Starting Level 6

Over the summer period, I felt apprehensive about how I would cope with the pressures of my final year on the Textiles In Practice course. However, I felt motivated to create a body of visual research that would allow me to really kick start my final year, as well as continuing with an idea that I had in a previous project which I felt could be developed further - Unit X from level 5 - which included geometric compositions from the entrance of a Bruntwood building we were redesigning.

57 Spring Gardens entrance - triangular peak - reasoning behind geometric approach.

Most of my initial ideas were developed through research on Pinterest, as well as looking into current interior design trends on store websites such as John Lewis and Next, as I feel this is where my work would sit within industry. During the previous Unit X project,  my group saw a trend in businesses using an 'accent' colour within their spaces. This is the reasoning behind my choice of colour palette including an accent colour. I have also recycled some of my Photoshop designs into drawings for the first project of level 6 - see below.

After receiving the Bradford Textiles brief, I felt it would allow me to experiment and play around with scale, and during my first tutorial, it became clear how I was going to develop my visual research into something appropriate to the brief. I came away from last weeks' tutorial and looked at CUSTHOM, a company that specialise in embroidered wallpapers. This is the kind of scale I want to try out through this four week project as I feel it will push me out of my comfort zone, not only by the scale but also the materials - I hope to combine paper prints with embroidery. I have not used the wide format printer before however, which is also outside of my comfort zone. I also realise that quite a lot of this project will involve Photoshop work, which I am a little unsure of still, but I will refer back to my technical file from previous years for help.

The Evermoor Chronicles

Over the summer, I carried out a week of work experience at Lime Pictures in Warrington, helping to create the sets for their children's programme 'The Evermoor Chronicles' which is based around the idea of a tapestry that can see into the future. Throughout my time there, I made a 12ft square spider web, a 5ft spider cocoon, and a human-sized working 'mouse trap' with the rest of the design team.

I found the experience highly rewarding, and it allowed me to gain some more valuable experience within an industry that I potentially might like to work within after graduating. Furthermore, it will assist me in writing my CP3 work placement report. It was a very hands-on job and allowed me to be creative although I had to work to a given brief set by the production designer, who has also worked for the BBC and ITV. He allowed me to look through his portfolio of work, which was also very enlightening, and I could see how much creativity you can have, even within the TV industry. On other placements I have been on within the same industry, there wasn't really any room to be creative, it was all planned for you and you had to stick strictly to what had been set out.
At the end of the placement, the production designer invited me back after I graduate as they need someone to design all the curtains and wallpapers for the sets as they cannot be outsourced due to advertising restrictions, but they currently don't have anyone that can do that full time.