New Directions - Part 1 - Design

Now I’ve not been teaching since lockdown in March, I’ve been in need of new inspiration, although I’ve suffered, like a lot of creative folk, from a lack of motivation.  On the last two Saturdays of October I was lucky to take part in a Laura Thomas workshop, Design for Weave, organised by the UK Complex Weavers group.  It should have taken place in March in London, but Covid-19 put pay to that, however, Laura and Complex Weavers re-organised it to be online instead.

Those who know me recognise my love of design and it’s great value in producing good quality and stunning textiles, so will wonder why I would need or want another Design Course...  ...I’ve been doing a lot of simple woven structures for quite a while  now,  most of my students had rigid heddle looms, so any inspiration for them had to be with one, too.  So Laura’s workshop is timely as I’m in great need of a kick up the proverbial back side to get me looking at 8 shaft structures.

Laura gave us a starting point and lead us through briefs, the design process and beyond via her new Weave School.  

I’d never thought of mind mapping as part of my design process, but I found it really useful and will certainly do it again.

What came out the this was looking at colour contrasts.

I always start my design process with writing, usually it’s a discussion with myself about my inspiration, describing the colours, shapes, textures, etc., in my inspiration.  This time, though, it was a lead in from my mind map and began to distill my thoughts about colour and how I could use them in my fabric ideas and taking them forward to a mood board.

Mood boards are one of my favourite things about design, they help to distill my ideas and are a great way to present the mind map in a textile form and if you work commercially they give the client an idea of your interpretation of their brief.  These are always ‘movable feasts’, you may discover something, during the design process, that you’d not initially thought about, or the client my prefer some alterations.

I’ll talk more about my design process resulting from Laura’s workshop and where it leads me in more posts, but for now there is a lot of food for thought here.