OUGD301 Self Evaluation

Final Design Boards

UT:: Website/App design

Photographing Products

Francesca and I took out lights and set up our own photography studio today to take pictures of the products I have produced for each of my briefs in order for these to then be put onto my design boards.

Final Crit

All in all, my crit feedback was very positive. There were a few changes suggested but they will enhance the presentation of my work, so I am going to ensure that I make these changes.

This crit was also a good opportunity to see everyone elses work and boards, so I can use inspiration from these to improve my own work.

UT:: making the inner label

Using the fabric I printed earlier today, I have cut out around these and a plain panel of a similar size from the back (the fabric is too thin on it's own). Using a little help from fashion student Lavinia Rowland, I have managed to stitch the two together and attach it to the tshirt. We tried two different ways of stitching the two pieces of fabric together; one create a pillow effect and the other a concealed edge. However, when we stitched the concealed edge the fabric began to pucker (no good). So I opted for the other option as this has much more potential. When the pillow had been stitched together, it was a little wonky so we cut the outer edge to leave a raw edge but as it was close to the fabric, it didn't matter too much. We then tacked this into the inside of my tshirt.

Open publication - Free publishing - More label

UT: Packaging construction

I made up my packaging that I laser cut a while ago. I have had to leave some bit clipped to set over night but all in all it has come together well, the sizing is now correct and I even managed to find some colour toggles to match the inner sleeve of the packaging design.

UT:: inner label printing

This afternoon I dropped in at screen print to print the inner label of my tshirt design. The fashion shop didn't have any cotton fabric, so I went and got an XXL t-shirt (more fabric for my money, why not!) and used this to print on. I will then cut this up to produce my inner labels.

 I began printing this in one colour to see how well the screen worked; it started off fine but it slowly began to leak the more I used it and the emulsion was washing off the screen. This meant that I had to tape up the screen so that the ink didn't protrude onto my clothing, this worked for some of the pulls, but often it would the squeegy would get caught on the tape and let the ink through. Annoying.

I wanted to use 2 colours on the label (to keep in line with the rest of my branding for the tshirt line) black for the 'urban' part of the type and fluorescent red for the 'tease', I also wanted to use black to highlight what size tshirt was being purchased. I managed to line the type of the two up fine, but it seemed that the black ink leaked through the screen far more than the red and just made a mess. One of them print okay (ish) with a few marks but the screen was getting worse so I had to stop.

I also tried printing onto the hanger, however, after two attempts I realised this wasn't going to work. This ink wouldn't sit well on the hanger, I think this was because the hanger had a white gloss finish and the ink was too thin. Also, the hanger was curved so it was difficult for the screen to work with this. I am going to propose that this be done by pad printing on my boards.

UrbanTease:: in-store presentation

This has been particularly challenging for me, as my Illustrator skills have become a little rusty and this is the first time I have tried to create something of this nature. However, I stuck with it and managed to create an mock-up which (with written explanations) will hopefully convey my concept.

UT:: at inpress

I took my UrbanTease t-shirt designs that I printed along to the inpress event at Dock Street market to sell. This has made this t-shirt brief become live.

The t-shirts designs are still in Dock Street Market being on sale as part of Dock Street Arts.

Fourth crit boards

These are my crit boards to show the proposed digital designs I have been working on so that my peers can see this as well as the physical products I have brought in to the crit.

Screenprinting tshirts

Today I have stripped my screen and got it ready for printing. I mainly wanted to test the colours and see how each of them worked on the different fabrics, so I printed on a light (white), medium (light grey) and dark (dark grey) tshirts to see how the ink sat.

I chose to use one of my simple vector image designs on the t-shirts so that I could experiment with colour, without it distracting from the image itself. So I created a gradient from pink to blue. The ink didn't sit very well on the dark grey fabric but worked considerably well on the light grey and white fabrics. So, I am going to buy some more lighter coloured tees.

Pantone matching

I have pantone matched the coloured papers that I had screen printed recently for my projects: the packaging and swing ticket stock for my tee project and the inpress business cards. As they would be sent to the printers as a spot colour, I need to be able to specify the spot colour. Some of the colours didn't match a pantone colour exact so I had a few coloure to choose from, but I manage to match them as close as possible:

Open publication - Free publishing - More matching

Urban Tease:

-Pantone Solid Matte: 178M, 1785 M, 1777M
-Coated Euro: 1777c, 1787c
-Solid Uncoated: 1787U
-Solid Coated: 177c, 178c

Inpress Business card:

-Solid matte: 285m (Blue)
-Solid matte: 375M (Green)
-Solid matte: 1787M (Red)

Tshirt:: Prep

I have been trying to sort out which design to print for my tshirt design tomorrow. I have 2 screens ready so just need to go and expose my screen then print. I am going to try and fit the 'urbantease' inner label on one of them, as this will allow me to then print in the same colour (proposed spot colour) that I have printed the packaging in and swing ticket in, so that it will all work together as a collection.

The majority of my design are not to be simply printed onto the tshirts but instead combing different fabrics or using stitch.

Although I proposed this design would be stitched, I am thinking that I may print this tee design. I want to try and print the front and the back so that they meet, but I am afraid this may be a little tricky, so we shall see. But the point is, I don't want to just print a design straight onto the center of a tshirt; I want it to have something more about it. I like that this design is focused around the side of the shirt rather than being central.

I played around with how else this could work just down the front side of the tee, but essentially I think it is going to work better split into two and working around the side.

I have prepared my artwork on two A3 boards ready to print off in the mac suites. I may have to change the size slightly once they are printed on paper, but we shall see.

Urban Tease:: Website & App mockup

I have mocked up the proposed website and app designs to see what they will look like on the device itself. This is important in terms of scale, typeface size, readability and legibility of each component.

Stock Purchased

This morning I popped into town before my lasercutting slot to get some stock. I went to Craftwise in the merrion centre an picked up the card I was looking at last week, it is slightly bigger than I needed but I will cut it down.

I also went to get some more tshirts to print on. I got a black, light grey and dark grey one so I can see how the screenprinted colours work on the different colours of fabric.

To Do Today::

//Town: buy card and tees

//Lasercut

//Screenprint:: strip screens

//Print session

//Print inpress posters at Vernon

//Hope designs

//Print and submit card design

Hope Deliverables

I have considered the deliverables for my Hope re-brand brief. I have considered this in terms of product range and distribution, then what I can make and what I will need to propose...

A few initial thoughts....

Monday Morning Briefing

I have also written a to do list for whilst I am in college and then when I go home.

To Do This Week

As it is the beginning of the week, I have written a list of what I need to complete for each brief over this week (if possible, but definitely by module hand-in)

To make sure I stay on track, I have planned this out over the week. Well, the beginning of the week anyway as things can change....