Evaluation- Live Brief

   For the last 8 weeks we have been doing a ‘live brief’ at college. We were given two choices of customers we could work for, a fashion brief or an interior design brief. I chose the interior design brief, the reason I did this was because I would love to be an interior in the future as my career and so I thought this would be a great way to have a taste of what  will be doing for the rest of my life.

   For this project I don’t think I did as much research I could have possibly done, I was going to go to an exhibition which had Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s work in it but unfortunately it was closed for renovation. This would have been my primary research, I also tried to ask for a trip to the house that we were decorating for but unfortunately this never happened either. Because I didn’t do any primary research I made sure that I got my secondary research from different sources which included books and internet.

   After I had researched into all of the artist that I liked, I took certain pieces of their worked which I really admired and tried making that into my own patterns. For example I tried to take the geometric patterns of Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s work and the large swirly patterns of William Morris. I put all of these patterns onto two visual sheets which I made. After this I started to come up with my final design.

    At the beginning of this project our client told us not to use blue in our designs, this is because the colour blue fades easily, so whilst we were doing our samples, we tried our best to stay away from the colour blue. Also at the beginning of the project we were going to be designing fabrics for two different seats and we could design two different patterns for each one of the seats, but later in the project we got told that we would only be creating the fabric for one seat so we didn’t have to create two designs anymore. Apart from this I wouldn’t say that our client asked me to change or develop my design at all, and every time she came in to see us she always said how much she liked my work.

   As I have already said, our client asked up to not work with blue, I did my best not to use this colour, although I had some trouble creating the colour that I wanted to use, as I wanted to mix a grey yet every time the fabric dried it came out blue, to solve this I change the colour scheme and created a green/ gold colour. Our customer also told us that the fabric we would be using need to pass a rub test to be able to be used as a chair and because of this our fabrics would need be very thick material.

   In the workshop I would say I did quite a lot of experimenting, I did around 30 samples where I changed my material, colours and techniques of printing. The fabrics I used were, cotton, cotton velvet and satin. I dyed these samples with a variety of different procien dyes, and then printed on them with pigment inks that I made myself, puff binder and devore paste.

The biggest problem I encountered was my kodatrace. Whilst I was painting my design onto it, it was fine, but after a short period of time the paint started peeling off, I tried repainting it around 3 times but the same result just kept happening, to fix this problem we stopped using the paint and instead used pens that worked just as well.

   I also would also say I encountered a problem with my time management, as during this project I have had a 2 week holiday, before I went I knew that I would be missing valuable time in the print room and so before I went I made that I was in front with all my work, I had finished all my sheet work and even drawn out my final design so that when I got back I could get straight on with drawing it onto kodatrace and get into the print room.

   If we had no constraints from our client I do believe that I would have done things differently, for example, my favourite sample was on devore velvet, and we would have been able to use this material as it wasn’t strong enough.

   At the beginning of the project we got told to research into the arts and craft movement and artist called Charles Rennie Mackintosh, I did this and also researched into an artist called William Morris too. I would say overall these two artists have influenced my work a significant amount, even up to my final design I have aspects of their work in my design.

   I decided on my final design quite easily as I already had an idea of what I wanted to do for it. I knew that I wanted to have a geometric edge to my work as this is what Rennie Mackintosh did in al lot of his work, I also really appreciated the large flower prints that William Morris is famous for and so I drew a large flower on my design in the style of Morris. It took me around a week to come up with my final design but when it was finished I was quite proud of it.

   I would say that my final design could be reproduced but I think it would be a long and complicated process as I have 5 different screens to make my work so it would take a long time and a lot of patience to reproduce my work on a large scale.

   Our customer was a wealthy man who lived in a large country house, he also really liked the arts and craft era. With this in mind I would defiantly say that my customer influenced my work, as I knew that he would want something a little bit special, a one off design and I knew that he would be able to recognise the artist’s work that I included in my design so I only picked my favourite parts to put in it to try and please the customer.

   I would say a few things in this project went well, I really liked all my sheet work, I put a lot of effort into them and I think you could tell that from the standard of them, I had a lot of enthusiasm for this project as I would love to be an interior designer and because of this I had the right frame of mind and things were going well for me.

   A few things definitely went wrong for me as well. the main problem being my time management, although the first few weeks went really well and I had got a lot of work done, with me taking two weeks off, I think I got behind and so didn’t get my work to a high enough standard. Also when I got back from my holiday I encountered a problem when painting onto the kodatrace which I have already discussed, and as I hadn’t planned time for this problem, this set me back too.

   If I could redo this project I wouldn’t have had the two weeks off. As if it wasn’t for these two weeks I know that I would have got a lot more work produced than I actually did.

   Although my time management was bad from my holiday I would say that I did manage my time well and effectively, for example, in the first few weeks that we were doing this project I had made sure that I in front, as I had finished all my sheet work and even drawn out my final design, and although I encountered problems when I got back to college I made sure that I came in on my days off to catch up and in the end I managed to get all my work completed.

   I deffinatley used my diary effectively, I have found it very useful and have found that it has made me do work, as everytime I have done something on my project I have wrote it in my diary, I can see how much work I do and when I haven’t been doing much work. It has helped me keep up to date with what I have, and haven’t done and overall it has kept me very organised. I would definitely consider using a diary for our next project so that I can keep up with all my work I am doing.

   Unfortunately I don’t think I have used my blog as effectively as I could have done, although I have been posting things on here, I haven’t kept as ‘up-to-date’ with it as I could have. For my next project I am going to make sure that this is a task that is just as important as all my other things to do in my project and hopefully will keep up-to-date with it.

   I have really enjoyed working with a client outside of college; I feel it has given us a great opportunity that not many students get. As I want to be an interior designer I also feel this has given me an experience that other people who want to do the same won’t have, it have given me a taste of what I want to do for the rest of my life. When our client was giving us feedback I really made sure that I took note and listened as she is working in the industry that I want to work in, and if anyone knows what your work has to be like and what the customers want, it will be her. I would love to have this experience again and I have really enjoyed the last 8 weeks in this project.

   Overall I would say that this project has gone well, I have enjoyed having this opportunity and this project in general. I have had some stressful times, when things haven’t been going very well, but I have always used my initiative to overcome them. I would say in this project I have built a new confidence in the print room, mixing my own dyes and not asking for as much help. Although I didn’t win the competition at the end of this project, I was up against strong competition, and I am proud of my work  as I feel I have worked to the best of my ability throughout the project.