I have never been a patient person. If I can find a way to get there faster, I will choose that path. This is one of the many reasons I embrace technology, sometimes to a fault. And while my former career – working with stringently defined brand guidelines – might have curbed whatever creative bones I had in my body, by starting this education, I have been forced to re-evaluate and re-learn skills that presumably were there all along.
Suddenly I am appreciating the significance of not only taking my time to develop and nurture an idea into a concrete design or solution, but also of not being afraid to choose a path that may not lead anywhere that seems relevant in the moment. Yup, I have some challenging years ahead, the design process is much longer than I anticipated, and there are many ways forward from an initial idea, as I found out…
Silhouettes
Full 50s-style skirts, flowy bell sleeves, tight pencil skirts, they all give a unique and recognizable silhouette, and any number of combinations will bring about a completely new design. And all this … before there is even a pattern to design from, let alone the fabric.
“Take some paper and start building” was our only instruction for this project.
By starting off learning about creative design techniques in 3D, I felt at home, like when I started sewing as a child and was creating outfits and dressing my dolls.
Collage
Paper, scissors, it did not rock … what am I doing here? Surely, I didn’t work my way into this education to cut and paste? Yet, the inspiration was staggering. I realized that texture is all around us – in everything we see and feel. Texture can be translated into clothing textiles and can be part of what makes a unique piece of clothing.
Taking the time to explore what you like and use it to represent what you want to design was a significant step toward understanding where ideas come from and how there really is no limit to one’s creativity.
Frottage
When trying out this technique of rubbing off design elements from an uneven surface, my past reared its ugly head … literally! All I could see when I tested it out was the oversized head of a Bratz® doll. After pushing this brand on impressionable young girls for years, I had seen enough!
I wasn’t thrilled about the silhouettes that came out of this application, but the process made me aware that I still had a passionate reaction to my past, a reaction that is integral to driving me forward through this education by pushing my motivation to succeed even further.
Ink-Blot Sketch
I thought this kind of stuff was for the hour on the couch at the psychiatrist’s office! Talk about leaving something up to chance – I had no idea that a design idea could come about so randomly.
I am now seeing that the sources of inspiration are endless and that an idea can be pulled from all kinds of places. Even our best ideas may come to us in the most unexpected way.
Patterns
Ornamental designs come in many shapes and sizes, and cutting them out one-by-one made me crazy. Yes, it took forever; and yes, I got irritated, but in the end, I could play around with the cut-out pieces for hours and combine them in different ways to spark new ideas.
It might have been faster in Photoshop, which was a no go for this exercise, but then I might not have opened my eyes up to what an analogue process has to offer even in this day and age.
Lesson Learned!
This week, I came to fully embrace the idea that it is all about the journey and not the result. And while I am far from being good at this, I am starting to see the value of a process that does not always have a direct path forward. I will commit to taking my time and accepting the fact that I will not always have a clear idea of where I am going or how I am going to get there. I will learn to be inspired by what is around me and find creative ways to use this inspiration in my work.
what do you think?