My Written Critical Analysis of Final Print

I have come to understand that digital print is become very common within the fashion industry, it’s a quick way to create something beautiful and eye catching. The advantages of being a young designer using digital prints is that I can use modern day Influences to create interesting prints.

My interpretation of Exhibiting the Everyday, I photographed things I used every day, Keys, cutlery, money as all of these are thing everybody uses every day. My main influences would be my primary photographs using cutlery for most of my everyday objects, I focused on the taking images from different angles and developed that further.

The arrangement of my final print, the composition works well with the shapes and contrasting colors with an element of shine. I do believe I have interpreted the brief, Exhibiting the Everyday, by including the actual shapes of My objects within my print. I do believe the print is work pleasing and works well as a whole although it’s not quite worked out how I had envisioned.

The process in which I made my print started with the postcards I had created, I scanned a number of postcards in to Photoshop, layering the ones I liked best I then duplicated a section of one of my postcards many times creating a pattern using small spoons, I then used the liquify and oil painting filters and changed the contrast of the images I also used the vivid light effect. At this point it was missing the element of shine so I decided to use a section of one of my primary photographs of metal cutlery in the background this then gave my print the slight element of shine. I do think I used a wide range of tools considering I’ve had no previous experience with Photoshop. In the beginning my prints seemed a little darker and not quite what I had expected but the more I worked on Photoshop the more I could experiment using different tools. This process has really helped me understand and get to know Photoshop and improve my skills.

My final print is effective, the blue /purple colors with the element of shine I would say have made the print interesting to look at, although I’m not quite sure how it will look on the actually fabric. As I have taken in to consideration where my print will be placed on my dress carefully to ensure the composition looks right, I believe it would meet the industry’s expectations.

My CAD skills have come so far from not knowing how to use Photoshop, I can now create prints for fashion garments and I have a good understanding of how to use illustrator I am pleasantly pleased with myself and the final outcome as a whole.

 

Looking all my final print I don’t believe that my personal style has developed, although I Do like the colors in my print they are not the usual type of colors I would use. My final print is unique I don’t believe I’ve come across any similar prints. What I like most is the fact this print was created by using my primary images of cutlery and developing it all myself, the part of my print that works best is the middle section were the brightness on the metallic cutlery has come through. This has brightened and made my print look a lot more vibrant. The one thing I would do differently is create brighter postcards as I believe the colors would differ and completely change the look of my print, doing this would develop my personal style. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prints for Dresses...

Here are some of my favourite prints on the dress so I can see what looks best and chose my final print.

 

 

My prints...

Here are a selection of prints and how I achieved each print.

                

Getting to this print was a matter of simply layering my post card designs

 and mark making which has created a  rather warm abstract print. 

This is the second print I have chosen, here I have layered my postcards on Adobe Photoshop
 and I have liquified one of my layers and used the oil painting filter.
I then used colour burn to change the colours. Im happy with how this has turned
out I really like the warm wintery colours and the the textures created.

Here I have layered three different postcards, I then went on to distort the images by using the liquify filter then changed the tone to the image by changing my colour options, I do like the colours particularly the hints of green coming through although I do feel this print is a little messy and I'm not sure if it would look great on a dress. 

This is one of my favourite prints, here I have only used two of my postcards but I duplicated one section several times to create the pattern. I really like the blue tones and the feel of night sky with the stars. Although I like this print I'm not sure it is fitting to my vision, it also doesn't quite have that metallic look. 

This Print is my Favourite one, I have layered two different cads I produced using my postcards, I then distorted the top layer by liquifying and using the oil painting filter once that was done I realised It was missing the shine so I then added a layer underneath that just had metal spoons on to create the shine above.  I have decided to use for my final print it has all the elements I had hoped for, colourful with an abstract feel and a slight shine. You can see the out line of the cutlery but once it is on the dress it will look less obvious (hopefully).

Digital Prints in the world of fashion...

Mass Markets...

PRIMARK, New Look and Forever 21, are all mass market stores. They all have the same type of prints usually allover prints and placement prints and a price range of around £10 -£20. Below are three dresses from the three different stores all three have the similar prints just different colours. 

Forever 21

New Look

PRIMARK

As you can see there is no uniqueness, these stores target market I would say are for the working class these stores cater to fast pace fashion for cheap prices allowing people to buy more clothes for less, giving people the chance to change styles regularly.

High Street...

Topshop, River Island and ZARA are popular high street brands dresses ranging from £30 -£100. Here I've chosen three dresses with a jacquard print from each different store. as you can see as the price gets higher the style changes and the quality of print improves.

River Island 

ZARA

Topshop

Each store has its own unique take on the jacquard print. quality control is better than mass market and the over all look of the products. ZARA in particular have great quality control over their stock as most products are made in house to avoid extra costs. These stores cater to working class and middle class bringing fashionable designer like clothes at a affordable price. 

High End....

Ted Baker, Coast and Karen Millen are the three high end stores I chose to look at. With dresses caring from £100-£500 high quality is expected. Below are three dresses I have chose to look at from each store. Its fair to say each store has its own signature style when it comes to prints. 

Coast

Karen Millen

Ted Baker

As you can see the colours and prints vary and the quality of the print is a lot more defined and the quality of the fabrics used really don't compare to the other markets. the selection of prints I found in each store really did vary from block, all over and placement print each print was unique. Moving on Now I will look at the different designers that use a digital print. 

After looking at a selection of designers with my class, I have decided to blog about two designers in particular...

Mary Katrantzou 

Mary Katrantzou was born in Athens in 1983, to an interior designer mother and a father who worked in textile design. Having developed an appreciation of applied design from an early age, she moved to America to study for a BA in Architecture at the Rhode Island school of design, before transferring to Central Saint Martins to complete her BA degree in textile design. Graduating from her BA in 2005, Katrantzou shifted her direction from textile design to womenswear with a focus on print. When studying at Central Saint Martin’s, she became interested in the way that printed textiles can change the shape of a woman’s body and went on to graduate in MA Fashion from Central Saint Martins with distinction. 

                                                                    

 

                         

Here are a few images from Mary Katrantzou's collections... As you can see Mary uses a lot of allover prints as well  as placement print throughout her work using bright vibrant and bold colours. Mary speaks about some of her inspirations being jewellery on a larger scale and landscapes. 

Mary Katrantzou work Is high end fashion Mary has collaborated with the likes of Topshop and Adidas this brought much attention to her work and made her designs more accessible to high street shoppers.

Michael Angle. 

Michael was born and raised in Melbourne, Australia, he always had an immense passion and talent for fine art. Michael Angle is a New York based Luxury Brand, he is also the founder of the brand who in addition to designing apparel is also an Artist and successful women's wear stylist. 

Michael uses a range of techniques such as Digital, gathering, pleating, distorting images and mixing textures. His colour range varies Angles choice of colours go from bright and vibrant to subtle colours such as light greys, beige and brown tones.