Lauren Bowker Talk & Tutorial.

http://behindtheunseen.tumblr.com/post/43505949107

Having had the chance to see a talk from Lauren Bowker last Unit X, I definitely wanted to see her talk  for this Unit X, especially as Lauren is who we're pitching our ideas to for our trends. 

Since her last venture PHNX, she has since killed off the project and held a funeral for it, to mark the new beginning of 'the Unseen' project. 

Laurens' ways of working are really inspiring, her attitude to do what you feel is right, not what everyone else thinks is right, is something that I really need to take on board. 

If I feel that something is going to work, I need to stick to it, and try to push my ideas. 

We got the opportunity to further talk with Lauren Bowker the next day to discuss our projects etc, to which she gave us her advice, telling us to take risks, do what we want, have fun while we can, make the most of our time at university, just really experiment. 

From someone who's come from where I am now and to have gone so far in such a short space of time, makes me think I definitely need to try and take on some of her advice, and to let go a bit and be more free with my work, try not to think about if things are right or not. 

Idea Generating.

Whilst working in the studio myself, Bonnie and Frazer decided to discuss all of our current ideas and discuss where we see them going. It's important throughout a project to be able to get feedback from peers, and to also bounce ideas of each other. 

We all generated and brainstormed ideas together for each of our individual trends.

For mine we focussed on how to translate a hidden meaning, something beneath the surface;

- hidden words in print

- brainwashing

-subliminal messaging

- double meanings

- everything is not what you see

- exploitation

I'm still stuck on a visual to develop this idea further, something I need to think into further. 

Peer tutorial

Trend Boutique.

http://www.thetrendboutique.co.uk/

'The future has already happened, it's just that it isn't distributed very well yet'- William Gibson.

I attended a really interesting talk from Sally Denton of the Trend Boutique, who explained how trends worked, the different types of trends, and how she develops trends. 

Trends;

- macro (3-5years)

- transitional (1-2years)

- micro (6months)

Introduction-> brand-> maturity-> decline

Trend setter-> early adopter-> trend follower-> lagger

Designer-> brand-> high street-> discount

Right product, right place, right time. 

Top trend forecasters;

- Carlin International

- Peclers Paris

- Nelly Kodi

- Promostyl

- Trend Union

- Decipher

- Mudpie

- Trend Bible

Methodology;

Themes often come from

- Political

- Economical

- Social

- Technology

- Environment

Talking with peers.

Still confused about where I could take my concept visually, and since I would like to incorporate print into my work, it's important that I can come up with a strong visual to support my concept.

I had a talk with Ursula from college 3 as she's a more conceptual worker to see if talking to someone who thinks more conceptually would offer some advice. 

We came up with ideas about having a garment that could be visually pleasing, but uncomfortable to wear, representing the hidden trades behind the high street.

A garment that creates a double take, imagery appearing nice, but the reflection isn't, or the reflection being nice but the object being ugly. 

Or imagery clear in parts, others jumbled so the brain can't make out what the image is trying to say- could also be applied to technology, not really understanding technology, jumbled imagery to represent our confusion on how technology actually works. 

Imagery wise, could look into sweat shop machinery, take abstract shapes and lines from this to juxtapose with photography? 

The next step.

For my own individual project I am torn between looking into the sweat shops and the truth behind the high street, and also looking more into technology and how it's effecting society today. 

I am interested in the concept of 'what lies beneath', exploring the hidden truths that are amongst us today. 

Searching through magazines in the library for some inspiration; I found these

images in 'Bloom noa 17-18 2008'. 

All these images reveal hidden elements, the idea of masking images with other images, perhaps something ugly revealing something beautiful or vice versa. Revealing the truth beneath? 

Not sure what imagery I could use myself to represent the concept of what lies beneath.

All Slides Together.

Reworked Slides.

I've concentrated this first slide to purely be about the division in the high street, and how many shops are lying derelict in our streets today...but then contrasted this slide with do we really know what we're buying into?

Various shops over the years have been found to be using sweatshops as a means of cheap production, even brands such as Calvin Klein. 

I focused on other events that were masking a hidden truth, such as the horsemeat scandal, where the product was listed as something it wasn't. Another example would be human trafficking, which goes on all over the place, but noone really notices. A shocking example I found of this was to do with the cocoa trade, something as mundane as buying a chocolate bar could really be funding child labour and trafficked workers, even bars marked as fairtrade are not all they say they are, promising fair wages etc. As the cocoa trade is so hard to trace directly, many companies may not even be aware of what's going on behind the scenes, and with no way of tracing, there's no way of stopping.

Division in the High Street.

This was my first draft of a layout for my presentation slide; I was trying to show a divide between the high end and low end shops, with everything between falling through the market with a large amount of shops being shut down. I was then trying to illustrate that digital could be a factor that's causing these problems with jumps in technology such as body scanners finding your perfect outfit, to cars that scan people in the street & sends their outfit to your door.

However in tutorial it was pointed out that perhaps I was trying to get across too much information in one slide, and that it didn't quite fit in with the Brazil starting point.

Perhaps I should look the what lies beneath the surface side of things? What is behind the high street shop, what is behind your technology?

Unit X Begins...

Given the task of working in a group for one week to create a powerpoint presentation on something that will affect the future, whether that be social, economic, political etc. 

We chose the starting point of Brazil with it being the host for the Olympic games 2016 & also hosting the football. 

We began to note down everything that we knew about Brazil already and noted down what we could research.

A key point in our notes was about divides, between the rich & the poor, man made & natural. 

We each took areas to research into further;

- the surface of Brazil; what's marketed to the public.

- the other side of Brazil; what's really going on; crime, poverty etc.

- sustainability; what's being done.

- division at home; high street divide.

Visualisations.

Here's a few of my visualisations as to how I can imagine my work being used within an interior context. 

These are quite statement wallpapers, so they would generally only be used as a feature wall, or as a panel.

Finalising Prints.

Here are a few of my more finalised digital ideas. This top design it one that I feel works particularly well, with the cream and white blending in together to create quite a subtle effect against the bolder cellular structure. 

They key to representing the 1950's style of design is definitely to keep the design simple. These I think work well as they don't involve many layers, just a top and a bottom to create a small amount of depth. 

The cream designs with bolder flashes of colour, I think are working particularly well. 

Sanderson.

Sanderson have done a range of 1950's inspired designs. The bold colours and abstract shapes used, work really well together. Repeat plays a massive part in most 1950's print, and Sanderson is no exception to this.