For this project I wanted to develop my work and the skills I had learnt from negotiated practice, I wanted to develop work further into a full collection of illustrative patterns that would be ready to transfer onto a range of products.
I began the project by just concentrating on drawing, visiting exhibitions and places of interest to drive my practice forward - I have filled several sketch books with images and am really happy with how much my drawing skills have developed, particularly from the start of the course. I feel much more confident in using a strong, bold line and have developed a style of drawing that I am really happy with. My work is clean, neat, graphic and bold whilst playing with a mix of simplicity and detail.
Once I had built up a large amount of drawings I began to try and develop my work into patterns but found I wasn't particularly happy with any of the designs - in my learning agreement I had said I was trying to produce wallpaper and I think this was distracting me and I was worrying about the end product too much. Tutor feedback also suggested I try and push my drawings into ones with context which I didn't feel inspired by but did try to a little bit. I hit a bit of a wall at this point and was a bit worried about how the project was going to come out as I feel I had, as many people do, such huge expectations of themselves to produce something spectacular for final exhibitions. I went back into my sketch books and just kept drawing and then took a step back to look at what I enjoy doing and what area of work I wish to go into. This led me to have more of an aim and was able to get back into it. I didn't want to develop a context around my drawings as for me this is not the interesting part, it is the objects intrigue me not the background.
I mentioned last project I felt the designs I had come up with didn't look like a complete set so this project I came up with some colour schemes to work with. I chose a colour scheme with a mixture of bright colours that I could use selectively with white space as I want my original drawings to be the main focus. This really helped me and I then used the same colour scheme when coming up with my final designs and this has really helped to pull my work together.
I am pleased with my final outcomes - it isn't perfect and there are some designs that I feel are weaker than others but what I am really pleased with is the variety, especially as everyone has different favourite designs. I am also pleased with how the collection has turned out to be unisex as I feel there is a gap in the market for these types of illustrations and products out there for males without them being really obviously male orientated and I believe that with this type of market the majority of buyers would be female who are buying for male relatives, so it is important for it to appeal to both sexes. I think my choice of colour scheme was very important with regards to this.
I feel I have produced authentic designs that wouldn't feel out of place when placed within shops that I admire such as paperchase. Throughout this project I have been keen to aim my work at a commercial audience as this is where my aspirations lie and feel I will get work.
I had some really positive feedback about the robot drawing and designs and had thought about leaving him behind for a while throughout the project as the other robots I had been drawing I just didn't like enough to even begin developing. However when I had a one on one portfolio session with Gina Cross she said she really liked the robots and gave me some pointers. It is one of my favourite designs but feel it could look out of place with the others because it only features one robot.
I am really pleased with how the trainer design turned out, I feel the balance between detailed line drawing with white space and colour works really well.