Reflecting on the Project.

DATAWHERE was the name I came up for my finished books, this is a play on wearing your data, not knowing where your data is online and the fact that data is everywhere.
This project has been a tough one for me, and I've found it extremely challenging at times. Working to a more conceptual brief was hard for me at first, especially trying to come up with something futuristic to work with. I'm often quite a visual thinker and like to be able to draw from objects and places straight away, whereas this project was more about the thoughts behind the concept to start with.
I found that towards the end of the project I was trying to create prints from the data, instead of trying to get my concept across, which I think just shows that I am more of a visual worker as opposed to a conceptual thinker. I do however quite like the fact that the prints have more of a meaning, and perhaps in future I could come up with a meaning to start my project but then move into purely visual outcomes.
I have enjoyed working with a fashion based outcome, and it's perhaps something that I would like to explore further, perhaps I could design prints that are for both fashion and interiors.
Over the summer I would like to try and develop my use of illustration further and practice drawing the figure and garments, so that I can progress well into 3rd year.
This project has definitely pushed me out of my comfort zone and I'm glad a chose to do it, instead of staying where my comforts lie in interior surface pattern. My skills in Illustrator and Photoshop I feel have also progressed, and I've really enjoyed creating layouts and a final book. I think it's opened up my ways of approaching projects which should definitely be useful in 3rd year.

Final Layouts.

A few of my final layouts for the book, I think it's come together well in the end, I've tried to keep each page in keeping with eachother, having a theme running through the book. 

I decided to have two trend books, one that is for a more commercial audience with garment ideas etc, and another trend book which has more suggestive designs. 

Data Animation.

An animation seemed the best way to show my data moving and changing out of the book, a stop motion takes so long to create I didn't have to take this much further, but I think if I was to carry on with it, I would create a whole scene of people where the data was changing up and down to show how everyones data is different. 

Data Changing.

I've been testing out how I can show the data building up and changing, and I think this is probably one of the best way I can show that happening in the book. The city scene I feel is working really well and doesn't detract from the figures.

I think these can possibly be two layouts ready to put into the book as a spread against each other, which I think will work well. 

Tutorial Notes.

Final tutorial before deadline-
Laura
- a way of demonstrating changes- colours changing/levels of busy.
- maybe don't have an all over background.
- find a system of putting data on the body
- can you turn on/off?
- not on the front but on the back?
- how to layout?
- how changeable?
- methodical information
- do one or two pages to suggest to Alex.

Alex
- mood concept boards to start book
- key words/phrases to include?
- somewhere have overview of what sort of data has been used
- separate leaflet for the website- 2-D body work.
- showing how the flat image could work as a product.

Garment Suggestions on the Body.

I think again these backgrounds are a bit too busy, layering too much data into the background, however I do like this figure and think that skirt with the print works well, and also the facial distortion is starting to work slightly better I think.

The cityscape has definitely been the most successful background of my recent prints, so this is something I need to come back to.

Backgrounds and Colours.

Starting to look into different scenery to work with, I decided to recreate the cityscape of Manchester in lines and blocks to keep with my designs. I don't think this piece works at all, it's far too blocky and the figure is almost engulfed by blocks and colour losing any shape, I think it's important to be able to see some of the body shape. 

The addition of a human face from some of my earlier distorted face work, I also feel wasn't very successful as it just looks far too placed and doesn't really fit. 

Creating more of a colour feel adding in background tones and shapes I think actually really works, and is starting to look more like a finished print. I like the addition of people in the print as it's as though the people are coming through the data, data is all around. 

I've been adding hair back into my digital people which I think is starting to work really well, I'm still not sure about the distortion of the face, perhaps I should look back more and blocking off the face with bands and scribbles etc?

These backgrounds are perhaps too busy for the people, and a little too distracting from the data on the body. 

Layout Ideas.

I decided to layer up some of my designs onto garments to see what they'd look like as an actual print and not just a suggestion that the print is on the body. I think these work well and I also quite like the layout which was inspired by my use of graphing and graph paper but in a bolder more graphic style. The grey and blue tones I feel work well, with the bright colour combinations that I have been using, it definitely needs quite a subtle background so as not to clash with the designs. 

I think I need to look back into other colour combinations and perhaps add greys and blues back into other designs. 

Lauren Bowker Presentation.

I presented my work to Lauren Bowker and received feedback, this was an interesting experience to get feedback from someone already in the industry. I felt this experience was a bit of a reality check and it hit me quite hard, and to start with demotivated me to carry on with my trend book, it threw me off track a bit I think. 

Lauren commented that my work seemed quite commercial, and I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or not, but I think that I do actually want my work to appeal to a commercial audience in the long run. 

She suggested lots of things to look at and work on further, a lot of which I wouldn't be able to achieve now with only a week to go, but perhaps things that I could think about in the future. 

For the presentation I decided to put together a website interface to suggest how other people might be able to translate the data, this program could collect peoples data and then create their own data pattern for them. So then everyone would have different data patterns but all with similar attributes. The reason for this would be so that it may then be possible to work out correlations between your own data and other peoples data.

Adding Backgrounds.

Playing around more here with backgrounds, and adding multiple layers and people. I think some of these could be progressed further, especially the stitch layers. These map I'm not entirely sure works, maybe takes too much away from the actual person. I do think the shapes layered on top of the coding and maps does work even though it's busy, it's almost like the data is surrounding. 

I wanted to create some pieces that were just prints in their own right, which I think these stitch pieces could be, perhaps there is too much white space, I could think about adding different or more colours into the mix. 

Tutorial Notes.

Alex

- detailing on the body

- facial features

- distorted faces

- shapes that the garments could be

-put ideas on top of garments

- combination of hand drawn and digital

- combination of colour use

- different backgrounds

-subtle

- graphs could be in compositions

- cityscape, create setting

- think of title

Drawing Data In.

Drawing back into the digital lines I think is quite effective combining digital and hand drawn has a nice quality about it. 

I've based the formations on top on the original graphs I drew of my activity across the week.

I've also been working with acetate to layer the data on top taking inspiration from morse code also to add another code back on top of the image. I think the acetate is a good way to represent the data changing and building up, as the page is turned then the data is being added or removed, so could work well in my trend inspiration book. 

Translating Shapes onto a Figure.

After trying to put my shape data onto a bulk form, I tried drawing out my own figure to then place the shapes back onto to suggest a garment but not in an exact shape, so it appears like the data is around them, surrounding them. I've used different types of data to create each pattern, so that each base layer has a different meaning, the circles representing everyday activity, I played with adding lines which could represent the amount of times something was done and I left the other circle form blank so that I could potentially add data back into in a hand drawn way to mix digital and hand together? 

The sharp lines represent social media activity, different colours to represent the days of the week, then the smooth line formations represent GPS tracking, recording my journey on each day of the week. 

I feel that these are starting to work quite well, and I think if I draw back into them it could start to look really visually interesting. 

Tutorial Notes.

Laura
- translate information onto further graphs
- morse code/hidden code
- braile
- sound/number coding
- mini groups of codes/images
- control  over information by structure of garment- folding away information
- squared background/graphing
- colour and tone
- overall structure
- groups of information together/logical layout
- grids of circles combined with graphs/squares
- symbol represents words?
- stitch and digital- stitching their own code, how hi tech?

Alex
- start putting onto the whole body
- silhouette/outline shape to suggest fashion
- composition- several people differentiating purpose.
- levels of opacity/people
- part journey/part person/people
- playing around with hand drawn and digital
- holes in page
- tracing paper/acetate pages
- hole punching, revealing what's underneath
- scanning in sewing
- pattern brush, combining fabric element.
- colour atmosphere.

Cute Circuit.

Cute Circuit are pushing the boundaries of fashion and technology, making technology more wearable and visually appealing. With the use of lighting in their garments, they create a wearable show piece. Francesca Rosella and Ryan Genz are the pair behind the ground breaking creations. 

Their aim is to create resonant, fashionable, visually and emotionally attractive designs. 

http://cutecircuit.com/portfolio/little-black-dress/

The reinvention of the black dress, embedded with thousands of LEDs. These move and change to create thousands of different compositions and patterns. 

http://cutecircuit.com/portfolio/twitter-dress/

The first Haute couture Twitter dress, which receives and displays tweets in real time, the dress can directly be tweeted via #tweetthedress showing the display in LEDs. 

http://cutecircuit.com/portfolio/kinetic-dress/#prettyPhoto

Kinetic dress reactive to the mood and activities of the wearer. The dress is embedded with sensors that closely follow the form of the body, which capture the wearer's movements and interaction with others, which is then displayed via electroluminescent embroidery. This display changes depending on who is around the wearer. When the wearer is alone the dress remains a black dress, but when interacting with others or moving, the dress begins to light up and create moving patterns. 

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It's amazing what is so seemingly achievable wearable technology is these days, and this definitely shows that is bound to become something that everyone is eventually wearing in some way or another. The kinetic dress especially, is not a million miles away from my concept, and this idea shows that my concept could realistically be achieved in some way. If this kinetic dress is able to respond to activity and make patterns according to surroundings, a dress that reveals data doesn't sound so out there at all and is actually something that could become a reality in some form. 

Stitching Data.

After looking at the cross stitching charts and realising a link between marking out patterns for cross stitch and data charts, I decided that it could be interesting to stitch out some of my own charts. I feel that by doing this that I could potentially add another dimension to my prints, adding multiple layers and also a bit of texture and depth. 

The back of these pieces I also felt could work well as they look to represent a journey, which is something that I have also been recording as the project goes along, so this could be another way of translating that perhaps?

Initial Human Form.

I initially started to put my shapes into a more human shape by layering them on top of a photo. These created quite bulky forms I think, and I don't think they work particularly well, especially not the hand shape, which I don't think i'll use again in any way. 

I could perhaps try experimenting with the human form further, since I want my prints and patterns to go onto the body, it would be good for the imagery to have some relevance to people.

Freddie Robins.

http://gabydurnford.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/freddie-robins.html

Laura suggested, although not directly related to my project, that I look into a project that knitter Freddie Robins undertook. These projects seem to have been taken down from her website as the links no longer work, how ever I found a blog post on the project (referenced above). The project was 'how to make a piece of work when you are too tired to make decisions'. Robin's came up with a way of relieving all decisions of how to create work, and relied on 3 dice. One dice was to select the colour of yarns, one to give numbers for the stitches and rows and one to decide the technique that was to be knitted. 

I think this is vaguely related to my concept with the idea that I could play by a set of rules, so I could select a colour for each thing I do, select a shape for each thing I do, have a certain way of arranging things etc, so that everything is decided but in possibly a predetermined way by the rules. 

Coding Inspiration.

Norsk Bilde studios

Ibm Punchcards- www.columbia.edu

www.jeff-barr.com


Having come across the top image randomly in a layout book, I was inspired by the graphical element of marking out crosses to show where cross stitch would go to make a pattern. The areas then that were punch through reminded me of punch cards, which of course are an old fashioned way of coding computers, and also a way of programming looms for weaving and knitting.
I like the effect of many holes combining together to create a pattern, something that I could perhaps bring into my work? 
These did also remind me of brail and morse code, which are both different means of communicating via code. 

Punch Tape- minnalmalayali.blogspot.com

Punch card fabric- www.spoonflower.com