Evaluation of Intentions

In evaluation, the initial motivation for selecting this concept was a strong desire to choose something that was very much different from what I was used to working with. The idea of working with architecture came about from the urban influences module in which I had to take photographs and complete drawings around the city of Manchester. From this, I found a particular passion for working with these structured inanimate objects and enjoyed fusing with human elements. I felt that this offered a unique perspective and brought the coldness of the architecture to life. It was necessary to develop both drawings and paintings from the architecture photographs and I soon realised that the photographs served as the primary tools to create my final five print designs. As I wanted to display my paintings through my print designs, I used one painting in Photoshop and modified the colours, cropped shapes to create abstract compositions and also zoomed in on certain elements of the painting where the colours contrasted. By doing this, I felt that I managed to create an abstract unique designs that did not mirror my original painting, but maintained certain elements of it.

I have identified that this concept work would be most suited to a high fashion market as it would not suit a mainstream clientele. This is due to the fact that it contains elements which are very much associated with fine art principles. This tends to incorporate meaning into the work and concepts that are presented. Also, my concepts could be deemed edgy and bold, which are also characteristics associated with the high fashion industry. Fashion, print and film fashion designers such as Alexander McQueen and Nick Knight are two of my main inspirations as they incorporate themes which are visually striking and unique. My main motivation in creating these pieces is to instill a sense of vibrancy and excitement in the observer. This to me is ‘art’ as if these vital components are missing, the artist as failed in emotionally stirring the viewer.

I can envisage that my work will be for an upper market clientele and for individuals who like to make a statement in their clothing. The print designs would be best suited for high fashion catwalk clothing such as elaborate dresses in which a greater surface area allows the patterns to be seen more clearly.

The print designers Hannah Werning and Amy Sia have been most influential in the development of my eight print designs. They both tend to use a high level of contrasting colours and this was an elements that I was particularly drawn to in my work. I liked this as it offered a degree of interest and fantasy to the otherwise dull greyscale architecture images. The combination of these two elements created something that instilled much excitement in me personally as I felt it offered a kind of narrative to the images.

In refining the concept, I decided to complete an art inspired fashion film which consisted of a collaboration of my print designs projected onto a model’s body. This was aimed to mimic and represent what clothes could look like if my images were printed onto them. The model also carried out certain edgy movements which represented the geometric nature of my prints. In this film, I wanted to create an element of movement in the static print designs in order to bring them to life. The choice of music was carefully deliberated upon as I did not want this to be the primary focus. The music was solely meant to accompany and add a sense of drama and atmosphere. As previously mentioned in a blog post, the music used was all royalty free as I felt this reflected a professional image. The inspiration for this film was Showstudio which is a company that advertises fashion and uses a variety of art inspired fashion films.

Thinking about the future, this experience has been useful as it has offered me an insight into how my work could be used within a professional capacity. I always aim to reflect on my learning and evaluate what elements have been useful and also those elements that need improvement. I have found this element exciting and challenging as it has pushed me in a different direction in terms of my creative approach. I envisage that I may continue to use similar colours that would lend themselves to a high fashion designs and films. I will consider continuing using bold patterns in the development of my future work as this offers significant scope for manipulation.

Urban Architecture Film

This last week has been about refining my work so I have edited my final film, and have tried to take on board the feedback from my test film. I have created different angled shots and patterns in my film. I have also tried to show most of the body in some shots in the film. I found it rather difficult to create the film when doing faraway shots of the whole body. I also found that the editing process took a longer time than in the test film as creating the mirrored effect in some my shots. It was quite difficult to get the shots precisely mirrored. I think it was important to spend significant time on my editing for the final film as I wanted to show this film as finished and refined. The process of filming, editing and creative directing is important in my work and I feel it is my specialty and with future ongoing projects. I will consider film to display my creative work.

Final Film

I have created three print designs alongside the five print designs. These three print designs are not shown in my film as they are separate from the five other print designs and they are to show how they would look on a high fashion dress. My illustration designs were inspired by Alexander McQueen’s spring 2010 collection. In this collection. The identity of his work looks quite alien and fantasy and that is what I want to portray in my three print designs. There is a correlation between my three print designs and my five print designs. I originally used an architecture painting from my personal work and developed it into Photoshop altering colours, making shapes and zooming in parts where the colours are quite interesting. All of my eight print designs have a theme of architecture and I have been inspired by Hannah Wering and Amy Sia for all of my print designs as these two designers use colour palettes that I am very much influenced by in my work.

Test Film

During this week, I have developed my final print designs. All of my print designs relate to each other correlating to urban architecture. The inspiration for my work is Alexander McQueen and Nick Knight. They seem to have certain themes in their fashion design and that is the idea I am aiming to replicate in my work. Focusing on Nick Knight’s film work from ShowStudio (ShowStudio 2014), I have created, filmed and edited my own fashion film as an advertisement to present my print and show how it could be constructed into the high fashion industry of film fashion.

It was important to use loyalty free music especially as using legitimate sources is essential when working in a professional industry. I decided to use the Moby website http://www.mobygratis.com/and my request to flying foxes was accepted. I chose this music as it had an eerie and atmospheric element to it. I wanted my film shots to be rhythmical and in time with the music to demonstrate how my prints can be displayed as a motion. After my film was completed I also uploaded it onto the Moby website in order to promote my work and gain some recognition in the public forum.

  

    

I also looked at various music videos for inspiration for the different types of visual work. This included ‘lost in the woods’ directed by film director Ruth Hogben in collaboration with Kanye West and performed by a Kanye West. In this video, I particularly liked the type of movement and mirror work that was utilised, especially with the use of abstract angles and inclusion of architecture.  I felt that this offered a certain emotional substance which was almost full of powerful anguish and passion. I then decided to look at ‘Crazy’ by Robert Hales. This music video interested me again for its mirrored angles and its use of rhythm with composition. There was an obvious use of symmetry in the art work for this video. It used many moving images that depending on how it was viewed, a different object could be visualised.  My main inspiration was from looking at a show studio film called incunabula creative director Joris Debo. This film fascinated me for its use of projection and movement of shapes. I took movement elements from the model in the incunabula film and I directed my model to make similar body gestures against my projected print designs.

Test Film

In my tutorial, it was stated that I should work with different angles and increase the number of body shots in my final film displaying my print designs. My tutor said it was good that the credits do not commence at the beginning as it is much more important that the film content is the priority. However, I also need to consider crediting the model and the music, as this is very important to display in my video. For my final film, it was talked about that the first shot should be faded into the film. For my next film, I need to think about what I want to progress onto and how I can refine my film shots and editing skills. I need to create three more print designs, but I want these to be separate from my film and I want them to be different from my five final print designs. I want to do this to show a variety in my print designs and with my last three print designs I want to show how they would look as illustrations. I still want to maintain the theme of urban architecture, however, I want the process of the three final print designs to be somewhat different.

Print designs & Photoshop

As part of this week’s intention, I have been using a lot of photoshop to develop my skills and play around with different pattern ideas. I have developed my mirrored photographs into print designs by altering the colour cropping and repeating the shapes. My intention for this week, with using my print designs, was to laminate and put them on an overhead projector and displaying them on a model. I then want to paint vibrant colours into the model’s face where my lit up designs hit the surface of the face creating a visual arts fashion video. It was discussed in my tutorial to create a fashion video and this is going to be one of my main intentions in my work. 

I want to display my print designs as a motion picture to advertise how my Prints can be displayed. I have a lot of interest in film as my work for L4 in the last term was using and experimenting with film and the creative arts. I feel like film is the strongest point of my work. Here is a film that I created in L4 Film and drawing. I want to carry on with this idea as I think it is important to identify showing different ways in displaying my print ideas. It was suggested in my tutorial that I look at a website called Show Studio, which was created by Nick Knight who used to be a photographer and now works in filming.

My intention in creating a film was to display that my designs do not have to solely shown on a garment and that they can be shown in different ways as well. I want my model to wear a white dress, so the prints are clearly shown reflecting off the dress. My next stage this week is to create a tester video before I make the final video. It was talked about that I should create two films, one for my final piece such as advertising to them and one to construct a kind of mood and atmosphere. I might just end up with one video showing my print designs. I think it is important this week to identify with my strongest work. My drawings will be put into Photoshop to create more patterns and designs for my video. I think I need to identify who my audiences is designed for and the clear intention of the video.

Prints on clothes

I have now started to develop the mirroring idea in my photographs. These can potentially be used as my print designs or an ongoing development of using them in Photoshop to create different print designs. Hannah Werning inspired me to construct more mirroring patterns into my work as she utilises a great deal of symmetrical patterning into her designs. By using my mirrored designs, I have developed a new idea. This involves constructing faces into my designs with a mixture of my architectural drawing. This idea became apparent as I wanted to show the quality of fine art within my designs. My intention within these drawings is that the faces represent us as a society and we then create buildings. So, in many ways, we are the buildings as we both live in and create them. My inspiration for this idea was Ricardo flumenl, who is a fine artist who identifies with fashion in his work.

I started to use more colour in my paintings in certain cases and have added a drop of bold colour to give add some sophistication to my work. As I wanted to develop with colour this week, I have created some tie-dye samples using cheesecloth. I do not see a potential in using these tie-dye materials as I am now considering and having my 8 to 10 sample designs on paper. I could potentially use my tie-dye materials for Photoshop by scanning them in. My work is heading towards the fashion side of print design. I really want to develop and identify with more elaborate fashion, such as Alexander McQueen and Vivian Westwood.

I will be using Photoshop for the rest of this unit and it is important that I use and learn how to use different tools. Using Photoshop is not my strongest point, so this will be a good time to develop that skill. In addition, it is important in my career that I learn how to use this package as it is a requirement in the design and fashion print industry. I have started to repeat my drawings and display them in a symmetrical shape. I have done this to try and experiment with ideas on what colours I could have for my 8 to 10 samples and how they can be displayed. These drawings and designs will be taken into consideration, however, I do not envisage a potential for these to be in my final design. I want to play around with the idea of using natural, organic objects for drawings and combining that with people and architecture, creating an almost cultured aspect to my print designs. At one point during the week, when I got stuck, I started to create patterns using a natural objects, such as a leaf. I did this because I was struggling for ideas, and I remembered that recently I had been admiring the leaves in my back garden. I then had the thought that they could be used and to implement them into a repeating pattern but I don’t think I will develop this work as it doesn’t fit with my theme of work.