D A V I N A J A D E

Printed Textile Designer. Manchester Metropolitan University - Textiles in Practise.

[davinajade-blog]

Over the past few days, I have been working on the live Uskees brief ready for its deadline of Monday 15th. I aim to create a collection of eight designs suited for all genders and for all the family including kids wear. These designs are a slight variant of one another in colour, and i have combined both my drawings and photography into these designs. I am unsure as to whether these designs may be too complex for lining fabrics but who says lining fabrics can have an intricate print. The next step for these prints will be either digitally printing them onto a cotton or sublimating them onto a synthetic lining fabric - this wasn’t specified in the brief. I may also explore scale further with this design -  I feel it could be much bigger.

These designs are more simplified in comparison to the other two. I feel these are quite successful in their simplicity due to my use of colours and balance in motifs. i feel these would work really well printed on a cotton and paired with a darker denim garment.

[davinajade-blog]

Unit X: Uskees Brief

I have decided to undertake a live brief given to TIP from the manchester based brand, Uskees. The brand creates denim garments such as dungarees, skirts and pinafores for the whole family ranging from women's, mens and kids wear. Uskees are asking us to create a collection of prints for their lining fabrics in their products, basing the theme around the grit of the manchester. The collection is to be unisex so this will be a fun challenge to take on as i find the idea of gender ambiguous design quite interesting. 

Above is my inspiration board for the projects where I have collaged my own drawings, photographs and secondary contextual research. From these drawings I shall digitally create a fitting design collection for Uskees. My next step if to figure out my colour palette and get creating.

[davinajade-blog]

Psychotropical & Body Image

As i was coming to the end of my Practice unit, I began to run out of time as I had spent more time refining my youth tonic samples. This unfortunately let me with three weeks for both projects which unfortunately I did not complete. However, i did learn that perhaps i should have only focused on one more project instead of two, but I was a little misguided by my learning agreement and wanted to stick to my plan. 

The pictures above are a couple of designs I had managed to create for these two trends. I feel the Psychotropical designs are the beginning of something that may be quite successful given more time and maybe this is something i could consider for Unit X.

[davinajade-blog]

Youth Tonic: Final Collection and Illustrations

Above are my final illustrations. Overall i feel pleased with my outcomes and feel they fit my context and market really well, this is because i have followed trend reports and i felt the market was quite relatable to my style.

I do feel my illustration stye could be more exciting, but i do also admire the line drawings. I only fill the garments which i would see my prints designs being used to show the most attention to those areas. To develop them in future, i would like to experiment with different illustration techniques like collaging and bigger drawings.

[davinajade-blog]

Youth Tonic: Experimental Samples

Continuing from my first faux fur sample, I decided to try working with other faux furs and also mixing up which prints I would use. I found the darker splatter print design with the blue faux fur was not quite working - perhaps it is the proportion of reverse applique faux fur to the smaller detail of the splatter print. I will not be developing that sample further. However, I really feel the blue print deign mixed with the white faux fur really fits into the collection quite well because of its bright colours and fun textures. I do need to refine these ideas - I may experiment with beading and perhaps the tufting machine to cover the applique edges.

Further contextual Research has lead me to wanting to apply some designs onto garments such as puffer jackets for womenswear. I have incorporated a new colour variant to my collection using a yellow shade. I have decided to use this for a puffer jacket design and will use this sample in my final collection. i have used techniques such as digital design, sublimation printing, foiling, quilting to create a puffy texture and finally beading the sample to refine it and make it look young, fresh and fun but also at a higher end of the market. 

[davinajade-blog]

Youth Tonic: Developing Designs and working with new Textures

I want to create repeat prints for womens apparel, to do this with my drawings I scanned them into photoshop and used the elements to create a successful repeat print design. The blue and pink in this deign is quite striking but I feel it fits the youthful trend quite well and answers to my personal challenge of using brighter colours within my designs. 

To develop this design further i looked back to my contextual research and WGSN for more trend alerts and found a lot of playful, soft textures being used in the Youth Tonic trend. from this is had the idea to start mixing textures with my prints and from here i chose to work with faux furs for fun and playful textures. My first sample for this needed some work but I am interested to develop the concept further. I certainly need to work on my sewing skills as the edges of this sample are not neat and it feels slightly unfinished. I shall discuss in tutorials how i can improve my professional practice further. 

[davinajade-blog]

Youth Tonic:

The trend i will be working on for the next couple of weeks has been inspired by youth culture and street style. i am in particular going to answer to the more painterly side of this trend. I am looking at another womenswear fashion context as shown above in my boards. Brands like Topshop Unique and Ashish will be my main market level as well as incorporating inspiration from womenswear brand Lazy Oaf. 

I have began drawing and experimenting with different types of brush and tool to achieve different marks on my paper. I also want to focus on playing with a bright colour palette in this trend collection as I have not worked with brighter colour much in the past.  

[davinajade-blog]

Dark Wonder: Collection and Illustrations

Dark wonder final print collection has a quite clear divide between colour stories, even though I did stay true to the colour palette, it is clear in my illustrations/visualisations I have used more pink in some and more blue in others. 

The collection is a mixture of placement and repeat prints sublimated onto nylon polyester which works perfectly for the activewear context.

Overall i am pleased with my final collection and can really see these actually selling if they were to be produced for the active womens wear market.

[davinajade-blog]

Dark Wonder: Context

Over the past few days, I have come to a hurdle in the road that is I am struggling to make a string connection between my initial drawings and photography and combining that with the luxe party wear context I had initially wanted to design for. My designs and drawings have a lot of energy, so after some further trend research I have decided to redirect my context to active wear. The change will be beneficial for me in the future as it will show I have the ability to design for other aspects of womens apparel. 

[davinajade-blog]

Dark Wonder: Studio

I had booked a double space in the print studio.I had planned to experiment with devore on velvet and another viscose type of fabric. The velvet burnt away really well and i was impressed with the result, however, the woven viscose fabric needed longer even though it had gotten to the golden brown shade. so i couldnt see much different in the fabric which was unfortunate, but also a learning curve. I decided to make use of the fabric by experimenting with the dye baths using reactive dyes to deposit a purple blue hue to the samples. I plan to continue experimenting with these samples, but I am not sure how to yet take this further. I feel more contextual research is needed before i can cement any idea of a print collection.

I also undertook an experiment using stretchy lycra with screen print and combining them with sublimation printing. However, the sublimation did not adhere well to the lycra, which i found out later was due to the heat press not being the correct temperature. 

[davinajade-blog]

Dark Wonder:

This week I selected at random another trend to work with for the next two weeks. This trend is called Dark Wonder and is inspired by societies reliance on technology and how that may be intensified in the year 2018/19 - the winter of this trend is being designed for. There are many aspects and types of womenswear context for this trend but i want to work on women's party wear. I would like to aim to use new techniques I haven't tried yet such as devore, dying techniques and experimenting with finishing techniques such as beading to add more richness to my samples. 

To kick this project off i have begun by taking photographs of a neon light wire in a dark room. I feel I caught the energetic movement and the neon glow a lot of the imagery for the trend has.

I have also been looking at artist Palma Blank http://www.palmablank.com/. I like how she uses only four colours to create her paintings. She also uses sharp lines to create an a slightly illusion effect for the viewer. This idea slightly edges towards the question of reality of virtual reality which i believe the dark wonder trend holds within its properties. From this, i will try to use her rules of working: four colours and strong lines. 

[davinajade-blog]

Guise: Final Collection

The Guise project was an interesting one for me as I had never designed for menswear before, however I feel that I created an informed collection with the help of contextual research and good investigation into primary and secondary sources.

The collection overall compliments each other and I can see it fitting really well in the high street market such as Topman and Zara Mens inner linings for coats and jackets. I made sure I stuck to the colour palette and doing so has really made the collection work well as a collective. The illustrations I drew myself and highlight the designs as they are the only pieces in colour. I feel this is very effective in showing the design in context well without being distracted by other elements. I will most probably continue to work in this way for my other illustrations.

If I had more time I could improve the project majorly and develop better designs with more interweaving elements.

[davinajade-blog]

Guise: Illustrations

I sent off for some fabric swatches that was suit menswear coat and jackets for the winter season and got an impressive variety come back. I began looking at my designs and experimenting with what i imagined the lining designs would suit the outer fabric. I went through my sketchbook and paired the swatches with the deigns i would imagine thy would be paired with. this Got me beginning to think about my final illustrations. 

I plan to enter the Bradford Textile Design Competition in the fashion illustration section to cover my outward facing part of the practise unit. It requires a fashion illustration to match a printed fabric design. I am not quite sure which design or project i want to enter, but it is good practise to follow the competition guidelines anyway, thus i have created illustrations using photoshop and my own illustrations for each final design. 

I am quite happy with these illustration and how they look together in a line up so i wont be developing them further, however, if i were to chose one of these for competition entry, i would select a single design and have that alone one a board with my sample alongside it.

[davinajade-blog]

Guise: Deigns Continued

The past few days I have been working on a few more designs using photoshop and elements  from my photography and drawings. I feel these designs fit the brief needs well and I can see them working well in the garment linings for menswear. I feel they can developed further by playing with the scale, altering the colours using different colours from the palette and experimenting with fabrics to print on. 

[davinajade-blog]

Guise: First Digital Designs

I began experimenting with my drawings by scanning them into photoshop and using adjustment layers to create elements for designs. Using photographic elements from my primary research, I used a motion adjustment layer to create the blue lines on this design. I feel the outcome was quite abstract, but also fitted the market level and brands i am designing towards. I decided to add a little more by layering up a drawn element, however, in reflection the design is interesting without the extra darker line element added to it. During a tutorial, it was suggested I beginning looking at Ikat weaving for inspiration as the blue element in this design has a similar blurred quality to it. 

I used Sublimation print onto Koshobi polyester and also a satin effect lining fabric. i feel these particular design works best on the Koshobi polyester, however, I am going to further develop these design ideas using different colours, proportions and making it reflect my new research.

[davinajade-blog]

Guise: Drawings

I began drawing from my photographs I had taken at Media City. In contrast to the strong lines of the facades, I used a messy approach to my applications of medias thus, some outcomes hold quite a jumbled feel to the drawings. This may be from the influence from my previous projects drawing style. I mainly used greys, black and whites with the addition of some brown paper. the medias i worked in were mainly acrylic paints, inks and pens. although the outcome were a bit messy, I feel they can be translated into digital print design easily  and have an abstract quality to them.

After those, I began to refine my drawings. I began working with negative space more resulting in more simple outcomes. These drawings have more of a Japanese high rise flats vibe to them and this is something that was picked up on during a tutorial. These drawings will be scanned into the computer and manipulated in Photoshop to create repeat designs. i will play around with composition, colour ways and scale to achieve a rich collection of designs. 

[davinajade-blog]

Practice: Guise

For the Practice Unit I shall be undertaking five mini two week projects focussing on print for fashion and apparel. I, personally work better when given briefs to work from, as apposed to thinking of my own theme, so to help me, I have selected a number of trend forecasts, saved them in numbered files, and every two weeks I select a new number to work from. i have chosen to work this way because I am wanting to work in commercial ‘fast fashion’ for the high street after I graduate and am very trend focused.

My first mini project however, is a theme of my own. I have decided to look at architecture to inspire designs for inner linings of mens coats and jackets for autumn/winter 18/19. What sparked my idea for this was a desire to challenge myself in having new drawing content (I usually draw organic forms and because of this didn't want my work to be to same-y). I will use a mix of photography and hand drawing to create my digital print designs and will mainly use sublimation heat transfer to create my samples.

My body of work for ‘Guise’ will include initial research will be that of photography and drawings from those said photos. I shall also create inspiration, concept and context boards. I shall also produce digitally printed samples, final samples and final fashion illustrations to accompany. I shall undertake trend research and some market research to how my understanding of the market i am designing for and what garments I can visualise my designs working with.