Locating Unit Evaluation- Self Initiated & John Lewis

Locating Unit Evaluation: Social Media & John Lewis

Throughout this unit, I have learnt and discovered the process of how design processes are developed in the real world by doing the John Lewis brief; it has broadened my knowledge massively and has given me a substantial amount of thought when doing my own projects. I liked the step by step way of constructing the process on boards because my head felt a lot clearer when looking at that project. This informed my practice because I applied it to my self-initiated brief but in a less stricter way. It gave me a wider understanding by showing me a different and more structured way of working.

For the social media brief I feel I engaged with my primary research because I asked people to send me pictures of photos they had edited whether that be a landscape or ‘selfie’; it could be a snapchat filter, edited on Photoshop or simply changed from colour to black and white. From this, I then decided to go in the direction of using silhouettes of the profile of a person’s head and shoulders because they’re the images I was sent the most of. I feel I engaged well with the research from the live brief because I dissected and played around a lot with the shapes that were in the contemporary buildings and interiors.

I looked at a range of artists to inspire the social media project like interior designers, abstract artists, illustrators, paper artists, textile artists, painters and 3D artists for either their colour palettes, techniques, use of lines, shapes and outcomes; I wanted to have the option of being inspired by many different artists if I got lost throughout the unit. For John Lewis I looked at structural architecture artists that used unusual shapes and reflected that in my work by using simple but structured, strong and sharp shapes. For both project’s I was looking at having an interior context and went with wall art and lamps/paper 3D pieces for John Lewis and pillows for my social media brief.

During this unit I was inducted on the Quilting machine; it didn’t go with the themes I was looking at in this unit but it’s definitely something I would consider using in a future project.

I also learnt a more in-depth knowledge of Illustrator near the end of the unit and am also going to apply this to future projects.

For the social media brief, the materials I used are Polyester Dorado in white, chiffon and polyester voile. The processes I used are hand embroidery, machine embroidery, sublimation printing and weaving. I feel like I conducted these at the right time as I tried them on their own them combined them together. I would have liked to go slightly more in depth with the experimenting if we were to have more time. For the John Lewis brief I used card for my final pieces, in which I printed my motifs on after feedback of needing the motifs to be larger, I then did some paper cutting into them, selecting shapes I wanted to be lifted out to form 3D pieces.

I tried to take on board the advice and constructive criticism I was given during tutorials and felt as if they really helped me to develop my work because they helped me to notice the things that I hadn’t, like my fabric samples for John Lewis, the motifs were small and dainty which didn’t match with the structural look I was intending to go for.

I feel like the aspects I have developed are learning the commercial way of developing a project which will help me in the direction I want to go in the future. I feel like I should’ve improved on making more time for more experimenting for the self-initiated brief because I would’ve liked to see if I could’ve pushed it even further. I think I can achieve this by practicing and adjusting to being able to balance two or more projects at once.

My key motivation within this unit was doing two projects at once, if I was having a mental block on one unit I could do the other one which gave me the space, time and inspiration to continue the other one. Although I wish I had planned my time better, I feel that having the challenge of completing two projects put me under more pressure, which I feel I work best under. I like how this made me look more at the quality at what I was producing rather than the quantity, and how my drawings really impacted both units more than any previous unit, which made the pieces feel more personal to me; I was enjoying working with paper then switching to fabric and vice versa. This will inform my practice and further ambitions because I’ve found that I really enjoy working on more than one project at a time, although it took a while for me to get my head around sometimes, I liked having the difference and contrast between the two, I find that an exciting way to work. I also like that we were able to do a self-initiated brief because I can connect with my work in an easier way as the initial idea was something I was interested in responding to and developing work from.

I am pleased with how my final samples have turned out because I like that I was able to use a range of techniques and combinations of techniques together in response to my themes and that the hand drawing quality has really inspired all samples. I am going to present my social media samples on headers and the John Lewis samples will be presented on boards and as 3D pieces.