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.