Observation

For my Observation location Me and 2 other girls in my class decided to go to Starbucks Coffee Shop. When we got there we found had to wait for spaces to become available. We were luckily as we got the comfy couch near the corner where we did our observation. We drew the layout of the coffee shop to make it easier to understand. As we drew the layout we figured that there was a one way system which wasn't sign posted but was very obvious there was one. I think this is to do with good design system made for Starbucks as Starbucks is a massive franchise. Their target is more money so designing a way for quick coffee break and efficient service will allow them to serve more customers in a short period of time and therefore make more money.

As we sat there observing people who come in to get a coffee and take away I thought back to Starbucks way of making money and how there branding is advertised through take away cups. The employees wear a green apron which separates them from the customers. The aprons give the employees a certain personality like they are undercover and have to put on an act on. The space in Starbucks was very confined, everyone sat really closely together which made some people feel self conscious and feel like an invasion of privacy. people mainly came in twos or on their own. People who came in twos were either couples or business people or just friends. Infront of us sat a woman and man who came and asked us if the space was free as there were no other spaces in the coffee shop. They were talking about business shown by there body movement. They made a lot of hand gestures and has sheets of paper with charts etc on it which made me think it was about work. We realised couples sat closer together which made there body language more intimate and private. Friends sat further apart and were more open as it was very casual and not as cautious about other people. People who st on their own tended to be more self conscious. They tended to fidget or do something to keep themselves occupied, They were more wary about people watching them and self conscious. There was this man who sat diagonally apart from us in the shop who stared at us a lot which made me think that he noticed we were observing people. He glanced over a lot looking uncomfortable with us looking around. Another example of someone who sat alone being more cautious with people around them was a woman who dropped a bottle and looked around to see who was looking at her. If this situation held 2 or more people the person who dropped the bottle wouldn't care who was looking as she would be more confident. The Starbucks we went to is situated inside a shopping center which gives you a sort of feeling of the people around you. Majority of the people in Starbucks were well dressed. They looked middle classed working people who shop in similar places as we do. Shops within Overgate shopping center. There were a couple of men who were in suits which look very business man. One had his laptop which means he could be making use of Starbucks free WiFi. This is another way attract customers. Starbucks is made very attractive with little things which people don't think about. It is very open made with full length windows which attract customers, as an invite for people to come in. As we were leaving we noticed a group 5 or 6 girls who sat in the corner of the coffee shop. They were unaware of their surroundings and sat in the corner to keep away from other people so they can have their own space.

After the observation part of the task we had a little discussion on all the points which were made. We put ourselves in other peoples positions and things which we all agreed on were that If we did the observation on our own we would've felt intimidated and self conscious. We felt as though we were invading peoples space and that we wouldn't have liked to have been watched especially in a place that was designed for relaxing. As I mentioned earlier we were also getting watched by people who were on their own which made us feel uneasy even though we were in a group. We noticed it more because we were deliberately watching but if we went in casually just for a cup of coffee I don't think we wouldn't have noticed it as much. A really good point which we said was that even though we were observing people, it doesn't actually tell you about the person or people you look at as you wouldn't know their lives. We all said we do little things when we are on our own such as Sarah playing with her fingers and I play on my phone which confirms our note that people keep themselves occupied when their on their own.

Sarah presenting the large windows

Maxine standing at the entrance showing route to desk.
Me walking towards exit but shows the customers around the shop doing there own thing. sitting down, waiting for order.

End of Project!

At end of Trend Forecasting project, we had an informal presentation and who thought an informal presentation was so nerve racking. We had to talk about how we came about chosing our 'Trend' and the process we went through to get our final outcome. I chose to do Knit for my samples which were simple but effective. Although my trend was blooming pattern I focused a lot on colour composition. I only used a few techniques but came out with quite a few designs which I thought worked quite well. I tried a lot of these knit samples on fashion models and below are my 3 favourite designs on models.

This layered knit is made up of tucks where I limited the colours to a sandy beige and a deep red.

Maxi Dress, good for summer. I used partial knitting technique for this sample giving irregular lines.My sample is on the jumper of this model. Not too sure what the technique I used is called but the plain bit is ribbed which is not noticeable on the model but adds interest to the jumper.

Experiment

My understanding of polysemy by from the Essay 'Rhetoric of the Image' by Roland Barthes from my first reading was very vague. I understood from the essay that an image could have more than one meaning but the language in it was really diverse which made it hard for me to grasp. While I was reading through the Essay I tried to relate Barthes statements to my own discipline. Things which I thought related to Textiles was words and how it changes a subject from a persons interpretation. I related it to my Trend Project as we had to choose a heading and interpret it in our own way into fabrics, The fabrics which we make from the interpretation of the heading is similar to the Text and Image used in the essay and how people interpret things differently. After writing notes and discussing the Essay with people in a group I came to understand it a bit more. We then did an experiment which tried to help our understanding of polysemy. In order to start the experiment we had to group up to look for 3 random images. Our images were the below:



After obtaining these images we each went away to ask family and friends to make up a story with these 3 images in a random order. I asked my sister who is 16 and still at school, My boyfriend who is 25 and is a sales assistant and my aunty who is 40 and works in a chinese take away. The stories they came up with were different. Similarities in the stories occurred in the group so we decided to pick our favourite story being that it was a holiday to a costal village of the Mediterranean where they followed a path lined by palm trees, this led them to the beach where they bumped into a local lady who agreed to take them around the local beauty spots. This was very interesting as a lot of the stories jumped to the conclusion that the pictures represented that it was a holiday. This relates back to the Essay by Barthes as he mentions 'stereotype'. His example was on a pasta advert which showed people immediately jumped to the conclusion that it was Italian and in this experiment it showed that because there is a girl on a beach then people assume its a holiday. As we agreed that this was the story most common in all of our stories we added a 4th image to enhance the understanding of the rep taking the tourists to local beauty spots, so went out again to ask strangers around the art college to read the images in the order we gave them. We asked 5 different people and the majority came up with similar stories. One girl called Michaela said it was people on holiday who meet a rep, she lives on the beach and later they meet up with family to go for a walk along a path. This story was pretty close to our chosen story as she mentioned the Rep on the beach and it was a holiday. As a lot of people assume these picture connotated a Holiday, it makes me think of culture as we think sun shine and beaches relates to holidays whereas people who live in countries with beaches would read the picture as being a normal day. In the last part of the experiment we added text to each of the images. Our 4th image was :

We added words such as Mediterranean, Path, Rep and Activity. These words really helped the people who were analysing our pictures as they were much closer to our original story when text was added. An example of this is a girl called Shawn. Her initial story was the girl was on a plane, then goes for a walk, stops for a drink at the beach and then goes for a walk in the forest for an excursion. When text was added her story became A plane view of the Mediterranean. Walked along a path to hotel to meet Rep who took them to do activities. This shows that the concept of Polysemy in Barthes Essay does work shown in this experiment. In the Essay Barthe mentions the Linguistic Message which I translated to be the Written Message. Text is used for quickness so that people don't need to ask 'What is it?' Barthe also mentions that text adds Fresh information to an image which is clearly shown in our experiment. People responded more clearly and had a better understanding of what is portrayed in the images when Text was added. In the Denoted Image section of Barthes Essay he said that the 'Literal message cannot be substantial but only relational' shows that the text added to the image is only related to the image to make the experiment work. If the experiment was done with just text and no image then the story wouldn't transmit the correct story that's trying to be told.

Inpsirational Designers

Catching up with my latest project!

I have recently been researching artists which inspire me and have similairites to my project, A reminder of what I am doing: My project is called 'blooming pattern' which I am basing the theme of floral and organic patterns. I have included some more structural patterns in my source drawings but I mainly just florals. Designers which I have been researching are Cath Kidston whose work is based of floral patterns. She designs and prints these florals on homeware, accessories, bags etc. I love the colours she uses and the delicate and blodness of colours. I have also been looking at a Taiwan designer called Johan Ku, He is a knitwear designer who is very bold, one piece which I really like is an assymetrical peice and has mixtures of textures made from chunky knits to thin tight knits. I really like the stuctural look to his garments. Below is an image of his design.



This is Cath Kidston's Floral designs:




Some other inspirational designers include Derek Lawlor who is a fashion designer and Mark Fast another Knitwear Designer.
Mark Fast

Derek Lawlor

The Culture of Design

The Culture of Design by Guy Julier

After reading chapter 4 (The consumption of Design) for the first time I was very confused in how it related to my area of design and how it related to me at all, but after the seminar last Friday I got a better understanding of the chapter. It actually raised a lot of questions and is very inspiring to see the link to my discipline. In this chapter Julier talks about Consumption in society culture and how all this relates to design. In the seminar we had a brief discussion on what discussion is we said it is the 'use of something', and is 'traditionally exchanged with money' We also said that consumption has a lot to do with Identity as we buy (meaning we consume )usually to 'fit in' to a group or society. I consume from a day to day basis which means I play a role of consumption. I buy things as my group of friends buy things and we are all similar in personality, this could also happen in other groups which make like a big consumption boom. I feel that society plays a big part in consumption as they tell the public 'we need this' and this is the best and newest thing which makes people want to buy. When people start to buy in this way, its never going to be enough and people start to buy and buy and buy like a vicious circle. In this Chapter Julier referred to this consumption circle as desire which means to 'need' or to 'want'. So what does consumption have to do with design? how does it relate to textiles? is design the problem for consumption? Design effects consumption as it is the designers who design either posters or objects such as clothes, homeware to attract people to buy things. Before reading this book I didn't think consumption related to my discipline at all but looking into it further and being a victim and provider of consumption I understand how this relates to Textiles. The discussion in the last seminar made me think about what I buy and if what I buy is disposable such as buying from Primark and how I would buy an excessive amount of garments and accessories which are thrown out a couple of months down the line when it is 'out of fashion' I do believe that as a Textile designer, that designers do play a big part in consumption as we make and design these garments which follow a trend 4 times a year means that fashion/trend followers will have to buy the new and latest fashion piece. Things which designers could change to reduce consumption could be thinking up different ways in recycling material or designing a dress which will change and manipulate to look like a dress with lots of different looks. This idea of manipulating could be applied to many other things such as bags or accessories. Maybe in the future Consumption caused by design could be reduced if designers come up with a design solution for this problem. I also feel that if consumption dint exist then there wouldn't be a point in having designers as a lot of designers would be out of jobs so in a way I feel consumption helps the economy going and more design jobs are available.

Swapping Personal Photos

In this assignment we were ask to swap photographs of either our home or pictures of ourselves growing up with a person whom we don't know very well. I swapped with a girl in Textiles called Jaqui. We decided to take photographs of our own spaces within the house because the pictures of when I was a child are a little embarrassing. The main point in this swapping of photographs is to let someone use you as a first hand source and to let you feel what other people would feel when you are asking them personal questions.
When i started to analyse jaquis photographs made me start comparing my own pictures in my head because I was thinking about what Jaqui may be thinking and analysing about my photos. The way in which we took the photographs were quite different as I had been taking far away shots of the rooms in my house whereas Jaqui zoomed in on details showing more of her personality.
When I was looking at the pictures I started to bullet point things that I felt she portrayed in her pictures. There were 11 pictures of her personal space, 6 of them were taken of her room. What i found throughout the pictures is the tidiness and the cleanness of the home. Everything was so neat and precise in where it sat. Starting with the pictures of Jaquis room I realised she had a lot of Cuddly toys. Majority being 'Me to You' Bears. The Bears show that she has a very cute personality and close friends who give her these bears as gifts for birthdays and Christmas. Looking closely at the bears I noticed she has a boyfriend as there is 2 bears which are stitched together with a (Love You) heart. Another picture reveals that Jaqui is trendy and is into her fashion, this is probably the route she'd be taking in textiles. She is very neat and tidy as her clothes were on hangers and shoes were in boxes stacked in a neatly together. Looking at her hangers and Shoe boxes I found out her sizes and where her shopping takes place. The usual were New Look and River Island. A picture of her bed showed that she had just been shopping and placed everything on her bed. The bed has a Gold throw and brown and beige cushions. These colours are neutral and relaxing which makes me think she likes to relax and cosy in bed. There is a remote on the bed which tells me that she likes watching Tv when relaxing and what confirms this is her big Tv in the corner surrounded by her little bears. On the bed was also a new look bag and waterstones bag which confirmed my analysis of her shopping habits, also revealing that she likes to read. Her favourite colour is shown to be more neutral colours shown on her bed covers and the pale pink dresses which are hung up. Another picture shows two towers of bangles which together would be about 40 bangles which shows that she likes to accessorize and has a big bangle collection. These bangles are neatly stacked on a bangle rack which shows she is very tidy and organised.
Pictures 7 to 11 were pictures around the house 2 of which included her mum and her brother. This gave the impression of a close family as she wanted them to appear in her pictures. In one of the pictures was Jaqui's mum in the utility where there are lots of cleaning products and the mums head looking as if shes busy doing chores. There was a pair of trainers on the surface tops which tells me that someone likes to excercise or does a sport. The cleanliness is a big feature to the pictures, this makes me think that maybe the mum likes to keep the place tidy which is rubbed off on Jaqui shown in her tidy room. The house looks very modern and very well looked after. The colours in the house are mainly blue making the house very fresh. There is a picture of her brothers room which shows his medals on a shelf. With close inspection I found hockey gear which I figured might have something to do with the medals. He is also into his Xbox as there is a sports game sitting on his desk. The walls of his room are blue, this may be related to his supporting of rangers football club as there is a rangers calendar on the wall. In the bathroom is a corner bath and a shower. I figured that Jaqui took the picture of the bath to show that she likes to have relaxing time in the bath to take all the stress away. The bathroom is also blue which is the theme running through the whole house.


After meeting up with Jaqui to discuss our analysis of each other's photographs we found that we had each other pretty much spot on. A few things which I got a bit wrong were that Jaqui was a tidy person influenced by her mum. She told me that her mum would tidy up after her and her brother. Another thing was my assumption of her loves for relax time in a bath was actually the opposite, she told me she hates baths and would rather a shower because it's much faster. I was correct in thinking that she loves her teddies and has a boyfriend and her love for fashion.
When Jaqui was telling me about what she thought about my photographs, I was really surprised how accurate she got me. she noticed that my favourite colour was purple and how I was exercising to tone up and that I like my things organised and separated for easy access. She also noticed my mums charm hung on her bed and how she liked to collect ornaments.

Doing this experiment really makes you think about her personal space and how people might portay you through your belongings. I felt quite nervous about doing this as I didn't know if Jaqui would find me really odd but after the conversation on our pictures I found that we were quite similar in what we like and dislike.