Professional practice - interview with a designer

This article was created for the Professional Practice module - an interview with a designer.

Mono printing

To mono print, we inked the brayer with oil based printing ink, and inked a sheet of acetate. A sheet of news print was placed over the ink, and an image over the top. By tracing over the image the outline is transferred to the newsprint. I will reverse this image and integrate it into my bottle label design. 

The monoprint above by Tessa Pearson, shows how mono prints can be developed into stunning vibrant images. Her monoprints are produced using oil etching inks built up in layers over a multicoloured background and would be fabulous printed onto fabric. 

Momento Mori and Vanitas

We were shown examples of art using skulls, in particular Momento Mori and Vanitas. Momento Mori means remember one day you will die, and Vanitas is an art movement that highlights the objects you can't take with you when you die. Both use skill imagery. Skulls can be a signifier for pirates, poison, death, danger, rebellion, Day of the Dead etc, and are found in many areas of art including popular culture, band art and tattoos.

This image is called Vanitas by Antonio de Pereda y Salgado and features skulls together with all the valuables that the person collected during their lifetime.

The above image by David Bailly (1650) is meant to communicate the stupidity of spending money on consumerist items and hobbies and is a reminder that you cannot take these items with you when you die. Most of this style of painting are dark and sombre and are easy to recognise as Vanitas.

We had to design two images, one reflecting a positive use of skulls, and one a negative.

For the positive I produced a pattern, which unless viewed closeup, is not clear what the imagery is. It could be a flower motif, and works quite well, I think.

Marimekko presentation

I decided what subjects I wanted to talk about, and what the content of my presentation would be. I put these headings on separate sheets of paper and read through all the material I had used for research purpose. I made notes, according to the topic, on the relevant sheet. 

Once I knew what information I was going to use, I wrote the slides for the presentation. I felt it was important to include lots of Marimekko's designs in my slides, to show the company in context. I used their patterns as backgrounds to slides, and imagery of their clothing on separate slides.

I printed out the slides onto handout pages, and used the blank space to make notes to prompt me during the presentation.

Now all I have to do is practice what I'm going to say!!

Annotated bibliography

For my presentation on Marimekko, I spent a lot of time tracking down relevant material.

There was not a huge amount available on the college Journals database, just a couple of reports, but I found relevant background material on Scandinavian design which was very interesting for putting design into context.

I bought two books about Marimekko which contain lots of detailed information. Marimekko: Fabrics, Fashion, Architecture is an interesting collection of essays, and Patterns: Marimekko is a brilliant visual resource. Both have lots of relevant content.

I then looked at information online, including Marimekko's own website and some of their retailers.

The popular press had some published articles on the internet on Scandinavian design history which I can use.

Finally, I looked at the company's financial statements.

Teal flowers pattern

Another fabric pattern...

Yellow flowers pattern

Another hand drawn pattern, scanned and designed in Illustrator.

Gordon's patterns

These patterns were created in Illustrator and are loosely inspired by Art Deco and will possibly used for the 4 varieties of Gordon's Gin. I referred to pattern books and books on art history to give cues for the designs. I have also read a lot of books on digital pattern design recently, and spent a lot of time learning how to create different types of pattern in Illustrator.

Hand drawn flowers pattern

This pattern was produced in Illustrator by scanning in my hand drawn flower motifs and using image trace and live paint.

Patterns

I've been playing with creating flower patterns... Colours inspired by the cherry blossom in my garden.

Shop window display

Design with materials assignment

I finished the majority of items for my assignment today, and took photos to use in a mockup using Photoshop and Illustrator. All but the wooden cabinet were made by me (!).

Stickers

These are the stickers I had printed by moo.com for both the Professional Practice and Design with Materials modules. The Number Forty Seven stickers are for my own branding, and the motifs are to tie in with the fabrics for shop graphic design.

Fabric

Surface pattern design on fabric

These are some of my fabric designs mocked up onto cushions. I'm really pleased with how my first attempt at pattern design worked out. I have noticed that in Illustrator the edges of the repeat sometimes show as thin lines, although when they print they are fine. I'm not sure why this is, because I made sure my artboard was exactly the same size as, and exactly underneath, the tile. And when you zoom right in, the lines disappear.