Evaluation

Annie Baker - Original Design 

Within the project I feel as though I have shown my skills as a designer, the past projects over the years have really helped me gain the experience I needed to grow as an interior designer.

I feel like I have challenged myself during this unit, experimented with different media and techniques, finding new surfaces, textures and shapes that I never have before. I have learned that being more playful and expressing myself really does help when drawing and also when being a designer.

Starting off by using found objects from the home to create individual drawings; capturing surface and texture has been my aim throughout the projects I have been given over the years. With this project my aim was to add more pattern and shape into my drawings doing this would add more depth and dimension.

Whilst drawing and printing I started doing some wallpaper deigns to help me see how some of my drawings looked when I repeated them, some of these were successful and others I had to go back into my drawings and change them as they didn’t look quite right as designs.

Researching wallpaper collections also helped me along the way as I could see how differently companies did their own repeats and how they created surface and texture in their designs.

Along the way I could see I needed to be more critical of my own work and so I would sit down and think of good and bad points to help me gain my own understanding of how and what works best, I did this mostly when I brought colour into my work it became a big part of project. I used it to try and create depth into my designs, creating different shadows and different shades of one colour, doing this helped me with the offset in Photoshop so I could see where and which colours would go where.

Time keeping with this project was very important to me, as I have learnt my lessons over the years that it is a huge part of being a designer and I finally think I have found how keep up with all my designs and daily life. Having my own issues at home with this project I found that turning to designing kept me going, as it’s what I do best and what I enjoy.   

I feel that my designs are very unusual and not uniformed were as 90% of the wallpapers out there today are very structured, mine show my more playful side.  

I have gotten better at techniques needed when designing broadening my skills, I feel like I can take these with me after graduating from university to become a great wallpaper designer.

I am looking forward to the degree show, being able to showcase my work and have other professionals from the industry come and see it. Exhibiting for me will be a new thing which gives me great excitement and will help me gain even more experience within the design world.

Designing is my happy place and makes me feel alive; I enjoy printing with found objects and tools to make my own bolder, creative prints. Manchester Metropolitan has helped me become an individual wallpaper designer and helped me gain all the skills I need for what will hopefully be a very bright, successful career.  

Visualisations

In other projects I have really struggled with visualising my prints within a room, the size has often confused me and I haven't been able to do this in the past, so with this project I have really been focusing on visualisations so I can gain a real aspect of how my designs will look and also looking into the type of audience I would like my designs to be in. I would like my designs to be of the middle class range, good quality designs and paper but not too expensive to afford. 

Image from:

https://www.harlequin.uk.com/shop/wallpaper/anthology-03/ellipse/?code=EANT111127

Doing the visualisations earlier on in the project has really helped me gain an understanding for the size I want design and also if the repeat is right and if I need to make any changes.

 I have chosen this image from Harlequin because the room suited my design and also because Harlequin is a company whose audience I would like my designs to go for although my designs are a little bolder. As I have figured out this I do see now that I need to do more research into more bolder companies ad brands, thinking about where my inspiration has come from and how it has helped me design my collections.

Final Designs

My final designs for my 3 mini collections all represent me as a designer, I love experimenting with new materials and printing with them in unusual ways. 
I have challenged myself as a designer with experimenting in lots of different ways and I think that has really paid off when it comes to my designs. 
Collection one shows I can add shape into surface and texture, collection two is bold and powerful and shows surface and texture in a completely different way than collection one and finally collection three is a mini series of the brush stroke drawings I did with the straight ruler edge. 
Collection three shows how one technique can be so effective and add so much depth to the designs.

I did chose along the way to keep the same colour pallet for each mini collection, as I want to show how different I can make one colour pallet look. How I can use the same colours to get such different effects in each design and I believe that they show this. 

Collection One

Collection Two 

Collection Three

Each image I have chosen represents the mini collection that I have designed, I am proud of how the collections have all turned out and I do get the sense of me in them as a designer. 

I will be proud to eventually put these designs on my own website page for the world of designers to see and also my Instagram page where I will hopefully receive some helpful feedback.

Pattern Mash - Live Project

I am taking part in the May 15 live brief for Pattern Mash, as the deadline isn't yet until the end of the month I still have yet to finish my designs. 
I am aiming for a wallpaper collection with 6-8 designs with their chosen theme. 
I have been gathering some new research and ideas before I start designing; 

I want to use some of the ideas I have been using for Unit X and take them along into this brief. I want to design shapes within shapes and prints within prints, I like how on the first image the stones or pebbles are inside what looks to be a pebble shaped like hole?
I want to add this into my designs for this brief, I have never worked on a brief like this before so I am looking forward to starting my designs. 
I also need to do more research on the chosen theme and researching subjects like; fishing, fishermen, more rope, different types of fish, sea like wallpapers and so on..

The theme almost reminds me of a bathroom design, the typical bathroom colours with the different shades of blues and I have never before done a bathroom design so this is my aim, I can then research into different wallpaper designs and broaden my portfolio with having some bathroom designs in there. 

Enterprise Approach

Throughout the project I wanted to find myself a Interior placement, I have been researching into different brands and companies and also looking for interior internships and jobs for when I graduate university. 
I have been researching into companies such as; Curve Interior, 360 InteriorDesign, Lynx Interior Design Group, NoChintz and so on.. Sending them individual emails about how I love their company and their work. 

Even though I haven't been able to grab myself a placement, I am still pleased that now the companies do know who I am and know that I am interested in their companies maybe for the future when something else comes available. I am putting myself out their in the world of interior design. 

Web Design

With the end near of university I do now need my own website what I can out on my own individual business cards, it is a much easier way for companies or maybe other freelance designers to be able to see my work and if there interested they can get in contact with me, I am using Wix web design and am hoping my website will be able to be published and out their very soon before I finish university. I am working on a simple layout which showcases each individual piece of work with a title and description.  

I have also set up my own Instagram account for my designs only and have been following designers and they have also been wanting to follow my even though I have put in the description box that the new page is still undergoing being made by myself. Social media is such a big thing in today's society and I think this will be a huge networking place for me I can also keep up to date with others designers work and see what's out there in the design world. 

Instagram Page: ANNIEBAKER_PRINTDESIGNER

Desiging

Throughout the project I have been continuously designing with the drawings I have been doing trying to use my colour way to add more dimension into some of my designs;  

Here are two images from the collections I have been working on, the first image being from my more textured and surface collection which I will be including the more delicate surface images inspired by the patterns on the New Harlequin Range with more intricate patterns. 

My second image is one design from my second collection which definitely has more bold, blocked shapes and patterns. These images show the different feels and moods my collections will show and how different I can portray the same chosen colour pallet and make it look different in different designs.








With all designs I will be making them all into different colour ways and printing before deciding for definite which colours I will choose for the final design. I think this way is much more professional as I have learnt from this in the past as colours from Photoshop don't always print out the way you see them on the screen so I have time to prepare myself for changing some different colours. 

Liesl Pfeffer

Lisel Pfeffer is a visual artist who uses collaging and drawings to express himself in a playful way, he also loves photography and has an ongoing project of photographing his daily life He believes photographs are an accurate show of documents of our lives. 
He has inspired me to take a different direction with my drawings in the way that he is more playful and expresses himself, I then decided to be more playful and just start enjoying my drawings and being more free. 

Inspired by Pfeffer I then began to draw my own expressive drawings;

To be more playful I decided to draw with different types of media I found around my house such as; cotton buds, string, different shaped utensils and it really helped me to enjoy my drawings more and made the drawings expressive. I was able to explore shapes and lines that I never had before.
Here is one drawing I did using an old comb, pulling the paint on the page on a circular motion, it shows surface and texture with also adding shape which I have been trying to achieve so I am really pleased with how these playful drawings have turned out.