While progressing with our trend book, Beth and I have been juggling our work with creating a body of work for Rianna Phillips. Other members of the FutureIntelligence project are also taking part in this, in the hope of winning the chance to curate Rianna's latest lookbook for her new collection. This has naturally progressed into some sort of secretive competition between the groups.
The competitive nature of the project has ensured that everyone's work has remained top secret. Similarly, it is paramount that Rianna's prints and product designs remain secret, so our visual work and ideas will be presented in a port folio and will not feature on the blog.
It seems that our work has progressed well and our ideas have been warmly received. We have spent time and effort on this project and feel that we are working to the best of our potential alongside our other work.
This coming friday we will be presenting our work in a formal pitch to Rianna and the other members of the project. This will be a good opportunity to prepare a professional presentation and get used to 'selling' our ideas to a client.
Arranging, sorting: fitting the jigsaw together.
This was a very time consuming process, however I believe that it was the best way to deal with organising the photographs. After being spread out, chopped and changed, the photos were the grouped together (rather prettily with shiny bulldog clips) in order to maintain some sort of order to the chaos that was likely with so many different photographs.
You can already see certain links and relationships between the images appearing when they are all placed next to one and other. Colours from other photographs begin to sing when put with others, suggestions of how the photographs might possibly link fashion or the body are provided by the images of hands and icy photographs link across the box images and the form also works beautifully with the crumpled iridescent film.
I'm quite excited to see what the book will turn out like, however time is against us. Myself and Beth intend to put the book together as soon as possible, in order to leave enough time for printing. This is providing that our layouts are correct as we will not have any staff contact until our next tutorial time. It seems like the time to start trusting our own judgement and draw upon skills that we know we have. We both have a keen eye for layout and I feel that this will definitely be to our advantage.
"Something else"
After the tutorial, we wanted to gather a range of materials that relate to the selection of photographs that we already have. We decided on bondable film (see previous unit blog posts) as the iridescent properties reflected our theme, altered in state when creased and colours refract, change and differ according to the light.
We decided to combine this with other materials such as frosted polypropylene, the boxes that we had already created and the body. This completely alters the way in which that we interact with the photographs and ensures that you can create connections and links that would not have been obvious at a first glance.
Although seemingly unrelated, when placed with other photographs and in the right composition, the images will hopefully tell a story. The coupling and teaming of images will be essential and must be something that we spend time and effort with.
We have already chosen to have our book 37cm X 27cm, which is slightly smaller than the standard A3 size. I feel like this will lend itself well to the idea that our book is aimed at a higher end audience, rather than a cheaper, lower end.
Tutorial with Alex; change of direction
Beth and myself attended a tutorial with Alex and brought a range of photographs from both the boxes photo-shoot and the more recent ice formation photo-shoot.
I was pleased with the selection of photos that we decided to take with us and wanted to figure out some sort of configuration or format that would show the imagery off to it's best potential.
Alex told us that the photos were nice, but were perhaps a little too finished. After a more in-depth discussion, we came to realise that we needed to take more photographs to sit alongside the pre-exisiting images. I need to constantly remind myself that this needs to be a source of inspiration for design. Alex suggested pairing the photos with a suggestion of the body, materials or other unrelated but suggestive images that provide the audience with a catalyst to spark their own ideas.
A suggestion of "something else" will help to trigger an explosion of ideas and will allow the audience to look at colour, form, composition and any other pieces of information and use this as a potential starting point for their own projects. This appears to be the next stage in pushing our trend book further.
It was also suggested that we visit reprographics in order to enquire about how we might want to put our book together.
Jule Waibel
As well as looking at encasing and trapping products in different substances, using unusual methods, we wanted to look at products that change in appearance when exposed to the flash of the camera. After looking at the colour changing creations of Alexander Wang and Lauren Bowker, I came across the work of Jule Waibel.
Waibel has created a collection of garments from a newly developed paper-like fabric that is both tearproof and water resistent.
The origami style construction of the garments means that with every movement, the garment shape changes and alters, meaning that each photograph will never be a true representation of how the garment may actually look. This links remarkably well with our own ideas of a fabric that could be affected by another factor, making it nearly impossible to capture the product as it looks, at that exact moment.
I also think that the colour and quality of the fabric is beautiful. The semi-transparent layering and folding creates amazing depth and tones of soft, fleshy pink.
Trapping fabric in dye and freezing
After considering a number of different methods of encasing fabrics or products, we decided to attempt freezing.
Encasing and in a way, protecting, is one of our main concepts. We feel that finding experimental methods of doing so will help to relate to the theme and ideas of our trend. We want to protect and encase products from prying eyes and therefore blocking the lens of the camera, preventing photography and therefore documentation on online stores.
The turquoise blue colour has concentrated beautifully in a few patches, creating a focal point and giving the images depth.
When partially frozen, I removed the mass and shook it vigorously. I believe that this resulted in the multitude of flecks and air bubbles that can be seen in the photographs. This was a sort of 'happy accident' but I think it improves the images vastly. The bubbles, cracks and imperfections with the ice work beautifully with the dye, which appears to have clung together and developed into a concentrated area of colour.
Again, I think it might be difficult to determine which photographs are the strongest and it will take time to decide on a configuration/ layout.
The transparent, glass-like quality allows for just the right amount of information to be presented to the audience. This crystal clear appearance is clouded by the concentration of colour, cracks in the ice and the built up areas of air bubbles.
I feel that this is an extremely creative and unusual way to protect the fabrics or products from the prying eyes of photographers and lends itself well to the high end market that it is intended to inspire. I think that it will also be a good idea to take smaller sections of some of the weaker photographs and use them with the larger photographs.
I feel that the turquoise/seafoam green colour could be something that is carried through as an accent against the white-on-white aesthetic that I expect will be consistent throughout the book.
A box within a box within a box within a box...
To start visualising our ideas, we decided to make our own boxes. We created boxes in a variety of differing sizes that fit within one and other. For a clean aesthetic, we wanted to use semi-transparent materials or white card, but we opted for sheets of frosted polypropelene that work very well. Even though the material looks clean and effective, it was extremely difficult to photograph against the white backdrop that we wanted to use and my camera found it very difficult to focus, making the entire task take much longer than expected.
The masses of boxes represent the idea of over-packaging a product or containing something in several layers of protective matter. The smallest, iridescent box is placed carefully to symbolise the product, the pearl of the oyster, so to speak.
The masses of boxes represent the idea of over-packaging a product or containing something in several layers of protective matter. The smallest, iridescent box is placed carefully to symbolise the product, the pearl of the oyster, so to speak.
I feel that the white on white look of these photographs works beautifully. I also think that the iridescent quality of the smallest cube(the prescious and protected product)provides the images with a focal point. This effectively conveys our message of using packaging as a method of protection, being protected by layers of packaging.
As I feel that many of the photographs that were produced from this shoot were successful, I feel that it is going to be rather difficult to select and edit a small number that work best. I feel that test layouts using paper to imitate the pages of our trend book will help us to determine layout with more ease.
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