This weekend there was another Rowan Connect online event with a series of workshops, seminars and sit and make drop-ins. This time I chose a couple of talks about design - one about selecting a colour palette and the one I talk about here, about the design process.
Inspiration and Developing a Design Brief
David McLeod, Rowan, explaining the design process for Shell Seekers.
At the beginning of the planning for a season, usually two years in advance, a series of design ideas are gathered together using mood or story boards with a variety of inspirations and suggestions:
"It could be an idea from an art exhibition or you go on holiday." Chloe Thurlow, Designer
All the design ideas are brought together, reviewed and some selected for sampling. Some of the earlier considerations are ensuring there are a range of ideas to suit all body types and styles, simple and more complicated designs, smaller items that have a lower cost, and some showstopper investment pieces for the season (here Spring Summer 2023). The process is used to refine the design brief for the season.
Testing and Sampling Design Ideas
Anna Hull, Rowan, with an early swatch for an over-sized beach bag.
Using the design brief, design ideas are sampled through swatches, exploring different yarns, colour palettes and stitches. The beach bag above has to be durable and able to stand up, so Anna chose moss stitch which creates a dense, flat fabric. The bag is lined and has pockets in the lining, and an optional clasp.
Some of the alternative colour palettes Anna considered for the bag.
The finished prototype for the beach bag. Design challenges included creating a seamless bag and reinforcing the handles.
Chloe Thurlow with the sample for a wrap-over cardigan, with the outline for the garment, the inspiration and suggested yarn and colour palette.
Chloe's design uses intarsia with many different colour changes in a row. Shaping for the garment has been kept to the edge of the fabric and follows a diagonal path increasing at one edge and decreasing at the other. This allows for shaping without interfering with the intarsia pattern.
Anna with a swatch by Martin Storey with the pattern for a unisex cardigan.
Swatches have to be large enough to give an idea of how the design would look across a whole garment and the explore the complexities of the stitch pattern. Swatches might be in different colour palettes or test different yarns.
Deciding the Final Design Collection and Technical Processes
All the swatches, samples and design boards are brought together to review different interpretations of the design brief. There were sixty different submissions for Spring Summer 2023. Again, the collection is reviewed for balance of size and style, colour, technical ability and investment cost.
Wear and tear and ease of maintaining garments is considered in the choice of yarns. Easy care yarns that will stand up to and may even improve with repeated washing, are chosen for some items like children's clothing. The design brief is further refined, together with selecting the colour palettes for the different ranges and publications in the season.
Designs go for technical testing and pattern-writing and knitting by up to seventy hand knitters around the country to test the pattern. Standard gauges are established for patterns together with the amount of yarn needed, including preliminary swatches to test gauge.
Recording and Presenting the Collection
Different locations are chosen for photographing the final collection. These are beach huts at Hunstanton on the east coast of England. Hunstanton was built as a model seaside town when visiting the seaside, promenading and sea bathing first became fashionable in the late 18th and 19th centuries.
Photoshoots take place over two days. The design team selects locations on the first day, and everything is shot the second day. There was a rented beach hut for everyone to rest and prepare for shooting. It can be tense - the original model cancelled the previous day due to COVID and a new, unknown model was sent. It was a very hot day, the beaches were packed and there was a curious audience for the shoot.
(Source) Andrew Dunn (2006), shared under CC BY SA 2.0 licence. Hunstanton has stratified cliffs with stratified layers of red limestone and white chalk cliffs. These were another location for the photoshoot.
Chloe's final design in the Spring Summer Rowan Magazine, available March 2023.
The Final Design - Collection, Palette, Publications
The colour and yarn palette for the Shell Seekers Collection. Lots of neutrals and blues (the most popular colours) together with some ambiguous, muted colours like khaki, and some bright colour pops.
The Shell Seekers Collection included children's patterns in lovely muted, sea-washed colours.
The Cover page for the Collection, with shots against the Hunstanton Cliffs.
Thoughts
It was fascinating to get an in-depth look at the design process in action, the different stages, how long it takes and the inter-relationships between the creative design processes and so many other elements. I love the way it is grounded in the environment with the photoshoots, and the focus throughout on sustainability, animal welfare and size (and pocket) inclusivity. Everyone should be able to have beautiful things.
What isn't mentioned here is the sourcing and creation of the yarns. There was another seminar about Pebble Island in the Falkland Islands, where there was a much closer relationship between sheep rearing, yarn production, the environment and the designs (two collections so far Salt Washed and Pebble Island) and the design process (maybe I'll write about Pebble Island in another post).
Thinking about the Travelling Books project, I came away with a model to structure each month's design and making process:
- Week 1 - researching, collecting, putting together design inspirations.
- Week 2 - selecting from the inspirations and creating swatches and samples.
- Week 3 - creating the final piece.
- Week 4 - finishing, presenting and recording.
Depending on the gauge, there's about 3,750 stitches in a piece that will fit the pages in the Travelling Book. For straightforward stocking stitch that's about three hours work, and longer for more intricate pieces and any additional manipulation and embellishment. It probably takes about 48 hours to block a finished piece, depending on the time of year.
I'd really like to develop the cycle, especially the elements in Weeks 1 & 2. I have started collecting and drafting posts, and I have bought supplementary sketch books to hold the background designs, experiments and other work that goes into the finished pieces.
I'd like to get to the stage where I have three or four design inspirations for each theme, and a collection of experiments and swatches (Week Two) that lead to the final piece. It does take time - there's an exhibition in London at the moment about Japan, so that would be a day to collect inspiration for one of the themes in the Travelling Books project. We do have the themes for the whole year, so it is possible to build in some planning.
I'm also kind of half-organised, time and space-wise. Half my materials and equipment are stored in one room on one floor, but what is happening is that a natural workspace is evolving on the ground floor. My work table is the dining table at the moment, coincidentally arranged where there is the best light and the least road noise.
This accidental arrangement has been really helpful in thinking about how space is used after the alterations to the house have been made. The space that would have been the living room is becoming the studio, a creative space. So I'm thinking more about layout, working surfaces, display and storage space.
Developing Creative Practice
While the creative space is evolving, time is as well, although a much more complex dynamic than space. I'm still working and at the moment I'm carrying a double portfolio until new member of staff joins us. They will need a bit of time and support to settle in and find their feet. I'm working towards having more flexibility after Easter.
There's all the usual demands of maintain a life including the increasing time required to remain as healthy as possible for as long as possible. Building in a walk every day really helps and takes between 1 and 2 hours. I also do Pilates several times a week, and I'd like to do more strength work. Some of these can be combined with other activities - listening to podcasts etc - but I actually enjoy not doing that and really enjoying my surroundings.
Creative practice itself has some considerations: there are elements that require more focus and concentration - planning, experimenting - these use a lot of energy. I have a day, Monday, when I try to do the more challenging things when I'm fresh after the weekend and I have the benefit of daylight. Other days, when I may be coming to creative practice after paid work, I try to already have things in place that I can become immersed in.
There's also visiting exhibitions and galleries, online research, and reading. I have a pile of books and papers already, but no plan for systematically going through them and drawing out idea and conclusions (exploring this sounds like content for another post). I'm not too worried about it, because it is evolving and even writing a post like this helps to increase awareness and clarify what's involved. It helps me to see what I need to do next.
