, both practically and digitally. I have also met my target of applying my own designs to products such as bed linen and cushions. During the project I decided to create a series of prints for a collection of home ware for Ted Baker. This was to add more graphic elements to my project and I achieved this by photographing my cushions and presenting them on a poster as well as creating tags for the collection.

During the project we were set a mini additional project to work on with Lense-based media pathway students, encouraging us to combine our themes to create something collaborative. By combining our topics we came up with some ideas for an animation that allowed me to look at my topic from a different perspective. I originally thought my theme of “Fantasy vs. Reality” should be based on fairy-tale illustrations but this project made me think of how these conflicting themes could include the act of transporting a person from their “reality” into a distorted/”fantasy” version of it, leading me to create various layered images that I used in my final outcome.

In a one to one talk with a tutor they suggested that I should find a purpose for my designs, giving them a reason to exist. This therefore led me to research companies that I could design a collection for. In one of my group crit’s a student pointed out that my designs reminded her of prints used by the brand Ted Baker. Because of this student’s comment, when researching companies to design for I looked up Ted Baker and ended up basing my final outcome on producing a collection of prints for them.

At the beginning of the project I was a bit stuck for ideas and felt that my topic was very limited. I eventually found inspiration to progress my project but it might have been helpful to do more experimentation in the earlier stages of the project. I have also learnt to be less reluctant about experimenting with new equipment/forms of production, as despite the stress and being worried about fabric printing, I was really happy with the outcomes and was glad I tried something new. I really liked this process and although I am going onto do an illustration course next year, I am starting to think about going into a career in textile design or using this method more in my future practices.

Week 7- Final touches (tags, photoshoot, poster and planning for display)

After having a previous talk to one of my tutors about things I could do to steer my project in more of a graphic design route rather that one that was based mainly on textile design, I decided to make tags and a poster, advertising and helping others to understand the inspiration behind my ideas.

I did some initial sketches of possible tags thinking about incorporating my earlier experiments with printing my designs on tracing paper and allowing the partly transparent nature of this material to work with text. 

I started off by experimenting with various combinations of printing the title of the collection on tracing paper with the print, having both the title of and the logo behind the print and visa versa. Another tutor suggested incorporating a quote of some kind into the tag, either from a piece of literature or from me explaining what the ethos behind the various prints as my designs are more on the illustrative side, or an explanation of the ideas behind the images. Having experimented with putting a quote from "Alice in Wonderland" behind my image on tracing paper before, I thought a quote from this famous tale could be a possibility. The story is all about a girl who is transported into a fantasy world where aspects of reality seem to be distorted. This echoes the basis for my project, where I have attempted to layer images and illustrations that people might recognise, creating a new image/composition that changes their perception or it. This therefore distorts reality, transporting them from their reality into a fantasy version of it.
I originally planned on using the same quote I used in my earlier experimentation, however I thought this became less and less relevant and that there might be other quotes from the book that were perhaps stronger in portraying my thoughts and ideas behind the project. When looking I found this one that talks about Alice  creating her own imaginary world, and in a sense that is what I have done, creating various mythical forms of the world we live in.

"If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what it is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?"

The creation of another world might be what some people do regularly as a form of escapism from their reality and I wanted to communicate the fact that everyone does this is some way or another as everyone has aspects of their life that they might want to change or would have liked to have turned out differently.

This quote from this particular story also seemed very fitting as the new film "Alice through the looking Glass" is coming out in the next few weeks. Perhaps if a parent was looking to design a child's room around this theme they might go to Ted Baker to buy products from this collection as the idea behind the prints relates to the story.

After doing a few of these trials I decided that the layout of the tag as well as the colour and form of the typography wasn't working so I seeked advice from a tutor. She suggested that I take from one of the previous typography experiments seen bellow.

What was particularly good about this one was the centring of the typography in the middle of the flower petals, so they almost form an arc around the writing, framing it. The typography its self was quite soft looking and flowed nicely which was a good contrast from the busy image behind both in colour and composition.

I decided to print this same design on the tracing paper whilst having the title of my project/the name of the collection printed on the front of the tag. The logo and my name would then be printed on the other side, making the layout more simple than the original experiments. Because the images are so busy I thought that this was necessary in order to include all the different components. 

Whilst in John Lewis I also picked out a number of different coloured ribbons to go with the colours in the pattern and the printed fabrics. I will then use safety pins to attach the tags to the cushions via the ribbons. Overall I was quite happy with the crafty look of the tags.

Initially I wanted to take pictures of the final products in my local woodland where some of the original images used to make the prints were taken, bringing whats inside the cushions back into the external landscape. However it had rained a couple of times in the days before the photoshoot and I didn't want to ruin the cushions by risking them getting muddy. I still wanted to photograph them surrounded by aspects of nature as this was one of my many forms of inspiration throughout the project and so I decided to take them on my balcony where greenery from one of the trees in my garden creeps over one of the walls.

In some of the photos I have embedded the cushions in the branches and leaves, and I felt the bright green of the leaves really complimented the bright colours in the prints. Whilst doing the photoshoot I thought about how the cushions might be used for outdoor living, such as on garden benches or chairs due to their close relation to nature imagery.
I therefore decided to photograph them on a garden chair, putting them into context and giving viewers an idea of how they could be used.

Despite having doubts about this new location I was actually very pleased with the resulting photographs and thought that the surroundings worked well to compliment and enhance the different prints on the cushions.

Planning for the display was tricky as we were told that we had limited room and so I thought that I might not be able to include everything that I wanted. Without seeing the space set up it was additionally hard to plan for what pieces might go where and if I needed to cut down on what I was showing. I originally wanted to maybe have a board and a table, putting the big printed piece of fabric as wall art on the board along with a poster and having the cushions and the swatches on the table so that people could look through the different fabrics and prints. However closer to the time I thought that this might not be possible as I might not be able to have both means of displaying my work. On the day of setting up I brought everything in and it was decided that I could put the cushions in a large circular window low to the ground.  

You can often see people sitting in these at Ravensbourne, almost using them as window seats so it seemed quite fitting that this form of comfort was placed in this particular spot as it puts them in another context, giving the viewer an additional idea of how they might be used.

We also discovered that the print looked nice against the window so that the light could shine though it enhancing the different colours. Despite being very tricky to find a way that this could be suspended suitably, it definitely  solved the problem of finding enough room for all my display pieces as I could then pin my poster on the chip board along with the swatches.

Although the display took a long time to set up I was really happy with the final layout and thought it was better than what I had originally planned.

Week 6- Making cushions

After printing my designs onto my chosen fabrics last week I started making my cushions. I looked on various websites such as ikea to find out how to make them and discovered some useful tips such as leaving at least a 1.5 cm rim around the design for a seem allowance.

Making the cushions was a longer process than I thought as the softer fabric (85% polyester and 15% cotton) frayed very easily so I had to go around each of the separate components with a zigzag stitch on the sewing machine to stop it fraying. I then had to loosely stitch the different components before using the sewing machine. I wanted to make the backs of the cushions different colours/different materials to make them a bit more interesting. I saw a couple of cushions in John Lewis that had a printed front and a velvet back.





















I liked how this looked and decided to do this for at least one of the cushions. It was hard to find the right fabrics and colours to match but luckily I found a purple velvet that went nicely with the leaf pattern and decided to allocate this design with the velvet backing. I have never properly used a sewing machine before so this is definitely a new skill I have learnt whilst doing this project. I also surprisingly found this very enjoyable and will definitely use it more in any future projects.

I am going to have 4/5 cushions in the final display and have made 3 already. So far I am happy with the way they have turned out. On one of them I decided to sew a piping around the edge, although this was the longer and most tedious option, I thought the pink material used for the piping enhanced the pink in the design nicely.

I will also display some of the printed designs as wall art, partly because of time and space constraints but also because I thought it might be nice just to have it as artwork particularly using the shiny fabric.

Once the cushions are finished I will need to photograph them for my display as there will not be enough room to display all the prints as cushions and the fabric artworks. I was thinking about doing this in my local park/woodland where some of the images in the designs where taken. I will then be bringing the images inside the cushions/on the fabric back into the external landscape, drawing parallels between the cushions and the surroundings. This therefore further relates to my theme of Fantasy Vs. Reality as the image within the cushions will be a distorted version of the external scenery and will therefore act as a sort of portal from the real woodland into a parallel fantasy version of it.

Today (Friday 6th May) I printed smaller A5 versions of the designs on each of the fabrics which I used and will use these to make little swatch books. The viewers can therefore look through the different prints and the effect the different fabrics have on them, making the purpose of the final outcome slightly more professional. I am going to make tags that will be attached to the cushions stating the name of the collection of prints for the brand Ted Baker. I will probably start making and designing these next week.

Fabric printing- Week 5

I was told by the technician on Wednesday that the designs would be transferred onto my chosen fabric via heat transfer paper. I was slightly worried at this point that the prints would turn out like my earlier experiments of using heat transfer paper that you can put in your printer at home. I really didn't want the feeling/texture of the designs to turn out really stiff and plasticy like it did before. Anyway I went about preparing my file to print, this had to be in Tiff format, I wasn't really sure how to do this but it ended up just being a case of changing the file format when you save it. The art work that I was sending to the printer had to be a maximum with of 140cm as that was the width of the big rolling heat press that is used to transfer the ink from the paper onto the fabric, and then the length was how many metres you wanted to print.   

On Thursday I went to John Lewis to get my fabric. I was told the previous day that the fabric had to be as close to 100% synthetic as any lesser content of man made fibre could result in colours bleeding and fading. However when looking for appropriate fabrics it was really hard to find 100% synthetic fabric with a nice feel/texture to it so I ended up getting 2 metres of one that was 85% polyester and 15% cotton which was surprisingly quite soft. I also got 2 metres of another much thicker white fabric that was 100% polyester with a shinier finish. This at the time was my least favourite of the two.

The process of preparing the artwork took quite long as I had to find out the measurements I wanted to make my cushions and resize the images to fit into these squares. The designs that I produced were regular landscape rectangles so a lot of the time I had to crop out some of the image so that it fitted into the square shape of the cushions. This was not ideal as every time I did this I lost some of the image. This is perhaps something I should have thought of before making my designs. Despite the lengthly process the format and preparation of the designs was easier than I originally thought as earlier on in the project I was worried about learning how to repeat patterns on photoshop as I had only just come to terms with the basics of this software.

Printed on 85% polyester + 15% cotton

 Printed on 100% polyester

I decided to print two metres. When preparing the fabric and paper to go into the heat press, I accidentally cut the fabric too short and so I couldn't put it through the roller. Luckily there is a smaller heat press for smaller works, so I used this to print the medium square cushions (40cm by 40cm) on the lesser man made fabric. I had to cut out the design on the paper and also a piece of fabric the same size. I then placed the piece of fabric down first and the paper on top of it with the design facing the fabric. This process was quick as after 30 seconds it was done and the revealing of the printed design was really exciting. 

I particularly liked the bottom right print on the picture above. Originally this is the design that I was more reluctant to have printed as I thought I would be too bright and busy for the look that I had in mind but the fabric toned this done a bit and I really liked how the colours turned out.

The second piece of artwork that I had printed contained cushions (60cm by 60cm) that were too big to put in the smaller heat press so the bigger rolling one was necessary. Having learned from my previous mistake of cutting the other fabric too short, I made sure that there was enough fabric for the paper this time.

The larger rolling heat press made the prints a lot more consistent that the smaller heat press as pressure was constantly being applied and moved around the different areas of the paper and fabric. This along with the fact that this fabric had a higher content of man made fibres and that it had a shinier finish made for a much better look with brighter colours and more detail.

I was really pleased with how the prints turned out as this process produced outcomes that were very different to the result of using heat transfer paper you can use in your printer at home. The feel of it was not rigid at all and area the design was printed on felt just like the rest of the fabric as it was essentially just the inks that were transferred not any additional coating on the paper.

Pick Me Up exhibition at Somerset House- week 5

I also went to the "Pick Me Up" exhibition at somerset house featuring top emerging illustrators and designers as well as more established names in graphic arts.

Being interested in illustration in particular, I thought this would be something quite useful for me, but there actually didn't seem like there was a lot of work exhibited as it was mainly set up for people to attend the different workshops.

Some of the artwork was a bit irrelevant to my project and wasn't the sort of style I was interested in. However upstairs there was lots of different workshops set up but unfortunately the ones that I would have liked to have tried weren't opporating on that day. 

One of the workshops was screen printed, this was a process that I really wanted to try and that might have helped with accomplishing my task of experimenting with different methods of fabric printing. However it cost £9 to print on one bag and I didn't really think this was worth the money. Nonetheless it was really interesting to see the equipment used for this process and the outcomes it could produce.

I really liked how the white typography on this bag worked against the black background, this is quite similar to one of my designs with a mainly black composition and hint of bright colour. This was originally a piece that I wasn't sure about and didn't like as much when printed on fabric however the success of this composition increased my confidence in my design.

I also liked the look of these detailed illustrative prints on the t-shirts they were selling as some featured one main illustration and some prints were composed of repeats of various smaller images.

In one of the shops there was also this selection of painted mugs/pottery. I actually really liked how this process looked; printing my designs on pottery is perhaps another area of homeware design I could have addressed if I had more time with this project.

These printed stickers also looked quite bold and quirky if I had more time I could have maybe designed some stickers to go with and advertise my collection of prints for Ted Baker.

Although typography is not usually the area I am most interested in or good at, I really liked these colourful pieces by Alan Kitching. I particularly liked the almost spontaneous looking merging of colours that happened whilst using the letterpress and the layering of letters slightly relates to my process of layering images to create the different designs in my project.

Week 5- Application of designs

On Friday of week 4 I had a talk with one of my tutors about the progress of my project. At this point I was only thinking about producing the actual prints to transfer onto fabric, therefore it seemed much more like a textiles project than a graphics project. The tutor put forward the idea of giving the designs a reason to exist, suggesting that my prints could be used for a fashion/homeware brand's collection e.g. spring/summer 2017.
I agreed that my project needed an extra push as I was feeling a bit stuck and limited with ideas, however I was a bit hesitant about what she suggested as I thought I may not be able to accomplish all the branding and advertising elements of the idea as I didn't know wether there would be enough time for that as well as producing more designs and doing the actual fabric printing.
Despite my initial reluctance we decided that I could produce a collection for an existing brand rather than making my own as this would be like doing 2 projects in one, something I might have been able to do at the beginning of FMP but probably not 4 weeks in.

I then got to brainstorming ideas of how I could tailor my final outcome around this new idea. I thought about making my final outcome a display of the chosen brand's new collection, showing this through a poster, magazine spread or leaflet and maybe an example of the printed fabric.

I decided that the first thing I needed to do was find a brand for which my designs might be relevant so that my collection would fit in with the brands style or even give it a completely new direction/identity.
My leaf design that I produced last week really reminded me of Adidas' recent clothing collection as they seem to use a lot of interesting prints, incorporating them into their well known "trefoil" logo. I therefore experimented with applying my own designs as they have done, using the negative space within their logo to reveal part of my design.

Doing this also lead me to think of another famous sports brand, Nike, and how I might be able to incorporate the same technique that adidas use.

I quite liked both of these outcomes and feel the mock up fitted in well with Adidas' theme and gave the Nike shoes a different look. However I was less keen on designing for a fashion brand and wanted to base my designs for this project on a brand that wasn't as big, as Nike and Adidas are huge world renown brands.

In light of this discovery I started to look at different homeware brands, big and small and the products they usually sell, focusing on their different looks and how my designs might relate/fit in with the ethos of the brands.

I though this was a good opportunity to return to my initial FMP research as at the beginning of the project I was very keen on producing hand-painted/drawn illustrations that could be applied to bedding and other homeware products. One of the brands I was looking at were Bluebellgray who's surface designs/prints are all handprinted and then scanned to create these lovely watercolour illustrated floral prints. As this was part of my initial inspiration, my designs that I have produced so far in the project contain elements seen in these designs, as often I combined both hand drawn and painted images with photographs. Because of this, my designs might fit in well with Bluebellgray's overall look however I feel their designs might be a bit too traditional and therefore my more digitally based prints might seem a bit out of place in their brand.

I also came across this website called "Print all over me" where you can upload your designs and apply them to the product templates/silhouettes they provide. They will then print them and send them to you. You can chose to share your designs with other customers and every time someone purchases your design you'll receive at least 20% of the sale. This seemed like a good alternative to using the facilities at uni to print my fabrics however this was a lot more expensive and I wouldn't get to make the finished products myself.

When researching this I also saw an interesting pattern on a cushion and experimented by doing my own version. 

In addition, I looked at companies including Laura Ashley, Designers Guild and Cath Kidston who do interesting things with different forms of nature imagery. I really liked Laura Ashley and Designer's Guild's use of embroidery to illustrate floral imagery.
I loved how delicate and detailed this looked on the linen and thought that I might be able to do something like this on my printed designs, combining digital fabric printing with embroidery.

In one of my group crits another student said that my designs reminded them a bit of Ted Baker's surface designs on their products. I then went about researching their products and really liked what  I found. Although they included similar themes all of their prints seemed to be very different, wether it was different colour combinations or ways in which the images were created. I really liked their use of collage to create some of their prints and the marble affect they created, not sure how they did the later but I thought about using a spatula or something flat to move acrylic paint across a page and blend different colours together. I also thought this looked quite similar to another student in the graphics group's experimentation dragging type across a scanner. I thought about maybe doing this with one of my images or paintings, the result of which I could layer with other photographs/images to create a marbled affect similar to the Ted Baker prints.

(Water colour splashed scanned and moved)

I then went about applying my designs to pictures of white bedlinen on photoshop. This surprisingly took a long time as it was very hard to make the design look part of the actual bed covers. I did a mixure of cutting out and erasing to try to get the right 3D looks. I thought that this might be a possible way of displaying my designs for the final piece instead of printing the actual fabric, however this wouldn't be as aefective as if the viewer could see and touch the product in real life.



On Wednesday of this week I went to speak to the technician in the prototyping lab about getting my designs printed onto fabric. I was a bit nervous to be honest because I haven't used any of the equipment here before let alone the heat press. Despite my reluctance to go and ask, when I did she was very helpful and it didn't seem as bad as I thought. However I then had to make more designs, get my fabric and go to a pre planned exhibition all in Wednesday evening/Thursday as my booking for the fabric printing was on Friday of this week. Using inspiration from the Ted Baker products that I had looked at earlier on in the week along with some ideas I had, I experimented with layering different images, paintings and drawings on photoshop and by the end of the day on Wednesday I had come up with more designs I could use during my fabric printing session.

I was worried that by doing them in one day they would be rushed and not very well thought out but I ended up being happy with the final outcomes.
Here are a few examples of what I came up with:

Using eraser and lasso tool on photoshop to create a collage effect as seen in some of Ted Baker's designs. To create this I used one of my photographs of woodland that I used earlier on in the project, a picture of a diffusing bath bomb that my sister had taken previously but that I thought would create an interesting effect when layered with other images, a picture of flowers and also a rose taken from google images.

In theory I thought I would really like this outcome however once I had created it I didn't know wether it seemed a bit too busy with all the different images.

For this piece I layered the scanned and moved image of watercolour splashes seen above, the same picture of a diffusing bath bomb and image of flowers from google as used in the one above. However this time I did not do any erasing but experimented with the different layer blending options in photoshop, something I seem to have done a lot of throughout the project... I also thought that this might not work as well when printed on fabric as on screen it seemed to be very bright and I wanted my prints to be slightly more faded and less bold as it might make them less successful.

For this image I layered a photograph of leaves or clovers I took whilst on holiday in easter with a scanned painting of watercolour splashes seen bellow. I again used a layer blending option on photoshop to create this effect and I really liked how the white from the watercolour painting faded some of the photograph to create a quite melancholy image that contrasts to some of the more busy images that I have produced so far.