Live Project- Graham & Brown live brief

As I would like to work for them in the future I organised for one of the designers at Graham & Brown to set me a live brief similar to their job briefs. I was asked to create a new floral design for their Premier collection. I decided to create mood boards to show my ideas in development and to show I take into consideration things such as market trends. I chose to create my colour palette from the set colours used in their Premier collection so my design felt like part of the collection. In the Premier collection I found that they did not have an oriental floral and this is a popular trend for wallpaper so I decided this is what I would create. I presented my work on A3 boards as Paula Taylor the trend and colour specialist at Graham & Brown asked me to.

For my design I decided to use a mixture of Photoshop and Illustrator to get the best qualities out of both as print designers do. The feedback from the designers was very positive. They liked that I presented my moodboards and showed the importance of them as they use these as inspiration around the design studio. They also liked that I chose the qualities for my design and my colour way from within the Premier collection, ensuring that it would feel part of the collection. The suggestions they made for alteration were to thin down some of the branches and discard the s shape which has formed between the branches so they would flow more. I made these alterations and recognise it is now more agreeable as the flowers aren't overpowered by the branches and the eye can follow the pattern better. 

Original design 

 

Final design

Final design in repeat

I have decided to advance this project and continue creating designs which would be appropriate for the Premier collection. It is important to show I can create floral designs within my portfolio as they are a continuous style within wallpaper designs. 

Stage 9 Analysis

     As a way to link my high end and mid market range I wanted to take the colours from my mixed media photographs to create colour palette options for my mid market range. I was aware that you need a combination of  bright bold colours and more neutral tones. The second or third down would be best suited as they have some vivid colours that compliment the muted colours.

         I decided the mono- printed shapes could be used individually as prints for my mid- end collection as the qualities in them are interesting enough. The mono-prints I have created already cannot be put into repeat so I am creating designs that can be. A lot of mid- end wallpaper designs are created in half drop repeat and I have found that mono-print designs are more suited to that. The first designs I created looked too mechanical so I looked back at the past designs from my high end collection and decided to use some of the shapes from these. This is also another way of linking the two collections.

One of the first designs in repeat

One of the past designs I have taken inspiration from.

One of the final designs ready to be taken into mono- printing.

Stage 8 Analysis

I joined View Bug which is a website for the photography community where you can participate in contests and helps to promote photographers, and gain recognition. I thought this would be a good place to promote myself as a designer, linking it with my Twitter account for people to see both my design work and photography work. Within one day of using the site I was recognised by a photographer, Liza Otrefy from San Diego in America, she gave me an award for superb composition for the photograph below. View my View Bug profile at:  http://www.viewbug.com/member/emmasenior1

     I started a conversation on one of the Linkedin groups 'Freelance Textile Designers', asking what size they would recommend a portfolio to be. I wanted to know from professionals in the industry for when I start to assemble mine. I also wanted to start making more of a contribution to the group as employers take notice of top contributors, this will be important when I start to apply for jobs. I got feedback on my question and am now a top contributor to the group.
     I was emailed by the owner of Feedspot, a social feed reader, as my blog is adding value to Feedspot because it is getting a lot of followers. I decided after hearing this it was important for my profile on my blog to be more professional so I have edited my information giving them the link to my Linkedin account and welcoming any questions about my work.