Final Illustrations

I'm really pleased with the outcome of the illustrations. I've now produced 6 ready to upload to my trend book using illustrator. I was aiming for a an illustration that was natural looking, similar to Peclers, with the shape of the body and face detail, but wanted a cartoony feel to them. I think this is shown well and am really happy with the progress I've made through hours of trial and error! With my basic knowledge of illustrator, I was originally planning on copying a template and adding clothes on top, or uploading my own drawings and amending them with illustrator, but I'm really happy with the how I've managed to produce my own incorporating my own clothes within a body template.
With the skills I've gained using illustrator with this project, I really aim within my next major project to experiment more with shading, and lines and have some more help from jamie with faces as this is an area I think could be improved to make the drawings more real looking.

Key Words

In today's session we talked about key words that could be used throughout our trend books. I found this really helpful as after loading the images into In Design it needed more detail and personality and key words throughout really help the pages stand out and will be more clear to the reader.
During the session we picked out key words from our trend descriptions. From past projects I have felt this is an area I have struggled with, analylising and descibing where inspiration has come from. However, picking out distinct descriptive words for each trend in the session was quite simple and from looking at the different trend forecasting books in the library they seem to use the same kind of method.
To show this wording in a more interesting way within the book, I want to use the format above. I have added a block shape of colour to each page and will mirror this shape and input the wording into each one which will be consistent throughout the book. I think this adds more creativity with the pages and is more interesting with contrast of colour and the mirroring of shapes I think looks more professional.

Flats

Each flat drawing has been created from different garments from on-line sources - Urban Uutfitters, Zara and Topshop. I have used templates in this way for each theme and have adapted each drawing using colour swatches taken from my mood boards and images shown throughout my blog. Using the transparency tool, especially within my 'Luminous DIY' theme, shown above, has been really helpful to create a see-through transparent effect to link with my theme. I have tried using the skills learnt from Jamie over the last few weeks to add in creases and shadow effects to show a more detail in how the garment would hang. I have added zip detail where necessary together with seams and hems. 

When uploaded to In Design I will add captions to each illustrator, with a description of the garment. I think this will also help to add more detail to the page, so they don't look like they are in away floating, together with a block of colour similar to VM pages to almost bring forward the drawings to the reader.

Visual Merchandising

This is my visual merchandising page for my eco trend. Unfortunately I was not able to obtain any recent VM information from House of Fraser, however from looking at different store window displays, specifically looking at simple well lit window's, as with my trend book, I wanted the same simplistic clean contemporary feel to be shown within the visual merchandising.
Similar to Zara, I think the layout is simplistic and would be clear to the customer the theme of the trend. The VM pages are all shown with the same layout throughout the book. With the images behind the garments linking with colour and mood, and clearly layed out accessories on blocks, the space is confined yet simple to draw the customer to that area with no confusion. This will be uploaded as a double page spread of my trend book. The block of colour behind to add a more distinct effect to the page rather than having a white background.

I would really like to add some more elements to this, maybe some sort of art deco style mirrors, and then adapt the page to look more 3D. However, I don't want to the page to look too busy and cluttered but this would be something I would think about for future projects and to have some tuition on how to go about transforming images to look more 3D. 

More design Inspiration

Looking at different fashion magazines such as Elle and Bazaar, I've been going through picking out parts of garments that link with my themes to draw from within illustrator. I've found on-line clothes websites such as Topshop and Zara which have been a good way of gathering relevant clothing from to use as templates for my flats, to then develop from with shape and colours swatches. However, with the fashion illustrations, it is not as easy to draw round a template when on a body, which I would then have to alter to the body shape. Using distinct areas of detail, such as transparent or cut out parts, ruffle or layed areas, I have been able to draw and adapt the garment shape to fit the shape and style of clothing I'm aiming for.

Vector Drawing

Previously I had not much idea on how I would go about doing the above! but with perverseness today and time with Jamie I feel like I'm getting the hang of drawing and curving lines fairly accurately and the different short cuts you can use. I had thought I would hand draw my final illustrations and then scan them into illustrator to then work from. However, I have now decided I want to use the same process of using an image to create a template from and then draw on the clothes, linked to my research, using either illustrator or kaledo.

Email Correspondence..

I've started to think about the layout of my visual merchandising pages, as I feel I need to start working on these as they are concluding each trend so I feel they quite an important part of the trend book. I'm fairly confident from my general layout ideas, being fairly clean and simplistic with strong imagery and two tone colours throughout, along with the trend's I aiming to produce, that I would like the visual merchandising pages to be aimed at high end fashion retailer. To help with different layout ideas, I have contacted Lisa who I worked with during work experience at House of Fraser to see if she can send me any of their recent guidance for the display windows from their London Head Office..awaiting reply!

Fabric Samples

Using fabric samples I have collected from various sources over time, I have picked out swatches that I would show use in for each trend. From woollen heavy fabric to sheer cotton, each trend uses a varied combination relevant to the season of Autumn/Winter. 

Within my DIY trend, the use of light fabrics is more apparent. As the theme gives a sense of creating your own clothing and accessories, the use of stretch jersey material is important to give that feel of pulling and moulding your own shape. As mentioned within my designer research, block shapes and panels will be the most evident feature (together with the DIY jewellery), this will give the sense of  patch-work style, with heavier woven cotton which will provide more of a stable contrast to the jersey stretch material also used within the garment.

For the urban theme, jersey stretch fabrics will be used for a casual sports wear effect, and heavier woollen fabric for outer wear, along with patch-work style panels of leather to a edgy street feel.

I will use similar heavy woollen fabric for the outer-wear style jackets used within my Egyptian style theme, and a mix of woven cotton and jersey fabric for the dresses which I want to show element of stretch around the waist and pocket detail.

If it was possible to add in swatches to our trend books I would want to incorporate these within my flat drawing pages to add texture and more of a feel to the trend.