The locating unit for me was about refining my skills, finding a world that I could see my work fitting into and developing my knowledge in all things digital. I decided from the last project to focus on the development of my fashion illustrations. From the last unit I was starting to look at ways I could fashion illustrate my digital fabric samples however, I soon realised I was much more interested in making the illustrations themselves. It didn't seem enough just to do a quick ink drawing, I really wanted to apply my skills in embroidery into being able to illustrate.
I began the project by drawing and stitching faces to start gathering ideas of how I would construct an illustration and put all the elements together. I knew from the start that I didn't want my illustrations to be flat or on one layer. I had tried my hand at lino printing briefly before but decided it could be a really nice way of drawing the outfits. This way I could also combine my embroidery skills and stitch on top of the prints. I mocked up some basic outfits such as jeans t-shirts etc just to see what they would look like combined with the stitched faces.
The next stage of my project was to decide exactly what I would illustrate. It seemed like a natural progression to start looking at a few designers and chose three to start working on their spring/summer or pre fall collections. The brands I chose were Burberry (pre-fall 13), Isabel Marant (s/s 13) and Chanel (s/s 13). I chose these brands in particular not just because I admire the collections (as this is what initially attracts me) but I was interested in the way each brand was identified as all were very well established brands but all offer something very different to its audience.
Burberry have had quite a make over in the last few years and has tried to become much more approachable to a younger audience. They have been seen to back young up and coming musicians and put on music events particularly in the their flagship store in London. It was important for me to do a bit of research into the designers I was going to illustrate for to make sure my illustrations reflected what the brand was about and how it was to be identified.
Alongside this work I wanted to enter one of the competitions so I could really contextualise my practice and really develop the 'locating' of my work. I decided to start putting together an entry for the Bench competition of fashion illustrations that they could put into their store or gallery space. I wanted the way I made my illustrations to reflect the urban, street Mancunian brand. I feel it is also a company that could really benefit from a change in branding and the way it is seen by the public. As a high street brand with reasonable priced clothing they have the danger of having their clothes worn by an unintended audience. My intentions were to create illustrations for the sort of person I think would be shopping in Bench. I think this is a proposal that could also be applied to different brands high street or high end.
Whilst developing my illustration skills I was also starting to learn to use illustrator. This will be such an important skill to be able to take forward into the working world and I can definitely see how I could apply it to my illustrations. However, I have only really used elements of illustrator in the this project as I first wanted to become more comfortable with my other processes. I starting using digital printing as a method of scaling up my illustrations and working back into them but I think one of the most important thing to my project was scanning! This allowed me to still work onto surfaces and sometimes quite 3D but then scan in my samples to edit in Photoshop.
What I've really taken from this project is the idea that my new found skills could really be put into many different contexts. I have explored the idea of doing fashion illustrations but I also think it would be interesting to look at illustrating for other brands and companies and not necessarily with any fashion context.
