reflective post on designing!

Ok, so when I went to Hansons fabric shop I had created a few designs, and emailed them to James, however I had not managed to do what I said in my earlier post; and managed to allow time for him to email me back regarding which pf my designs he liked best. I had chosen the two that I liked best, but I still really wanted the final decision to come from him, as it is my primary aim for him to be completely happy with his garments! This was another reason why I was only looking at fabrics at Hansons and getting an idea of what they had! However like I said in my reflection of my shoipping trip to Hansons; this was not really a big issue!

Interestingly, I was originally a little worried about the designing element of this project as I know that I do not possess particularly good human figure drawing skills; hence why I chose to specialise in making this year as opposed to specialising in design! However, from a designer's presentation that we had to attend for the last project, and from my work experience with a designer who was working on Lady GaGa and her dancer's costumes, it was made clear that designing didnt necessarily have to be about drawing; it could be through mood boards, line drawings of your proposed costume without it being 'on' a figure, or even using a model from a magazine and drawing on the computer your clothing design onto them! This therefore reassured me and made me less apprehensive about producing designs! I used several of these processes all of which back up and reinforce each other. To create my drawings I used tracing paper and traced the outline of model's standing positions and faces (to some extent) from magazine cuttings, I then was able to draw onto the bodies my designs and alter the face to look a little like my band member! The mood boards help to support, communicate and illustrate my designs and ideas as they show a colour palette, fabrics I was looking to be using, shapes and styles I liked, and elenments of decoration and decorational features I liked. I created these using photoshop and added notes to them so as when I was designing I knew the key elements I liked of the images I have used for the photomontage boards!

All in all I was very pleased with my initial designs. I did not originally add colour to these, instead I scanned and emailed the samples of the fabrics I had gathered from Hansons that I liked and was looking to use, and scanned a bead that I would be using on any of the designs with beads, along with the other components on some of the others, such as the row of sequins!! I also emailed james the mood boards with the samples so as he could gain an understanding of my direction. On reflection, if the projects time schedule had not of been so tight, I would have posted to him the actual samples or met with him to discuss these, however due to time schedules for both of us and distance; these was not possible. But I do realise this would be more accurate to how industry would work!

I then went on to add colour to the designs, despite my main colour palette being black and smokey grey/ black with elements of a dark red (maroon) or grey/blue!

This just helped to clarify what was what in my designs and relate further to my mood boards!