Patterning/toile.

Trousers and rucksack.

For patterning I had to use the male trouser block, I had to remove the front seam making it so it was cut on the fold, also places the back and front patterns together to remove the side seams also bagging them out to create a wider leg. I decided to measure a male mannequin and free hand my braces use the flight suit as inspiration for shape. My pockets were the easiest part to pattern as I had previously done them for river island except this time they were not sewn on my front pieces in fact I had to make a backing as they were sandwiched in the waistband. As well as having an elasticated waistband I am going to create elastic Rib for the bottoms of the trousers to draw bring them in. my trousers will be made in a heavy green cotton drill. My rucksack was sewn as a big cuboid. I wanted to create a big heavy bag that stayed a 3D shape. With the toiling process I knew that my toile would not create a stiff 3D shape as it was made from calico but when it comes to creating the real thing I will be making it from a hard plastic grid with wool weaved through it so it will stay a 3D shape at that point. I want this back pack to be a big feature within my design but I then realised that have a rucksack it would clash with my braces on the trousers, both I didn’t want to remove from my design as they both where a huge part of my research, so I decided that I had to create the rucksack but without straps. Due to having side release buckles on my pockets they could come in handy with attaching my bag I decided to use my braces as the straps for this bag by sewing one side of the buckles to the braces and the other too the back of the bag so I was able to clip the bag on without having a strap to interfere with my braces.

Jumper.

For the jumper I used a unisex causal jumper block. I took away 4cm’s from the neck line creating a wider opening to fit over the head. I then moved onto the sleeves extending the length a little and making really long cuffs. As well as having the long sleeves I decided to have 2 parallel pockets on each sleeve. This jumper will be made in a thick sweatshirt fabric.

Research.

For the research I decided that I wanted to stick by my river island project and continue with the whole military trend. My river island project was all about travel and finding yourself. The trend was named crusade this was a term used by the military when the would travel. During the river island project I design for women, I decided to use wool and heavy cotton drill for my designs. So for this project I decided to push myself and design menswear as I have never done this before so it become a bit of a challenge.

Setting my trend.

When research for my trend I continued to use my research for river island which was all about the flight jacket and extended my research from there. I came across the military flying combat uniform and instantly went down this roof using this for my inspiration. As well as noticing how soldiers are always carrying big rucksacks around with them obviously for them to able to survive. This is when I came up with the idea of naming my trend survival, the military are constantly trying to survive, even down to the clothing its camouflage to hide from the enemy’s, thick and warm to help them survive the weather this is what I wanted to base my trend on. Using the idea of having thick heavy clothing to set my trend for A/W20.

Finding my customer.

After creating my trend I had to find my customer. I knew I wanted a grungy looking male, Early 20s, and bald to suit my army theme. I finally came up with this guy for my muse, I found him whilst looking through vogue. I really thought he suited my theme and was the perfect image of what I was looking for.

Final presentation

presentation

Printed matter has been a very interesting topic that I have enjoyed very much during this project we were told to create a book related to our subject or interests. I decided to base mine on more of a political view of the fashion industry. The fashion industry is growing everyday which means more pollution is being released and killing the planet. I want my book to show how fast fashion is moving throughout the years. More are being dumped and thrown away every day we are destroying our home because of bad habits. There’s so many ways of saving it like donating or up-cycling we don’t have to dump things. There is people on this planet who are less fortunate and would appreciate have more than three outfits or even just a change of clothes, there are people who deserve to have what we have but we are not grateful for what we do have we are greedy I bet more than half of us have wardrobes full of clothes that we don’t even wear, and that 90% of us are guilty for throwing away decent clothes instead of donating them. I want my book to show what WE are doing to this planet by dumping the clothes. I thought that this topic related well with my subject, I did not want to do a look-book/magazine style book as I recently done something similar in my previous field project. This topic is a big interest of my as I have seen how this issue is effecting the environment. These past few months I have witnessed people dumping clothes outside a town centre near my hometown and the effects it’s having on the landscape was really upsetting to witness. The grass around it’s became dead and brown which was why I wanted to create this book to STOP this from happening to get people to see the effects it has on our home. For the book itself I wanted this book to look small and inviting, being inside a transparent little pocket with the title “pick me up” screen printed onto the front. I wanted this title to seem really inviting to leave the customer wondering what could be inside only to find out that it’s serious message inside that we have to stop being the way we are and think about our environment rather than ourselves.

My thoughts on printed matter

Printed matter was so exciting and new. I learnt so much from this field project and happy to say I’m going away with new skills I have learnt. I did not realise how books had so much meaning just by the way it looks. I’m thrilled to say that I’m am able to go into the print studio and know how to screen print without asking for help this is a major skill for my subject as in fashion I could use screen printing a lot. As for making the books this will also be handy within my subject for portfolio work and research books. I feel as if these skills are very related to my topic and this field has been really enjoyable. We received a lot of information and facts about artists book which after these 4 weeks I can say is a really big interest of mine and would be exciting to make my own. I really enjoyed this topic and never felt bored or disappointed from it. I enjoyed it from lesson one and happy that I got to experience it. For my book I feel as if I got my point across and it turned out exactly how I imagined it would it was fun and stressful to figure out the layout but enjoyable. I took the time to go out in my free time to visit regular dumping places where people fly tip as well as going down to the recycling plant where the unwanted clothes are taken and never realised how many clothes were thrown away in just one day. I see everything from a different view and hope that my book will give people the same impression.

Printed matter (week 4)

I decided to set my self the task of completing my book by this Thursday. I knew that if I completed my pages by Monday I could print them Tuesday and get my books together. Which would give me Time to screen print my covers. I decided that I was going to make 5 little books that would be place in little transparent pockets with the title and a quote screen printed onto them. I had already had the introduction to screen printing so I knew that I need at least a day to screen print.

Printing and making the books.

Once my pages were complete I was able to print I realise once doing the that this was going to be a little more complicated than I originally thought. I decided yo create a little example of what I want printed to see what goes where when I suddenly realised that I wasn’t able to do what I had planned. I was originally going to print my pages across a5 sheets and fold them in half but once doing a practice book I realised that my pages would not sit together I realised that I had to half the pages and place one half with a different page for it too open up in the right places.

For example I was originally printing my pages like this but when I stick the pages together the would open up wrong

So I had to crop them and place the picture together for it to fold properly like this.

Once I had all l the images cropped I printed I cut them all down to size and sewn the pages back to back so there would be no blank pages. I also wanted the stitching as I felt like this was a nice little detail to my work due to my book being based on clothes waste and I want my pages to be sewn and cut rough to show a little reference to clothes being made and thrown away.

The printing process was the trickiest part of the making as there was a lot more thought I had to put into it than I thought. I would use this technique again only if I had more time to think through the process more.

Making the pockets and screen printing.

Making the pockets was the easiest process. Once I had a template of my book it was pretty strategic forward. I liked the whole look of the tracing paper and would defiantly use this again in my own practice. I feel as if this gave my book a little originality. The screen printing was so much fun and I really enjoyed doing it by myself as I feel I could do this now without any help and this is something major that I could use in my subject and always wanted to learn properly. I papered up with one of my classmates who was also screen printing due to our being little we decided to share a screen which really sped up the whole process. We started by preparing the green screen whilst waiting for that to dry we printing out our work ready to transfer on to the screen Which was the most complicated situation out of the whole thing but after we read through the instructions that were on the wall we figured it out and didn’t have to ask for help which was a proud moment as we set up and done it all without having to ask for someone to help us. Once the image was transferred onto the green screen it was really quick and easy. This will definitely be something I will use in the future for projects and I’m extremely happy to have Learnt this.

Printed matter (week 3)

The 3rd week was our 1:1s with Sean we talked through our lay plans and ideas. After speaking with Sean I had more of an understanding what I was going to do for my final book. We discussed many different ways of presenting the book. I was very unsure if I wanted loose sheets or a stapled paperback book. We talked through many ideas as I knew I wanted to present the book with an envelop/pocket. So my plan was to practice how to do this.

After going home and doing my lay plans over and over again I realised that my original was way to cluttered and I did not like how it was done I felt like there was way to much on a page and was to much to concentrate on one thing. The layout took the longest to do as I was never satisfied with the way it looked. I decided to go back and completely start over and minimised everything. I thought that it was a better outcome and I didn’t need all the clutter to get my point across.

Over the weekend I had to complete my pages so I spent the whole time on photoshop making sure they were ready for the next week to print. The reasoning for this was that my books had to be completed a week early as I was going away on a uni trip the following week so I had to complete this task a week before the hand in. I made sure I had my pages ready for the following Tuesday so I could print and put these pages together.

Case study (1)

Printed matter (week 2)

During the Tuesday lesson I presented my poster. I was really worried about it as I weren’t sure whether or not I had done it correctly as I have not made a poster before this but it went really well so I had learnt a lot from this task. We also looked at a collection of books I was really drawn to Susan Cianciolo’s book. I love the way the layout was and how it was pictures from her notebook. I decided that I would write my case study on this book as it stood out to me more than any of the others.

During the Thursday session we were screen printing we had to create a bookmark or business card for this lesson. I decided to make the business card. I wanted to keep things simple. I had an idea for my book title so I decided to screen print that onto the business cards. Screen printing was a skill that I always wanted to do as I had never done it within the uni and didn’t know how to use any of the equipment. I have previously done screen printing in my old college but never actually made the screen before so it was great to learn this for the future. This is such a great task to learn as I could use this a lot in my practice.

Printed matter week one (field level 5)

This week was the start of my second field term which I was excited for as I managed to swap from drawing experience to printed matter. The reason for swapping as I had higher interest in printed matter when I read about them and also my travelling times clashed with the drawing experience timetable.

During the first week we had our briefing we were also set some tasks. In the morning during the first session we had our briefing I was really happy to find out that we would be taking part in activities such as screen printing and book binding. In the afternoon we had a workshop with Tom to create a paper back books. I have done this workshop in the past and enjoyed it then I think this is a skill that I could keep progressing and using for further purposes such as portfolio work.

During the Thursday lesson we learnt how to make hard back books I was overly amazed that I was able to achieve this as it’s something I always thought about doing but didn’t have any idea of how.

We were also set the task to create a poster. I struggled with this task as the word poster really threw me off as we never make poster within my subject area. It took me the whole weekend to figure out what I was going to do for the poster, I took me longer to come up with an idea than actually making it. I decided to use Facebook/ social media as an inspiration as there was yet another challenge. The ten year challenge is people uploading pictures of them when they were younger and pictures of them now to compare how much has changed. I decided to use this idea for my poster but putting a stronger political message across. I wanted to compare how clothes waste had changed over the years. I decided to take photos of a place close to my home town where a pile of unwanted clothes had been dumped. This is a real problem the only problem people should care about.

Typography (Part 2)

With my time at home I decided to research further into fashion and typography ready for my following meeting I realised that a magazine was very common with this area. I wanted to produce something that was related to my work something that I could use for the future. I thought that a magazine wasn’t right for me and decided to research further into look books. With the look book I realised that I did not want it to be full of images of different clothes that I have photographed and written over but instead I wanted to produce a book that breaks down the production of my work I felt like this was a big link with my study. After speaking with my tutor during the meeting we decided that it would be a good Idea to do two look books based on two of my previous projects, reason for doing two was because the books would be short and wouldn’t have been enough work if I just produced one. At first, I struggled with the layout as it would look messy and I was not enjoying it. So, I decided to draw it out first I did a few ideas in a sketch book then took it and turned it into digital using photoshop as I felt more comfortable with the app and not InDesign. The layout was a struggle in the beginning, but it just meant planning where as the text was a bit fussier as I hardly use text within my study so finding the right text was a little difficult.

H&M look book.

I previously done a project on H&M conscious were I had to produce a shirt for this brand. I used sustainable fabrics from Ikea and decided to base my project on sustainability. Laying out the images was the easier part as I do similar things within my course. Whereas the text was the harder bit. Knowing that my project was all based on sustainability I decided to google sustainable fonts. I came across many typefaces but the most common one was Ryman, but this did not fit my work at all, I finally decided on using the font Rothman. I like how the text was slim and the spacing between the words. However, when writing my text onto my pages I decided that it need more, so I added some sustainable quotes.

River island look book.

River island is another project I have done this was my most recent, so it was a little easier to put into a book than the H&M one as it was fresh in my head. This project was based around the military and people who are still discovering themselves as a person. I like the text more for this project as it was more fun. I used the same site as I did for the H&M look book which was Fontspace which then the decision was made to use the font HVD peace. I came across this font after searching for military related fonts. HVD peace stood out to me because of the bulky thick text that has a faded bottom. this ties well with the theme I feel as if this text is more suited to my style rather than Rothman font which I used for the other look book.

Over all I think my looks books were a success and that I can use these for the upcoming events such as job interviews. Typography was something that I did not see as an important topic with in my subject in the beginning of his project but the further I got through it I realised how much of an impact the correct text makes. Learning the spacing between the letters, words and lines was important as everything is clearer when done right. I have learnt a lot from this project and how much of a difference the right font can make to a project. I can defiantly use this skill within future projects.

Typography (part 1)

What I learned in typography.

Throughout the first week of typography I was a little confused of what I had to present at the end of the project I learnt about the different techniques within typography such as tracking which is the spacing between letters. We done a few exercises to work on these techniques through the week. I was quite confused at how I was going to relate this back to my study at first as we were tracing letters to learn the correct spacing between letters, words and lines. But by the end of the week I realised that what we must do is produce something such as a magazine or something related to fashion and finding the correct typeface that would suit the project.

The second week.

The second week was magazine layouts I bought in work from a previous project. Looking through magazines helped with the layouts. Placing the images and text onto the pages was a little difficult at first it seemed a little spacy and did not look good but after moving things around I was quite impressed with the first attempt I feel as if I could’ve experimented a lot more with over lapping text and images but that was something I could work on. I feel as if I have a better understanding of how I could link typography with fashion such as through a magazine or portfolio and how finding the correct text to suit the theme of your work is important and will change the whole view of the end outcome.

I felt a little more confident after the lessons as I was very unsure on what the project was about in the very beginning. I’m feeling more confident and felt as if I could produce as good product at the end of this project with more research. I still don’t feel that confident about how to know what to text to have but I feel as if when I start I will fully understand what text is suitable.