The Importance of Design:

    Today has been by far the best workshop day since I started at Ravensbourne. This was due my group (2) working individually and as small groups throughout the day to create extremely quick mini sketches and more elaborate detailed designs. To top it off, one of my designs got selected as one of the best in the group, which resulted to a chocolate prize, however I don't like chocolate so I gave it to my friends… (Lucky them!!) Today also enabled me to work with new people which was a great experience and I hope that I can build up more relationships with some of the people in my class towards the end of the year.

    Below is my personal best design I did today which consists of a Jacket/Skirt garment combo. I really liked this design because I felt that it was more of an illustration than a design which I feel more appealed to do, plus it had an Edwardian flair to it with the corset-type jacket with panels and pleated draping. If I could change anything, I would have wanted to add colour, although we had to keep it black and white today. Moreover, the detail could have been a lot more defined but I was still happy with my end result. In addition, doing these designs has shown me that I am capable of doing practically anything with design from little inspirations, whether that being in a dream, having a walk, on the bus or tube etc. I really got a sense of how important the structures and textures of a garment piece can be and how they can be practically limitless to produce if they're designed in a practical and sustainable way, especially with all the added details and annotations on how I see myself and my designs as an illustrator.

    We began the day by looking around the room and deciding which garments we liked on people, once we decided the ones we liked, we took a photo and had to use them as inspiration for our quick mini sketches. Furthermore, when these were more defined, we got to the second part of the task which was to create 5 front and back designs, but with more detail and accurate structure. Nonetheless, I think I had produced well over 300 mini sketches in the time-frame we were given, which is pretty impressive for a first timer I think. I thought that this practice will increase not only my time per sketch, but also detail to make the designs look more professional and understandable. Overall, it was a very productive day and I am looking forward to creating more quick sketches and illustrations in future.