Final Presentation

Today I had my final presentation for the design of my exhibition. This was in front of three people from the committee that are trying to save the National Picture Theatre building, my tutors and other students. I tried to keep as calm as possible but no matter how much I tried to reassure myself, nerves kept seeping through.

Presenting has never been a particularly strong point of mine however, today I really pushed myself out of my comfort zone to speak in a confident manner. I am pleased with how it went and I am proud of myself how much I have developed my presenting skills. I feel extremley happy to enter the next project in September confident that I can sell my ideas to other people. I received good feedback from the members of the committee who were pleased I had created an emotional link in my design and had made it appealing to children. They even said that they will be using some of the ideas mentioned today.

Overall I feel this has been a successful project in creating an inspirational idea and developing skills and progressing to the next level. I now welcome new challenges in future projects with open arms.

Looking Back........

After reviewing the work that I completed for the Republic Design Award I am extremley pleased with how I have developed. Two years ago when I first began my design course I found it very frustrating as I never fully managed to grasp the tasks given to me, but after making mistakes and learning from them and pushing myself I find my college work a lot more enjoyable.

Presenting and professionalism of presentation boards have always been my weaker spot but one I was fully aware needed to be developed in order to keep moving forward with my course. For the Republic Design Award I set myself the task to design professional but creative looking presentation boards and I believe I achieved this. I allocated my time well with this project and made sure I was spending a adequate amount of time designing the overall appearance of my presentation boards. I really think by using my previous strong points such as time managment have helped me to develop other areas of my work. In previous tasks I haven't put as much effort into certain areas of my work but I have tried my best to stay enthusiastic and motivated throughout this project.

At the beginning of the year I also had decided that my computer skills needed to be pushed as I had become more and more under confident about using computers. As times progresses and I.T clearly is a big proportion of modern society I only had a very basic knowledge when using a computer and attempting to enter an industry which needs to stay current at all times it was enevitable I was going to fall behind. Fortunately for me I managed to learn a few basic skills on computer programs I had never used before, like Photoshop and apply these to my projects where necessary. Again, they are quite general Photoshop skills that I have picked up but ones that I can strive to develop further in future ambitions.

Overall I feel I am definetley a different person than when I first began my degree 2 years ago and am seriously looking forward to completing the next 2 years of my course. Who knows what skills I might have by then???

Republic Design Award

This is a close up of the butterfly and flower drawn on one of my presentation boards for the competition. I decided to draw this in pencil for the reason that I didn't want it to be too bright and take the main focus away from my designs.

This is a close up shot of how one top can be worn in two different styles. The coolmax material is quite stretchy so the top can be pulled down and work as a dress or shortened and tucked into the shorts. By adding some accessories and a pair of high heels it really glams it up for an evening look or dressed down with a pair of flats for during the day.

 These two drawings so the shorts again but with another top. This top is actually reversible so you get two different looks in one. One side has the pattern on but the other is plain depending again on the occasion of which you were wearing it. Not only is this top versatile but saves space in a backpack where there is none!

Republic Design Award

Another project that I have been participating in alongside the exhibition project is the Republic Design Award. This is a competition for students to take part in across the country. I received a brief at the beginning of the project stating what the task was. The task was to design an outfit for the travelling student. It needed to be not only fashionable but practical as well.

I completed a questionnaire to hand out to people to gather information of the preferred items of clothing to wear abroad and started to design an outfit in response to the answers.

I then started to think of the practical elements which my outfit needed to have. It needed to take up minimal space within a backpack, quick drying, lightweight, correct climate fabric, versatile and most of all it needed to look good!

I decided to design a pair of shorts, a top which was reversible and a top that could be worn as a dress or a top and a pair of shorts. Just by designing these three items I had a minimum of four looks that all complimented each other.

I put together a mood board and picked my colour palette from this which was rose, orange amd grey. I then concentrated on developing a pattern for both the tops. The pattern that I designed is inspired from animals around the world. I selected a few animals and drew an abstract pattern from their faces. I thought that the possibilities with designing a pattern like this are endless. I also stated on my presentation boards to send to Republic of an idea I had had of donating a precentage of the profits from these items of clothing to protect endangered animals. I thought that this would be a great ethical policy for Republic to have and a globally accepted concept.

I named my collection 'Second Nature' and designed a logo for this although the items of clothing are designed for the collection Miso which is in Republic I felt this could be a collection within a collection.

Featured above are the technical drawings for my designs. These are all hand drawn and I am very pleased with the overall result. Also included on the board are my chosen fabric swatches samples of the Coolmax fabric mentioned earlier on in my blog, pattern examples, colour palette and a swing tag which I made.

This is my mood board.I gained inspiration from animals around the world and other aspects you see from other countries but my main inspiration that I began with was my research into Australia. Again this mood board features my colour palette as well.

This board shows the overall looks that I designed. I really pushed my creative skills with this project and by looking at this board I can see how much I have developed. I love this board and couldn't be more pleased with the results. I spent a lot of time adding extra detail to really emphasize my designs. In my next project I hope to push my skills even more and have high expectations of myself to improve on this further.

This is the logo that I designed for my clothes. I felt that alongside the ethical policy I came up with that this fitted well. I designed the butterfly myself and then altered it on Photoshop. I have never completed a logo before and for a first attempt I am happy with it but will definetley be looking to work on this sort of thing in the future.

Acrylic

The windows in the school building are made out of cell cast acrylic the other type of acrylic is extruded acrylic however this isn't of as high a quality as cell cast acrylic and I wanted the building to look as realistic as possible. Cell cast acrylic is made by pressing the liquid inbetween moulds to create sheets of plastic. Another benefit of using cell cast instead of extruded is that it is much stronger than extruded acrylic. This is a much safer material to use than glass as it will not smash easily like glass will. Acrylic is also very clear an so lets 92% of light to pass through it whereas very thick glass has a slight green tint to it. Acrylic can also maintain it's appearance well and doesn't weather like some materials. It can last for decades without starting to look worn. It is also half as heavy as glass as well making it very easy maneuver. Some acrylic can be up to 32mm thick and this is actually bullet resistant. This thickness of acrylic is what they actually use for plane windows.

The FSC

The plywood I have chosen to construct my sets with is all FSC sourced plywood. This stands for Forrestry Stewardship Council and this means that any trees that are harvested for timber are guaranteed to be replaced or allowed to regenerate naturally. They are an international, non-governmental organisation dedicated to promoting responsible management of the world's forests. Every single year an area that is half the size of the U.K is cleared of natural forests and this is happening all around the world. These forests can not be replaced and when areas like this are cleared it has massive economic, social and evironmental impacts.

On FSC timber there will be their trademark logo to show that it is responibly sourced wood that will not be contributing to the destruction of the world's forests.

Please click on the link to read more about the FSC.http://www.fsc-uk.org/

Updated Presentation Board of Axonometric

As mentioned earlier I have been doing an exploded axonometric drawing of the school building in my exhibition. I have now added labels to it and this is the final piece which I will be talking about in my presentation on Monday 14th May. The total presentation will consisit of my film with details of my concept and inspiration, sketched drawings of the school on a construction line with bits added to it in each drawing and this exploded axonometric drawing which is quite a formal hand drawn piece. All these presentation techniques are what I have learnt to do during this project.