Product Range Distribution: Creative Networks Sustainable Fashion

Creative Networks held an evening talk at uni on the subject of sustainable fashion, featuring 2 creatives who pride themselves in a sustainable approach to their practice.

The first guest speaker was Amy Twigger Holroyd, a fashion and knitwear designer.

Her journey in sustainable fashion began with a sequin cat. Whilst she was creating the design for this piece of clothing, she had to plan the placement of the sequins on the garment on a computer. She found this boring, and began to think of the people producing this on the other side of the world, who would be placing these sequins by hand on hundreds of pieces of this clothing.

It was only after doing her undergraduate degree that she discovered the concept of sustainability, as it was not taught to them at university from 1998- 2001. This shows how much times have changed and how big a consideration sustainabililty is and needs to be now, compared to 20 years ago. Amy became aware of the sheer scale of stuff being produced and consumed, and she then saw it as design challenge.

Recycling offers business an environmental excuse for instant obscelence - Fairlie, 1992

The more definitive solution is to keep - New on Colour, 2002

Psychological life span - the time products are able to be perceived and used as worthy subjects - Ed van Hinte, Eternally Yours 1997

Amy set up her own experimental knitwear brand called Keep and Share, with the idea of sustainability in mind. The aim of her brand was to be versatile and less impactful.

She became gradually more interested in the idea of sufficiency - satisfaction met by having less stuff. This led her to consider people's attachment to pieces and make this a focal point in her business, by concentrating on her direct relationship with customers (being a small brand) and creating products local.

In 2006 Keep and Share was the #1 boutique in the Independent. This made her business blow up and she exhibited at many events. At these events, people asked for the patterns for her products, so that they could make them themselves. This was at first frustrating but Amy eventaully realised it could be a good business opportunity. It tied into the morals of Keep and Share, making your own clothes, and having an emotional attachment to the clothing. This led to the creation of patterns to sell, and workshops for people to make their own clothing.

More recently, Amy has begun to research and create work and exhibitions around reusing and repurposing older clothes. She referes to this as stitch hacking or reknitting. (also known as upcycling).

keep and share publication on website on philosophy of brand.

Amy is also very interested in how people feel about things they've made themselves. She asked people to submit a statement about handmade clothing and got varied responses. The 2 most prominent were 
"a loving thought in every stitch'
"socially shunned for wearing a handmade hat'
These varied responses show the different views people hold on handmade clothing.

#memademay
#visible mending

folk fashion - understanding homemade clothes
BRIT + CO - 20 ways to repurpose old sweaters

marks and spencers cotton and polyester impact.
focus on quality and durability
fast sewing just as harmful as fast fashion
invest more time
making clothes is not always sustainable.
replacing one consumption with another
difficult to shake consumerist mindset

Alexander Taylor - industrial designer

Alexander bases his practice on the idea of comprehensive design. Limited resources encourages you to think out of the box & find solutions which makes for a more interesting product. This led to Alexander thinking: can I create something from a single piece of material/process/machine?
2012 pairs of the shoe were created for the 2012 Olympics. Making the shoe from 1 piece of material takes out extras such as glue, tools, engineering, which makes it more sustainable. 

The shoe was made from a single piece upper, and the heel made out of fuse yarn.
It was created in different colourways and in a limited edition. The shoe they were making was manufactured in Europe (Bavaria, Germany) instead of China, to save on shipping costs and prevent the ramifications of cheap labour. However it is not entirely 0 waste due to the processes needed to make it, and the sole was not made out of yarn either.

As a designer we have a responsibility to better the world. 
One statement Alexander made which resonated with me was 'recycling is not the answer. We need to redesign materials.' This shows that even though we recycle and we think this is good for the environment, it still isn't the best way we could be looking after the planet.
Also impactful on me was the the fact Alexander said that it was so frustrating to him that so much is possible in terms of pushing and implementing sustainability, but this requires major change to the system.

Adidas is working with Parley to reduce the amount of plastic in our oceans.

Sea Shepherd is a conservation society which patrols the oceans to conserve marine life. In one of their chases they caught an illegal fishing net gillnet made from nylon 6. The net was 2km high and 72km long which is the equivalent from Leeds to Manchester. The poachers cut the net if they're going to be caught, and then it floats in the ocean, doesn't decompose and continues to kill fish.

Adidas asked Alexander to create a shoe to show in New York. The finished product was made from the net.

The idea of using ocean plastic is not new but it has a big impact when it is used by such a big brand such as Adidas.

Currently, Alexander and Adidas are working on a project with a prominent factory in China. The materials coming from best mills around world, with millions of dollars of dead stock sitting in storage - instead of creating new materials, old redudundant materials will be used.

motivation for system to be scrutinised.

OUGD503 Design boards

OUGD503 Submission Boards

Kim Stuart Branding: Initial Research

As already established Kim wants to incorporate mixed media into her branding in some way.

Her initial thoughts are of using paint, or stitching to get across her use of the handmade in her work.

Presentation

Kim loved the idea of having a transparent method to display all her promotional content. She took inspiration from the bag above however I brought up the fact that a big name company would have no use for a bag, and will probably disregard it. Instead she found this gift card envelope from Anthropologie, using scraps of material, the gift card is enclosed in the envelope, and the style lends perfectly to the handmade aesthetic Kim loves.

I loved the patterns of the circles above and the way they have been haphazardly painted using a varied but harmonious colour scheme. Kim felt the style was a bit messy and also that the colours were too varied and also too girly. She wanted a more pared back style and colour palette. 

Kim preferred this more minimalistic and muted colour palette, using pastel colours in conjunction with varied patterns works well but has less of a handmade aesthetic, as the layout is still very structured and patterns are applied digitally. I think Kim would need something slightly more with a crafty vibe.

OUGD503 End of Module Evaluation

OUDG503 was a varied module for me. I began the module extremely organised, breaking down each brief into small tasks to be completed helped me to organise my time and keep my projects running.

I enjoyed some briefs more than others, in particular the short briefs - Secret 7 and Penguin Book. Having limited time constraints to create a piece of work in, has in my opinion, lead to some of my best work, as the concepts behind the design are strong. I feel as if I think best and have the most imaginative ideas when under a short time restraint. Because of this I may apply this to future briefs, as I can create striong work when under this limitation.

I think my tea packaging is also a very strong project with resolved outcomes, that look professional especially when photographed properly in the context of the photography studio. This project was the most fun for me as I got to not only design the labels but the packaging itself too. After this project I am more interested in packaging design and will want to explore it further in future.

On of my aims for this module was to be more professional in presentation and analytical writing, I think I have pushed myself to meet these aims, and taken steps I have not in previous modules in order to make this hand in one of my most resolved.

One issue I faced this module was the organisation of a collaborative brief. Leaving it to a very late stage in the module prevented me from reaching a fully resolved set of outcomes, however working in collaboration with other students was fun and as the project is ongoing I have the opportunity to further refine outcomes if needed and also be part of organising the exhibition, something new I have never done before. If I was to go back and organise the project earlier on in the module, I feel my outcomes would be of a higher standard. However I am happy with one aspect of the brief, my open call for submission advertisements were creative and looked striking.

In terms of the module and its structure, I felt as if we had too much work set and it was hard to keep on top of the vast workload even when deconstructing briefs and organising time effectively. The teaching structure for the module too has been very confusing due to other modules running alongside. Stopping teaching for this module earlier on provided us with less of an opportunity for crits with peers which I have always found to be immensely helpful and has led to better final outcomes within my work.

Starpack Tea and Coffee: Tin design

The shape and structure of the tin is my first consideration when designing the packaging as this is the core element. My initial idea of using tesselation within the packaging was something I wanted to experiment with further and so I created some sketches.

I initially started sketching (fig 1) using octagons and decagons as opposed to hexagons - I felt the shapes were less basic and the shape of them looked smoother. After sketching them placed together in patterns, it was evident that they didn't perfectly tesselate. As their interior angles do not add up to 360, there will be gaps in the pattern. I thought the decagon looked the smoothest of the shapes, however, has the most irregular gap between the shapes when placed together. 

The hexagon tesselates together perfectly but I think the shape has been overused, so instead I have decided to use the hexagon - the gap between all shapes when placed together is a small square, so does not look odd. When stood on their base, the tins in this shape fit together well. 

Making paper prototypes of the tins allows me to visualise the shape and structure of the tins more vividly. I chose to make a taller and smaller octagonal tin to compare the two and see which height works best with the shape. 

After creating these models and sketching out some ideas for the labels I have decided not to carry forward with the idea of octagonal tins. The shape I feel is too "hipster" and angular, which doesn't correlate well with luxury. On an octagonal tin, I don't think the label would be clearly displayed, changing the shape of the tin would solve this problem. Additionally, I did not feel that the octagonal shape had any real relevance to the brand. I could use this idea on a more modern and young feeling brand. 

I have experimented with the composition of the tin, in terms of lid and structure. I have taken inspiration from my research in some designs, using the idea of an inner tin and sleeve placed over the top, leaving some of the inner tin on display. 

Again creating paper models of the tins allows me to visualise them as well as go on to create labels in the right size and shape for the tins. I have chosen to make tins in a more regular, square/rectangular shape, as I think this meets the luxury requirement of the brief.

I particularly liked the design on the far right, where the packaging is composed out of an inner tin and an accompanying sleeve. The sleeve is slightly shorter than the tin itself - so the bottom of the inner tin will be on display and not covered by the sleeve.

The inner tin will be 100mm x 100mm x 100mm.

The sleeve will be 102mm x 102mm x 85mm (to allow for the tin to be displayed at the bottom of the design). The extra 2 mm on each face is to allow the sleeve to slot over the tin for a tight fit.

Another thing to consider is the sealing of the tin. As the contents of the tin are food, the tin needs to be sealed to prevent the tea from contamination and keep it fresh.

In research, I discovered that most food packaging hermetically sealed to keep the packaging airtight and stop the food from going off. However, if the contents of the tin is sealed within a foil or plastic wrap this is not needed. 

Because of this, I can just create a simple lid that fits into the tin, adding only a few mm to the height of the overall packaging. The top of the lid will be flat.

The tin plate will be electrolytically coated in colour and given a matt finish.

Starpack Tea and Coffee: Production

Basing the paper models of my tins from my 2:1 prototypes, I was able to create nets (see fig 2 and 3) for both the tin and the sleeve.  

fig 2

fig 3

I printed out the tins on SRA3 paper, as I could not get paper in the specific colours I wanted. Making the models from these was simple as I followed the net and scored along the folds to prevent tearing or fraying of the paper. 

Printing the labels so that they would be glossy was more complicated. I wanted glossy and for them to be printed on black, but the colours would not show up on glossy paper, as the ink will not be able to be printed opaquely onto the black paper.
I considered printing onto clear glossy sticker paper. As my design is black and my sleeve is also black, the colours that are on the label will not show when stuck directly to the sleeve due to the transparency of the colours and the black surface it will be on. To counteract this, I would have needed to create another label of the same size on sticky white paper to be stuck under the printed label, so that the colours would show up against the black sleeve.

A way to counteract this was to print the labels on regular matte paper and overlay them with a sheet of clear vinyl. This clear layer both gives the label a glossy finish and protects it. I think this has worked really well as the previous methods of printing onto glossy paper or transparent sticker paper would not have given the desired glossy effect I wanted to achieve.

I think that the measurements for the labels may have been mixed up in the design process as when the labels are stuck onto the boxes they are shorter than the mock ups. This does not detract from the design however, and the concept still works.

  

Exhibition: Research

The main research for this brief was into how colours and in particular primary colours are used in conjunction with one another. 

fig 1

In fig 1, the colours are muted and pale. Placed into shapes, the colours give the piece a sense of youth, however due to the exposed structure of the shapes they have a purpose. The combination of shape and colour is interesting as this would normally seem juvenile but the overall execution is sophisticated.

fig 2

In fig 3, the colours are more abstracted by having a low opacity given to them, they blend in with the green of the background. The placement of text within the poster is interesting as it does not detract from the colour or placement of the shapes.

fig 3

In fig 3, the bold primary colours are in ellipse form. The simplicity alongside the boldness of the colours leave the piece to speak for itself.

Time Planning

Creating a detailed, broken down list of work to complete for this module has helped me to work methodically and thoroughly through briefs.

Kim Stuart branding: Final pieces and evaluation

Kim’s branding as a project was interesting to work with as needs for professionalism met with personal taste, in particular,  Kim’s preference for handmade aesthetics.
The final pack as a whole was executed in a manner that would appeal to companies and give an insight into Kim’s personality.

One aspect that works successfully is the logo. Based on the idea of texture in fabrics and subtly hinting towards Kim’s profession as a photographer, the icon works as a distinctive logo and accompanied by the text, it has a clean, minimalistic aesthetic.

The creative CV began as a challenge due to the copious amount of text, but the end result is a well structured and inviting CV which varies from others due to its book format and unusual fold.