Nicole B: Textile Designer Boden

As a textile designer, your job heavily relies on computer software. For Example CAD, illustrator etc. Below is a youtube video of Nicola B who is a textile designer at Boden and throughout the video you can see her using computer software to manipulate and develop textile prints and designs. As you can see this is very helpful in the modern world as you can change and develop designs with a click of a button, as apposed to re-drawing ideas out over and over again.
I feel that this job role would be good for me as I like the idea of exhausting ideas for textile prints and creating garments with these prints on them, also using global inspiration to create these designs, however I feel that I would not be creative enough to create a design. 

Winner of Best Womenswear Award 2014: Graduate Fashion Week

Graduate Fashion Week was a big inspiration for me and my future studies and career. I really enjoyed the experience and one day strive to be as good as all the participants in the catwalk show. As we all know that Graduate Fashion Week also has competitions within itself and Grace Weller from Bath Spa University won the Best Womenswear Award. Being so close to home I am delighted for Grace for doing herself, Bath Spa, and Bath proud and an inspiration to all the up and coming designers. 

Now why did Grace Weller win? Was it because of her flawlessly designed garments? or was it the use hand embroidered lace?

The hand embroidered lace looked amazing (shown in image below) and was created using a sewing machine. Personally in the past I have struggled with machine embroidery and therefore did not show off how well it can work but I feel that these designs have really tested as to what it can do, especially with the lace. You can also see the inspiration clearly (the ideas and themes behind the work of romantic artists and writers of the 18th century) which I think makes this collection so great as you can relate to each of the garments and see the ideas behind them. 

Grace Weller : Bath Spa University
Winner of Best Womenswear Award

Embroidery Machines

Embroidery machines are used for stitching pattern onto textiles, they can be used for fashion purposes and for branding on uniforms. There are many types of machine embroidery ranging from free-machine embroidery, link stitch embroidery and computerised machine embroidery.

Graduate Fashion Week: Monday 2nd June 2014

On Monday the 2nd of June I went to Graduate Fashion Week for inspiration in my own work. I watched the Nottingham Trent University show and took images of my favourite garments and collections. 

Stephanie Parsons- Nottingham Trent University
Graduate Fashion Week: Monday 2nd June 2014

I love these garments as I feel they are original and unique. I love the use of a contrasting colour on the black, white and grey and love the style of the garments. My favourite design is the jumper with the leather trousers.
Overall I feel that this work is very strong and portrays a girly yet sporty look that has created a trend within the current trends.

Shengjia (Sophia) Ding- Nottingham Trent University

Graduate Fashion Week: Monday 2nd June 2014 

I like the range of pastel colours in this collection and how it portrays the current trends. I like the sophisticated and feminine look that Sophia has created and feel that this work is strong. However an improvement or development from this that I would add in would be some laser cutting around the waistbands, hem and neckline or embroidery with white to keep in touch with the sophistication. On the other hand I do understand why this was not done as it looks classy without any designs on the garment.

Aimee Lorraine Spies - Nottingham Trent University

Graduate Fashion Week: Monday 2nd June 2014

In this collection I mainly liked the detailing on the garments. It looks like it has been made using free machine embroidery or a hand embroider. I also like the use of a contrasting colour for the detailing so it stands out as apposed to a similar colour that you can only see when close up.

Olivia Andres - Nottingham Trent University

Graduate Fashion Week: Monday 2nd June 2014

I love this collection for the use of white with a contrasting colour and that the collection also fits into current trends. Also a range of fabric manipulation was used to create the pleats. Also the use of dip dye or dying the fabric at the bottom.

Final Design for Fashion Illustration Project

Above is my final design for the last project that I have done in my studies. I created this using illustrator and have shown a front and back view of the garment in which I have decided to make.

To make this I have used the pen tool to create the outline and the face, but to create the gingham crosses I clicked on show guides, and show rulers and used the line tool to create some lines which were equally spaced.

Overall I feel that this has worked really well and shows that my drawing is improving, it took me slightly longer to draw this one and I think that shows in the work that I have produced.

Drawing in the style of Patrick Morgan

 Patrick Morgan 

http://patrickmorgan.co.uk/

Here I have created an illustration in the style of Patrick Morgan.

Patrick Morgan is a digital artist who above has done some illustrations for Tom Ford. I like how he has got a background colour and the image is drawn onto that. I also like how detailed the drawing is and the use of shading has made the image very interesting.

As you can see I have drawn my own version of this. I have taken it from the brief that I was given in a project of using gingham to create a dress.

I feel that this style isn't strong enough for me as I am not too good at drawing human proportions, I feel I am better at drawing features on their own. 

Alyana Cazalet Illustrator

Alyana Cazalet

http://www.illustrationweb.com/artists/AlyanaCazalet/view

Above I have attempted to draw in the style of Alyana Cazalet. I found that her style is very interesting and cartoon-like. I think it looks really good and portrays images in a very artistic manner. However I do not think that this style suits me. 

Alyana Cazalet has previously done illustrations for Sainsbury's, Cafe Rouge, and BBC Children's Magazines. She was born and educated in Russia, currently living in London woking as a freelance artist and illustrator.

Overall I have found that I have experimented with this style and tried it but I do not feel that I can pull it off in an artistic manner, however, if I were to use a similar style and customise it to my strengths in drawing I feel that it could work really well. 

Ayalah Clothing Branding

Here is a branding title that I have created using photoshop. In photoshop I used the text tool and moved objects around to line them up perfectly. I was able to move an object more flexibly by holding CTRL down and then moving it, then to release into that spot you have chosen, then you must release the mouse before letting go of CTRL. If however I wanted to release the object onto an exact line, I would press SHIFT and it would snap into that exact position. I feel that this portrays my brand really well and can use this for heading everything as this would be consistent and professional. I could also use this as my watermark over my work for copyright purposes. This is why I have created such a versatile piece of branding as I can use it for multiple jobs. 

I chose this lucid and defined font style for my brand name 'Ayalah' to keep the branding clear and concise, while clothing was left in script to further emphasise my personal brand.

Jaqueline Bissett Experiment

Jaqueline Bissett

http://www.illustrationweb.com/artists/JacquelineBissett/view 

Above is the work of Jaqueline Bissett and a version of my own, attempting to use a similar technique created using illustrator. Overall I feel that it was successful, although details such as the face and hands I struggled with due to illustrator automatically straightening the lines. This made me unable to make sharp corners as they were softened by the brush tool. 

Jaqueline Bissett is a very talented artist and from looking through her portfolio from the link above I have taken inspiration. This is because I like the style that she uses and portrays within her work. The work she produces always looks natural and feminine and hopefully soon I will be able to portray his in my own work.

I also feel that my technique is overall improving and hopefully in the near future will be able to produce work to a high standard with the help from inspiration in the early stages of learning and practising techniques.

Katharine Asher's Work

Katharine Asher 

http://www.illustrationweb.com/artists/KatharineAsher/view

This is my attempt at working in the style of Katharine Asher . I used the brush tool on illustrator to create my version. This is my first attempt and could be improved a lot, and feel that I can achieve this by practising and choosing a style that works for me. 

I feel that that this style could work for me but as stated above a lot of practise is needed. 

Katharine Asher's work is very good in my opinion as it is very detailed but this is created by doing extracting little details. I also feel that the brush used has allowed the image to have a more feminine look. 

Swing Tag 2

Here are three different variations of swing tags. The reason I have done this is so that I can change the tag depending on the garment, so it is a contrast and the label stands out. By playing around with the colours, I was able to create three successful variations enabling the swing tags to be consistent to the brand and still be appealing to serve different purposes. From my first attempt at  making a swing tag you can see I have added text and a deer with decorative antlers on. I have changed the appearance of the deer using photoshop and have written out my text to fit the theme of my blog. I also changed the colour of my swing tags to fit my theme of pastel and natural colours. 

I took inspiration from other swing tags that I have researched so that I was able to produce my own swing tag, for my own brand.

First Swing Tag

Here is my attempt at creating my own swing tag. I achieved this by drawing a rectangle, then pressing cmd c, cmd f which pastes the object in front of the old one. I then used the arrow keys to move one of the rectangles exactly above it. I then used the pen tool, clicked the middle of the top rectangle, then pressed '-' and clicked on the two corners. This created a triangle.
Then using the white arrow, you select the two corners which need to be joined up, press the scissors button, and then, using the black arrow, click on the lines leading up to the corners, and the corners themselves and this will join them up to make one line.
This is how I made my swing ticket.

Illustrator Pen Tool Experiment

This is my first experiment with a pen tool on illustrator. Using a range of techniques I was able to create a range of patterns.

In order to create the first pattern I made guides to follow using the ruler. Once I had made those, I clicked on corners in order to make a zigzag pattern.

The second one was made using a similar process. But in order to make a separate pattern I had to press the pen tool so I could stop the line I was doing and start a new one.

The third pattern was made using handles on the pen tool. Which means that I could make a curve.
This method was also used when making the forth, but in order to stop the curve and deselect the handle, I had to hold down alt and click on the last point in order to cancel that handle.

The fifth ones were made using the same technique as above but to add detail to the outside I used a different brush.