I was quite anxious about this week as I have only ever used Photoshop to digitally manipulate my photographic images. The week was most certainly challenging as I found it difficult to keep up with the instructions and remember them too in order to recreate or adjust other final outcomes. However, I thoroughly enjoyed learning such an empirical technique for the fashion industry. This week also excited and inspire me immensely as it showed me just some of the creative processes one can carry out in order to design fashion. Dan also allowed us to consider the important aspect of business within Photoshop as he taught us to display our final designs in a way that would appeal to a customer. For example, creating a swatch palette down the side of the page can inform the customer of every colour used in the garment. I found this extremely useful and interesting.
I felt like 3 days of tutorials was not sufficient time wise to learn such a complex and dynamic new skill. I enjoyed the tutorials very much, even though the content was challenging. On reflection, this may have been because I am a Theorist and my methodological characteristics were stopping me progressing further when the pace quickened. Although I had used Photoshop briefly beforehand, it was more difficult than I had originally perceived as I had no idea one could combine such intricate details of their own art work with digital media.
Our brief was 'family history', therefore I begun my research with a small mind-map of my family history. I found myself concentrating on the professions of my ancestors as I questioned my Grandma about the history of our family. My Great Grandfather was a hat designer and manufacturer so I went to the library and took out a book about the history in fashion of headwear. I made a sketch of a hat with an interesting composition and considered creating a repeat pattern print of an old fashioned hat. However, I decided to do some more research as I felt my skill-base was not sound enough to make my idea look professional. Therefore, I begun to photograph a wooden box my Great Grandfather from the other side of the family carved himself. It too was detailed and intricate so I thought it would be interesting to sketch and layer on itself using acetate. I liked the idea of incorporating relevant physical objects into my digital print designs so I also begun to photograph my silk outfit that I was Christened in. I then had the idea to layer the two objects onto each other, and to experiment with both the photographs and the drawings. Although it did occur to me that to work with such complex compositions in Photoshop may pose a problem.
Although I managed to create repeat pattern prints and three final designs, they were only my practice pieces and not my intended outcomes. The reason for this is that I did not note down the tutorials and so therefore could not recreate the instructions to reproduce my skills outside of the lessons. I found trying to produce my personal garments alongside learning the computer programming skills has affected my work. Nevertheless, I did not help myself as I should have been more concise when researching which meant that I would have been more prepared for the tutorials.
I feel that this skill is absolutely crucial for a career in fashion design especially when digital designs are evermore present and only will become more of an essential aspect of the industry in the future. This is why I intend to learn Photoshop and produce many digital print designs for other elements of this course.
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