Design for the FUTURE
︎Introduction
Hey! My name is Tammy, and I am a second-year fashion textiles student at UWE. Here is some of my work I have been developing over the last couple of months in contribution to my final module of work. During this project, my aim was to extend the limits of what qualifies as a garment by identifying and challenging the boundaries of traditional clothing. I explored the scale of my sampling techniques through paper sculpture, inspired by organic forms such as the human skeleton as well as the colours I observed in the exoskeletons of insects. I was extremely interested in exploring clothing as a new shell, a second skin or reversed skeleton. Throughout my design process I had in mind, what I feel is a particularly important part of what needs to be considered by every designer, sustainability. Originally, I started off developing my ideas through creating small samples made from old inner tubes I collected from bikes. These would usually end up in landfill and release harmful microplastics into the environment which is undesirable in the current environmental climate. As my project developed I discovered that I needed a larger source of material that was also colourful to fit in with the vision I had. Therefore, I sourced bouncy castle material remnants from a local manufacturer in Bristol, allowing me to really expand my horizons on what I was able to create.
If any of you are considering studying at university for an art or design degree, I would really recommend it. It is really comforting having a broad range of resources available to realise your potential with so many tutors and technicians always on hand and happy to help, guide and mentor you through the very beginnings of your creative career. In today's videos I am going to walk you through the basic design stages that are taught right the way through school and is used in most, if not all design industries. I will also give you a little insight into how I work my way through these processes, hopefully giving you a better understanding of what it is like to be a fashion textiles student like myself. Throughout these processes you will be designing outcomes for a world of the future. Maybe you’d like to think about what kind of architecture, transport or clothing would be available amid global warming. Or what kind of wearable tech people in a futuristic world would use regularly. In any case the result is up to you so let your creativity take you anywhere.
︎ Research
Through the research stage it is imperative that information is collected from a range of sources such as books, journals, articles, visits to galleries and exhibitions and the internet, this is called secondary research and will form a concrete base for your projects to stand on. Something that is more important than this is primary research, where you should be drawing and making as much as possible, informed by your sources. Here I have with me today some of my own research that helped me to collate an interesting collection of images of information to develop my project from. I’m going to walk you through a few drawing exercises just to get you warmed up and get some ideas flowing so it is important not to worry what these drawings look like as we are just getting started.
So we’re going to start with choosing a few images gathered through your research and work through the drawing exercises. I’m going to demonstrate a few so you can get an idea of the kind of things you could do. The first exercise is drawing for 10 seconds. Remember to just try and be free with it don’t worry too much about what it looks like. The second is drawing with your non-dominant hand so for me that would be my left hand. Th next is continuous line so for this one don’t take your drawing instrument off the page just keep the line going. And last but not least is using 2 different drawing tools maybe they could be 2 different colours or 2 different types of media. Now have a look at the other suggested exercises on the webpage and draw as many different images from your research as possible in as many different ways as you can produce. Switch up your media and demonstrate your drawing skills to show what works best for you and then you can build on this in the following stages.
︎ Define
An important part of the design stage is deciding which parts of your research you would like to develop further as this can really make or break a project. In this stage I’m going to show you how to make a successful mood board via collaging and mixed media. It is important to create on of these as they help us to visually tie together a project and communicate to clients or colleagues what the whole vibe is.
In the mood boarding process, it is important to realise what your project is really all about. Look through your images and try to choose the ones that really represent the feeling of what you want to present in your final outcome. Also try to make broad connections between sources so for example I found that some architecture I observed looked similar to the shapes I saw in the human spine. You can present your connections as creatively as you like, through collage and mixed media but as aesthetically as possible as this is what will be at the forefront of what your designs portray and should give a good indication to any clients or peers the creative message you are trying to get across.
︎ Develop
A large part of the development stage is drawing various design outcomes and building on your initial ideas to produce something that is a bit more informed and well rounded. It is also a stage where you have a lot more freedom to portray your ideas and my way of expressing this was through paper sculpture enabling me to add an extra dimension to my research that would also give me a further understanding of the garment I would go on to create during my final outcome.
Throughout the design process you should be drawing inspiration from your initial research but in the development stage, this is where your project will really start to take shape and where you can explore as many speculative future design possibilities as you like. In my own development stage, I was inspired by the structural integrity of the human skeleton. This intrigued me so much so that I decided to start making paper sculptures inspired by the shapes I observed. During this stage of the design process some people like to draw all of their ideas, however I find it more suitable for the way my brain is wired to just make and develop through paper sculpture, enabling me to properly visualise the sometimes complicated ideas I have. Maybe in this stage you’d like to take your developing ideas through a similar process, it could be paper sculpture or another type of 3D modelling. You could even develop your own way of working that suits you, which will give an extra dimension to your creative process and could possibly make your final outcome more intriguing.
︎ Final outcome
Now that I’ve taken you through the rough outline of my own creative process and how this adheres to the widely used design processes of actual design practitioners in the industry I’m going to show you how these stages translated into my final outcome. As you can see, the garment I made is very brightly coloured. I drew my colour palette from the colours I was able to observe in the exoskeletons of insects which also really fit in with the type of futuristic human I had in mind that I was designing for. The original silhouette of the garment was derived from developing my ideas in paper sculpture inspired by the structural shapes I had researched through my primary and secondary research. Then placing these onto the mannequin so that I was able to visualise how my creations could come to life on the human body to create the second skin or reversed skeleton idea I had originally envisioned. I was able to produce such an outstanding and interesting outcome through the constant development of my ideas and sampling the final material I wanted to use. This meant that when it finally came to create the garment I was fully prepared for any challenges I might have faced and adjust my making process accordingly.
So that is us at the end of the design stages and I hope you enjoyed having a little insight into what I get up to at university and that you go away today a little bit more informed on what it is like to study a design degree. Thank you!
