Design Work

After looking at some artist research I started to draw lots of designs that I felt would look good in an interior image. With a lot of my design work I drew the flower out and then simplified it by drawing a simple line drawing with perhaps a few bits of detail on it. From looking at designers work I felt this was the most effective way mainly because it gives a modern look.
After playing around with some designs I decided to use a design that was very simple however after playing around with it, it looked more complicated as a design. My design was a simple outline of a flower, however after scanning it in onto photoshop I played around with layering the design on top of one another creating a layered flower.
I then repeated this flower in a simple 'brick form' changing the amount of layers on every other repeat. I feel this worked well because it draws attention to the repeat.
After deciding on this I started to add colour. I wanted to use the same colours as I did in my digitex brief because I thought these colours worked really well together and they are also the 'in' colours for 2013. On one of the flowers I decided to have quite a lot of colour, this also filling in the flower wheras on the other flower I decided just to have the outline of the layered flowers in colour. I think this works really well because it makes the repeat look less crowded and lets you focus on both the designs instead of it looking too busy. I decided to keep the background simple and have a very light colur as I didn't want it to look too much.
Overall I am really happy with how the design has turned out. I think it works really well as a repeat and looks really effective in an interior image. What I think is clever about this design is that you can use different parts of it to create a collection of work. For example, you could use the whole repeat on curtains or a blind or you could just use one of the flowers and have it on a cushion. Throughout this project I feel I have experimented a lot more with my work and played round with ideas, developing them to create really interesting outcomes. I feel I could improve on perhaps the repeat of the design and play around with it a bit more however overall I am really pleased with the work I have produced.

Bradford Design - Inspiration

I decided to use my research from my Digitex brief for my Bradford Design brief because I feel I can create a new design from the research I have gathered already. In the brief it says the design they want will feature on products such as curtains and blinds etc therefore after doing some research I have decided I want to create a floral design as I know its a popular theme to use in interior design.

As I had already gathered some visual research on Floral design I started to draw some designs that I thought would feature well in an interior design. Alongside this, i have researched into some design companies for inspiration and ideas on what to create.

I looked into some wallpaper designs by Laura Ashley and this design caught my eye in particular. What I particularly like about this design is how the white flowers stand out so much against the darker cranberry background. I think this is really effective because it draws your attention to the designstraight away. What I also like about this image is how simple the design is yet when repeated it looked really effective and you cant tell where the repeat is.

What I like about this design is the idea of putting small patterns together inside a shape because it draws your attention to the wallpaper. As well as creating lots of pattern inside a shape it also creates a lot of background space.

I think this design works really well because it is really simple however the use and repeat of pattern makes it much more interesting and ususal. Even though there are only 3 colours being used, the way the colour has been displayed makes it look as if there are more colours.

This design works well because of the colouring contrast of the flowers. As some of the flowers are white, it makes the darker flowers in the background stand out. I also think the shape of the flowers are really nice because they arn't too detailed, instead they are very simple witha  few lines of detail to add a 3D effect. 

What I like the most about this design is how you can see the background colour through the flowers because it makes the image less flat and adds more detail.

Final Designs

After I had picked my final colour ways and repeat style I printed my work off onto an A1 size to make sure you can see the final scale if your image and what it would actually look like as wallpaper.

Overall I am really pleased with how my designs have come out. I feel throughout this project I have really developed my work and it has gradually improved week by week to produce a modern collection of designs that would fit into an interior image. I feel after my last project I have improved a lot mainly with my design work. Throughout this unit I have come up with so many different ideas and ways of developing them whereas in my last project I feel this was a weakness of mine. I have really enjoyed making up designs and developing these designs learning how to produce them as a wallpaper design. I feel to improve on this project I could perhaps have worked with colour a bit more and experimented with different ways of using it. I also feel I could perhaps have worked with texture as at first my designs were quite flat, however overall I am really pleased with my collection of work.

Design work

After doing all my research I started to draw from my photos, creating designs that I felt would work well in a repeat. I used the patterns and shapes from my photos of buildings, putting different parts together which created a varoque style design.
However, I felt that my images were too harsh therefore I decided to look into Rococo and include elements of this. Because Rococo is more delicate I felt this gave my designs more of a balance and more to look at.
I also wanted to include some floral designs into my work as I know floral designs are very popular in interior wallpaper design. From looking at my photos I picked elements and shapes of flowers to include on my designs.
When designing I wanted to make sure I made all my work have a modern feel about as looking over the brief it states that Digitex want to see a modern collection.

After doing this I felt I had enough design work to use and pick 8 designs that I thought would work best in an interior image. I wanted to pick a variety of designs that I thought would work well as a collection however each one having something different about it.

After picking my final designs my next step was picking a colour way. I started doing some research into what sort of colours were in this year and what trends were starting. I found that the colour 'emerald' was the 2013 colour. Thinking that this is a modern collection I wanted this to be my main colour because its the next new colour. I then picked 3 other colours that I felt contrasted well with emerald - purple, coral red and duck egg blue/grey.

Now having picked my colours I scanned my images onto photoshop and started playing around with colours, making sure I had a background colour which contrasted well with my design colour. I found that when I put the design into repeat the colour showed a lot better as you had a better view of what it was going to look like as a repeated pattern. I found that putting my images into repeat was quite exciting because it allowed you to see what your design could look like on wallpaper or in an interior image.

Once I had chosen my colours and style of repeat I printed my designs off to scale to see if the size would look alright on a wall and see what the colour looked like. I found that after printing off my designs in repeat my designs looked a bit flat. Therefore I decided to look at the gradient and see if I could perhaps make some of the colours on my designs go from being dark to light (blending out in colour). After playing around with this I found that it made my designs look much more interesting and would stand out as a design.

Inspiration - Designers

Throughout doing my work I have been researching into different design work for inspiration on things such as patterns, colour, what sort of image is 'in' and different ways of repeating designs.

I started by looking at wallpapers on Homebase and then researching on the company that designed the wallpaper that is being sold at Homebase.

One design company I came across is called 'Superfresco'. It has a wide range of wallapaper designs which has mainly showed me new ways of repeating an image. For example, some designs work best spaced out on there own whereas some other work best really tight together so you cant see where the repeat is. It has also showed me that even the simplest designs look much more complicated when repeated.

Here are some images of their work that have inspired me:

This is an example of a repeatthat works really well when the design is tight together. Even though the design looks quite busy it still looks really effective as its just one colour.

I think this design is a combination of Baroque and Rococo because the dark leaf lines are quite exaggerated however the use of flowers is quite a Rococo style to use. The use of colour in this also works well because the dark grey stands out against the bright colour.











Another design company I have looked into is 'Superior Premier Vinyl'. Premier Vinyl is a high quality, heavy duty wallpaper with 'elegant and classical designs in calming colours'. There latest wallpaper collection gives a modern twist to the classic wallpaper brand by adding some 'bling and glitter'.

I think that their designs fall under the label of Rococo designs because they are all quite small, detailed and intricate. After looking at the design companies work I want to take there use of doing small simple designs and repeating them, making it look more interesting. What I also found really helpful was looking at the different ways the designs repeat. It has showed me so many different options with what i can do with my designs.

Here are some images of their work that have inspired me:

I think this repeat is really effective because the design is so simple yet because of the way it is repeated it looks really interesting. I like the idea of having quite a lot of background space and then less design showing because the background space creates a pattern of its own.

This Design reminds me of a Rococo style because its very small, intricate and has swirls and curves in it. I think it looks effective because it looks as if its flowing.

I feel that this design dosn't  work quite as well as the other designs mainly because of the design and repeat. I think if the repeat was perhaps more spread out then it would work better because the design has lots to it and is very detailed. However, because the repeat of this is very close together I feel there is too much to look at and dosn't work as well.

What I like about this design is how the colour fades from a purple shade to a light lilac. I think this looks really effective because its a good way of making an image not look flat just by changing the gradient. This is something I want to try out with my own designs.

Inspiration

I have decided to focus my time at the moment on the Digitex brief as I feel this is a bigger project and will require more time. After doing some research into the style 'Baroque' I found out the style first orignated in Italy, therefore I want to use my own visual research from visiting Italy and draw designs from the architecture out there.
 

 Here are some of the pictures that have inspired me to create some designs:

 

 

 

 

When researching into Baroque I came across a style of design called Rococo which is is similar to Baroque however it is more detailed and intricate. I also noticed that in some Rococo designs they contain designs of flowers which has inspired me to use in my own designs.


Here are some pictures of flowers that I intend to use in my design work:

 

Brief

This is a copy of my own written up brief for the project, talking about what I plan to do and what I want to achieve:

The 2 live briefs that I have chosen to focus on are the Digitex brief and the Bradford Design Textiles Print competition. The Digitex brief first caught my eye because the brief matched my style of working particularly when it said focusing on interior wallpaper design. Within the brief I have chosen to look at the Baroque option because my work is very pattern based. I am also going to look at a style called Rococo because the pattern is more intricate whereas Baroque pattern is very exaggerated. I am going to look into pattern design work focusing on Italian culture (Italy being where baroque first originated) mainly focusing on the architecture. I will be using my own visual research and developing this further into my own design work. At the end of this unit I want to have created a collection of design work that can be used within an interior look, for example for wallpapers. I want all my designs to link and have a modern feel about them.

The other project I am going to be working on is the Bradford Design competition for Textiles Print. I want to try and somehow link this with the Digitex brief in some way; this could be through inspiration, colours or designs. After doing some research i found that floral work is very popular in interior design therefore I want to visually research into nature, mainly looking at flowers. I want to create a design that is quite simple, however when in repeat looks really effective and could be used for a variety of interior uses, for example, curtains, cushions and wallpapers.

Both these projects I feel are very exciting because the style of working is something that I enjoy doing. I am going to split my time within the 2 projects to make sure I get the most out of each one. I will be mainly focusing on the Digitex brief and first and then later on focus on the Bradford design one. This is because I am planning on using some research or design work from the Digitex work in the Bradford one.