Chiodi's Textiles Blog

I love to handprint, so I knew from the start the I wanted to take all my patterns into print and create them that way. It was not easy doing repeats and getting everything to line up perfectly but there is beauty in imperfections I believe. I had many trial runs before I finally created my final samples, this took a lot of time and patience. I used different paint and different fabrics to make sure I had the perfect one for what I was doing. I also wanted to handprint and foil my flat wrap however due to the paper and the ink the print studio use when I came to foil on to it after putting it in the heat press the foiling didn’t work and the paper had created new textures. The foiling had stuck to places it shouldn’t have and the paper shrunk slightly due to the water content in it. This was a valuable experiment as I now know on what I need to change in the future to be able to do that next time.

I found the fashion collaboration hard at times as my partner didn’t show up for group meetings and I didn’t know anything about her part of the collaboration for ages so felt that I was left in the dark. However, when we did finally have some communication and an understanding of each other’s roles in the collaboration I got the work done with ease and the range plan we created looked really good.

I really enjoyed putting my patterns in my original colour pallet on to different flat mock-up images that I found on WGSN. I spent a lot of time experimenting and trying out different colour ways and scales to adapt my patterns from stationary to fashion. Finding clothing items that I thought would go well with my patterns was a challenged but sometimes when you take a gamble item of clothing they would turn out really well. The CAD visuals that I created I am really pleased with. Doing CAD visuals is something that in the past I have been told to work on so hopefully this time round I have improved my skills.

Getting my collection perfect took many attempts and there where lots of design changes made along the way. The first struggle was getting the colour pallet to be perfect and commercial. I find colour hard to get right so spent a lot of time tweaking things and changing colour combinations before I was happy with the look. This took a lot of time; I have learnt that colour should come first before all the experimenting and ideation. At the beginning I found it hard to see how I was going to take all my mark making and place it into photoshop to create patterns. I struggled to see how my patterns would have textures and depth to them. My collection started to form when I started to make blender patterns out of the marks and textures I had created in my book. I made many different secondary patterns before I came up with the final two, it was difficult to find the right balance of the patterns not being to busy but also being cohesive and working together well with the blenders and hero design. For the secondary patterns I chose to create mirrored designs as when looking back at my research I noticed that lots of building are equal on both sides. Knowing that I was going to be foiling some of my designs it was hard to see how the collection was going to work as the digital foiled patterns were not true to the exact pattern so the collection looking slightly different after being hand printed.

When I started to make stationary CADs I finally could visualise where my collection belongs and on what type of products they would work on. The flat mock-up product sheet I was really proud of as I feel the collection look cohesive and everything ties in neatly.

It took me a while to start mark making but once I did, I just couldn’t stop. I did a lot of experiments with different medias and techniques and I used lots of different tools to create marks and textures. At the start I was focusing on shapes and compositions, so I was creating pieces using pen, pencil, and oil pastels. The textures made from the oil pastels then lead me in to doing experiments with ink, water colours and pencils. I started to draw using a sponge and ink creating interesting textures. Collaging with papers that I had created was another method I used however I chose not to take this forward as I did not like the overall outcome. I become obsessed with painting with gouache paints I did lots of different paintings which were developed over time or worked into. I also investigated doing digital painting on my iPad and the difference between physical and digital. I did a lot of comparing to find out what I liked more and what had more depth and texture to it. I carried on painting lots of samples in my book and adding different techniques to them. I then found myself doing a lot of continuous line in different ways to add more shapes to the drawings or to outline parts, this allowed me to add more layers on top of something that was once flat. This then led my design process into thinking about negative space and how when doing continuous line, I was creating negative space. I went on to then explore this further, still keeping the theme of painting with gouache and fine liner pen I used tracing paper to over lay negative space drawings. This was something that I really enjoyed doing and wish that I had explored and taken further. Another technique I used was looking at layering up designs and cutting out sections of them so you could see the design behind. I touched on doing some lino printing on the theme of negative space and discovered these beautiful textures where being made when I printed so I decided to do a page in my book where I used all different items to create new textures to add into my flat paintings. I used such things as pasta, knives, fabric, cardboard, sponges ect. After doing all this experimenting I took my designs into photoshop to develop them into repeating patterns

At the beginning of the project, I didn’t really know where to start, I research loads of different trends on WGSN and looked at so many different stationary companies I was lost with what direction I wanted to go in. I did lots of research into artists that I found inspiration from these being Laura Slater, Russell Hughes, and Papper Sax Sten. After looking at these artists I choose my WGSN Trend Creative Collage. The trend is all about spliced lines and collaged shapes, looking at layering and different ways of joining these shapes together. The trend also suggests that colour blocking could have a commercial side to the trend. I liked the idea of collaging and being bold and bright, so I chose my theme to be buildings that have an art deco feel to them. I researched and found lots of pictures relating to this and started to think about all the different shapes lines and layers these building have and how I could draw from them to create patterns. Now that I had a solid direction of where I wanted my project to begin, I started looking at the market it could fall into and different stationary brands that I could see my work being part of. With there being so many big named brands out there I looked at smaller companies that had different stories to tell and ethos’. One company that I found that I enjoyed researching was The Green Gables, sustainability is a huge part of there brand. There website explains to you how they are sustainable and all about their process of creating their products which took my interest a lot. Other brands that I looked at had a similar style aesthetic to what I like that is why they drew me in, and I researched them further. I also went out and did some primary research where I took lots of pictures of building in Cardiff that I found had interesting shapes and forms to them. When doing research into my client profile I really struggled as I couldn’t decide on who I thought would be best suited to my designs. I feel that I struggled to position my work in the market as I didn’t feel confident enough in my designs that anyone would like them. This is something I need to work on in the future.