First Stages and working within a Group

Unit X College 2-Diane Harrison Live Brief

I have chosen this brief as I was instantly drawn to the interior aspect; In future I see my career being within interior print design and so I am determined to use this project to add to my portfolio.

We have been split into small groups and the theme for our group is 

Eccentricity
http://www.aestheticamagazine.com/expressive-eccentricity

We researched lots of visual representations of this theme, we had a brainstorm which I think gave lots of ideas. I think the final outcome was very bright and demonstrated our starting point well, I feel that I had learnt alot about the theme, as we considered most aspects of Eccentricity.Working in a group I think is a good skill to have as it made me understand that collaboration will always be apparent within the world of art.
 Working as part of a group I realised how diverse approaches to a theme can be, people work in very different ways and collaboration is effective and important to develop a theme to its full potential. I feel that we all brought different artistic ideas together, that I would have not neccessarily considered brainstorming on my own. I will use this useful tool of collaborating within my future practice. I also understood the imporatance of being punctual and using time effectively; we had to make sure that all our work was brought together on time for the presentation.

 Despite initially being excited about Eccentricity I felt restricted within the theme.I think it was because I struggled to think about what I could initially draw. I was really inspired listening to the other groups presentations about their topics they had researched. This resulted in me deciding to change my theme to Evolution. I was excited by the organic feel to this theme, I liked the diversity of this starting point. I also wanted to make sure that I had lots of visual resources around me to work and draw from; reflecting on my last project I found it difficult not to have photographs to draw from from my own research. I wanted to make sure I had a stable theme which  would mean I could be influenced by a gallery or musuem; I instantly thought about the Manchester Museum, which would give me plenty of visual research to work with. 

To get my ideas rolling I ve signed up to Pinterest., this helps to create a digital mood board to give my theme a really strong starting point. I ve started my mood board for Evolution...

http://pinterest.com/sophieschwarz4/evolution/

I chose these designs as my final collection. 

Evaluation

I have entered two competitions; the Digitex Brief and Threadless 'Sock' Competition, my patterns are bold and bright and overall I am happy with my final collection. I have mostly spent this project enhancing my digital portfolio and have also created a Behance account to help with my networking;

http://www.behance.net/SophieSchwarz

 

 I have enjoyed working with lots of colour and finding out lots about the lifestyle for the housewives of the 1950s. It was an exciting vibrant time and I have learnt a lot and now have a good knowledge of the time.

The company Sanderson have produced an iconic 1950s Wallpaper colloection, I love the colours they use.

For this project I have used mostly photoshop but have had workshop introductions into Illustrator. I am finding Illustrator quite difficult! But I realise with practice using photoshop and Illustrator together will be very beneficial. This is my first simple repeat in Illustrator, it is a lot easier to do a simple repeat pattern within this program. (CS6) Is the easiest.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2115518/The-terrace-time-forgot-Domestic-life-1950s-Britain-captured-Liverpool-home.html

I have mostly now refined my project by drawing lots of domestic items from the time. It was important for households to have the latest gadgets.