Collaborated Design Boards...

Having collaborated on our conveniently overlaypping ideas, myself and Lucy further developed our designs by literally combining them with a process of laying them over one another and tracing new contours from the two merged shapes. This was a simple and effective way to produce a lot of designs, and brought about some very interesting results from which I selected these collections...

My own design boards...

From my concept I particularly drew from the theories on the blinds ability or inability to 'create', and therefore produced various designs using a blindfolded drawing process, of which these boards display the selected ones...

Concept Pages...

My concept boards represent the flow of thought throughout the process of this design project; as well as communicating in a very basic form the way in which our garment would work and interact wihtin it's environment.

Theories...

These are a few pieces of writing I found particularly fascinating written by or about the work of Viktor Lowenfeld, who looked alot at the blind's creative capabilities.

Drawing blindly...Creating Crude Shapes

In order to create initial shapes from which to adapt to the body as refined designs, I experimented with drawing blindly; imagining a garment and drawing it loosely with both my left and right hand. It was a really successful way to produce naive and almost crude contours. Having selected those drawings with potential, I began to apply them to the figure, rotating or flipping the shape to discover further variations. As alot of the shapes were so naively formed, as garments they would require a gusset within the sideseam to realise the 3D form.

Here are a couple of examples of the designs I came out with from this process...

When it came to working on collaborated designs, myself and Lucy had similar ideas and processes that we had both used with our individual designs (Lucy had been looking into the drawings of blind people or the visually impaired and taking from them the naive notion of shape and proportion). Therefore we continued to experiment within these processes by studying several of the sketches from Lucy's book of blind drawings and then recreating them blindly from memory; alternating from left hand to right hand for increased crudity. This is our sketch sheet from which we then selected our favourites to continue to work with.

Utilising our selected shapes, we then enlarged them to the proportions of a half scale pattern piece. Using two fabrics with opposing qualities in order to realise the effect of either drape or rigidity on the garments form (Muslin and Neoprene), we whipped up some toiles. From these it appeared that the simpler the shape, the more effective the aesthetic...

Mine and Lucy's next move was to literally merge our own design ideas by overlaying them using Photoshop, and retracing varying new contours using both silhouettes. This produced great results as the balanced contrast between the styles of eachothers designs were really complimentary. This is one result for example...

Our job is now to create our final piece...

Collaborating Ideas...

Within the original set brief, we were asked to collaborate our individual research and ideas with one other; fusing our concepts and designs to create an interesting outcome. Lucy Jane Taylor (also a blogger) and myself chose to work together, not only as we share a keen work ethic!..,but also because whilst we have similar ideas and thought processes, our designs are always distinctively different to one anothers; Lucy's being more to the linear, androgynous characteristic, and my own favouring a more rounded aesthetic.

Through mapping out both of our individual ideas, we discovered there were great areas of overlap to exploit; this shows our combined ideas...

From this we quickly came to the same conclusion as to how to create our combined designs and a general outline of how our final piece would work technically; this was a flow chart we drew up as clarification:
Aware that all this technology is either only just emerging or under development, we then began to think through a way to display our final garment to the rest of the innovation group, showing all of it's elements of interactivity. It became clear that this could only be comprehendibly done by shooting a video of our garment on a model that then visually explained itself. Whilst calling on a great model myself and Lucy have both worked with previously (Emma Howl), and searching for a willing moving image photographer, we researched the styles of videos that we felt would work best in conjunction with our design. These are a few of our favourites that we came across...

All of these videos from the SHOWstudio website have a certain element we would like to consider for our own piece. The clarity of the interaction, shown in the final one, with the movement and the surroundings is an integral part that must be shown in ours. The pedestrian choreography featured in Ruth Hogben's video is perhaps something that would suit our production; as well as the fading/merging effect, of layered images utilised in the 'Clown' video, that would work well within our projection on to the garment...

Hidden Horoscope Newspaper...

The Hidden Horoscope Newspaper aims to bring the mystery and surprise element back to horoscopes as they have become predictable to say the least; however it is the use of thermochromic ink that intrigues me. This particular development of ink seemingly disappears when subject to heat, most likely to happen when touched; and hence reveals the only words that are in normal ink.

I would love to experiment with patterns utilising this technique; I envisage a repeat pattern that when against heat reveals a further pattern within it using the resulting negative space.

Pixelography

Designed as a rapid response printing tool, the Pixelroller prints pixels (text image) to create imagery or text on a great range of surfaces. This is a particularly interesting piece as it goes along way to lifting the limitations burdening printing currently. For example conventional printing requires being bound to certain location, output method and process; however the 'handheld' pixelroller can be movable as well as allowing the user to engage with the medium to some degree.

Pixelography using the LightRoller differs slightly, in that it is the first permanent print produced on to photographic paper whilst in a dark chamber. Its charm is in the unpredictable element of its results as the image only reveals itself once developed after being created in total darkness.

I love the effect of the LightRoller, with the grainy lines and panelled type portrait as a result of the rollers movement. This process had me thinking about my design method...if the facilities were available to me I could play with designing shape and form using the photographic development method leaving me in a sense blind to the result until it reveals itself;....or without this facility maybe I could simply experiment with designing 'blind', in total darkness and relate the images and shapes I produce on to the body...

The following video demonstrates the relating method developed in the 'Temporary Printing Machine III'; using light reactive paint, the 'printer' exposes text or imagery momentarily as it runs over the surface, to then disappear again after a minute. This allows innumberable images etc to be printed on to the surface. I especially like the pattern images, and wonder if there is any pheasable way to translate this process to garments or fabric. I imagine a garment that has ever-changing patterns and prints that come and go; perhaps with development even sensoring surrounding patterns and prints and imitating them temporarily...

Sunlight Table

Whilst browsing the 'rAndomInternational' website I came across this Sunlight Table that emits light and shade through optical fibres creating a grid on the table's surface from another input grid places on the window. This is then sensitive to moments of shade, rustling leaves outside and passing birds etc.

I like the notion of bringing something outside in, in order to create an environment that has a sense of ambient interaction. In turn, I could imagine this being translated in to my work as a way to represent the environment upon your own body by emitting a reflection of your current surroundings, or perhaps a delayed reaction that informs of where you have previously been.

In a similar way, this 'Talking Light' piece detects movement, measures it and then transforms it into light; projecting your reflection; and therefore inducing the similar patterns of behaviour that the many pieces at 'Decode' encouraged, particularly 'Body Paint'.

Morse is a Water Light Installation that is being developed to essentially display digital images and text through the use of coloured water and air in a tube. A single pump sends morse code in impulses with the water.