Coventry – Week 3

Hi all,

This week I have been doing general research for design ideas and print ideas for the brand for SS19. In my past 2 years at university we have researched trends then chosen a trend to base a piece/module off of, however in this case I am researching for a brand to see what coming trends best fit the style of the brand and its vibe. It’s interesting now understanding the difference and how the industry works to design their collections for each season. When I conducted my research there wasn’t one outstanding trend that perfectly fitted with BB’s image so I expanded on shapes and inspirational ideas from several of the trends for the season which best fit the brand. This skill for combining trends correctly to fit a brand’s vision will be very useful for creating my own collection in my final year, as it allows me to understand how to combine silhouettes to create my own style whilst staying on trend with the colours and such of the chosen season.

I have also gotten back into designing BB’s summer swimwear prints and have really been on a roll designing prints that fit with the vibe and the CEO loves. As I’m designing period inspired prints I must be careful to not infringe any copyright laws or produce any prints that look too similar to prints of the time. For this type of design and my graphic postcards its critically important to insure nothing I produce has any form of copyright protection on it as of course we don’t want to be sued/fined. The skills I have learnt for searching for whether something already exists in terms of silhouettes and phrase copyright will be very useful in my final year to ensure I create my own unique work and have all licences to show my work and present it as fully mine. I was surprised whilst doing my research of phrases what phrases I needed were and weren’t copyrighted.

Whilst designing some stunning swimwear prints I found it rather difficult to visualise how big a print would be and therefore see it on a person. To understand in terms of sizing how large it would print we decided to scale the prints in the size they were drawn onto an A4 piece of paper to see how large or small the design appeared. This technique although simple I have found really useful to help me make sure everything is in the proportions I designed. This will be useful for if I want to design my own prints in my final year as well as any future prints I design. I learnt from my first year to always check the proportions and positioning of a print/etch before printing otherwise you’ll waste materials and time therefore this time I remembered to measure my proportions and understand how large I have sized something prior to printing.

Finally I drew some mandala’s to be vinyl applied to tye dye tops. I’m personally not great at drawing mandala’s on a computer however I found there any many free online sites which help you draw them. I learnt if a resource exists and will not cause you to infringe copyright or anything then it’s best to take the help. With my hand condition I do usually forget that it’s okay to ask people for help or say I can’t do something and that is definitely something I should remember when I go into my final year that it’s okay to ask for help. I drew many many mandala designs all unique and then the CEO/Company owner chose her favourite which will be printed onto BB tye dye t-shirts. I can’t show you the final design as they aren’t available as of yet however here are some of the other designs I created for the tops.