Inspired by a design i saw at Chelsea harbour i have decided to create a striped design using the liquify tool. Although this is a straight forward process i am still struggling to pick a favourite from my experiments.

Initially i experimented with using all the hues on my colour pallet. To create the design to be liquified i used the box tool in illustrator and added a different hue from my colour pallet to each box. Following this i then added some white flecks so the hues have something to merge in with.

Despite really liking this outcome it may be a bit too overwhelming for a blender design because of the amount of hues and textures. Because of this i decided to repeat the same process; however, with less hues.

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For my next design i decided to select the 4 key harmonious hues from my colour pallet in the hope this design will be able to blend in with the rest of my collection. Despite once again liking this outcome, i feel it is still slightly overwhelming for a blender design so decided to refine my hues down even further.

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After studying my previous outcome i thought it may be nice to only utilise the yellow and light pink as they are both very soft girly hues. Overall out of my experiments i feel this is the least successful as the colours do not blend together as well as they have done within previous experiments.

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After feeling my previous design was not very strong i decided to add an orange hue to see if this will help the pink and yellow to blend together. Despite initially thinking all three hues are the same value tonal wise, from this experiment i have realised the yellow and orange have now become totally dominant against the pink creating an un equal balance within the design.

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While analysing these outcomes i started to question in my head why they are all horizontal stripes. When going through the process inspired by the design i saw at Chelsea harbour i went on auto pilot and did not even consider vertical stripes. To see if these outcomes would be more successful as vertical stripes i will now go back into my photoshop documents and rotate them 90 degrees to see if this makes any of the outcomes more successful.

Overall i do not feel the two hue design is any more successful as the angle of the design has not effected how well the hues have blended together. However, i do feel the design with 4 hues is more successful as a vertical stripe as the colours seem to be more equally balanced. Before deciding on my chosen design i want to continue with the rest of my collection. As this design is very quick and easy to play around with i can easily develop the rest of my collection and edit this design so it fits in well. I feel this is the best way of deciding which outcome is most successful as i do not want to spend too much time trying to pick my favourite now and realising another may be better once i have finished my collection.

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Inspired by one of my hero designs i wanted to create a blender design using a rainbow motif. Throughout my designing process i have gone through three stages to create my collection, one being just to create some designs to see what i can create out of my imagery (which is what i presented at the in house interim). Two to start to develop hero, secondary and blender designs, and three to ensure all my designs are working as a collection. I have found this to be the most suitable method for my own working practices as it has allowed me to develop the designing process into stages. I feel if i had jumped straight to step three i would have felt overwhelmed by the amount of pressure to create a really well rounded collection from the off.

Where as within stage two i had all my designs laid out together on my bed i have now broken them down into smaller collections to assess where the gaps are. Below shows an image of an example of this.

From breaking down my collection in this way i have realised i need more yellow within my designs as they heavily feature pinks, purple and green. Although this is still a range of hues i feel having more yellow within my collection will allow my designs to reach out to customers with smaller rooms. As the yellow is so light it will not be overwhelming in a smaller bedroom much like the darker pink may be.

To start my experiments i simply removed the rainbow from my hero design using the magic wand and rubber tool. Following this i also created a liquify background by doing some mark making in illustrator and then using the liquify tool in photoshop before combining the two together in a pilar repeat. Overall this was not as successful as i originally thought it would have been as the rainbow did not stand out against the background. From here i realised a non textured background may be more suitable along with more hues within the rainbow so it is better representative of one.

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From here i started from scratch and created a rainbow using the liquify tool. As i was creating the rainbow from the beginning this allowed me to not use yellow within the rainbow; however, save it for the background hue.

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From here i started to think about repeating structures. Initially i tried a block and pillar repeat; however, felt these were too linear. As well as this i also wanted to include more negative space and introduce more experimental scale.

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Instead i tried a more random tossed formation with a greater variety of scale and more negative space. Overall in the end this did work a lot better; however, i kept having to go forward and backward creating the motif, putting it into repeat and then going back and editing the motif slightly to avoid the diagonal structure which is within the repeats bellow. For this repeat to be successful i needed the rainbows to be evenly spaced and not appear to be in a diagonal structure.

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After playing around for a while i did eventually create a repeat i was happy with. For this repeating structure i used a half drop pillar repeat as this slightly offset the linear pattern of the motif repeating. Overall i really like this design as it is very simple and should coordinate well with some of my other designs. I realise one of my weaknesses is being able to create simple designs as i find them slightly boring. However, by breaking down my designing process i can now realise that my collection needs some simpler designs in order to make the overall collection successful.

For this design i think it would make a nice wallpaper design which could then have my hero design featuring the rainbow as the centre piece on the wall. As this design is simple it should coordinate very well with the hero design which has a lot more imagery and a lot busier than this.

For my next design i decided to make another Hero. These tend to take the longest to put together and as i had a few hours i could really focus in i decided to take advantage. Within a tutorial with Sian she previously mentioned to use some of my first year outcomes as inspiration and through developing other designs i have started to realise how i can manipulate imagery in this way.

The idea behind this design is that i would develop a tree like structure and then add my aliens in so it would look like the aliens are playing/ hiding in this. To start with i constructed a base out of three different sets of aliens legs and edited the hues so they were all green. Initially i did look at making some of the branches different hues such as pink and purple; however, could not achieve the tone i was looking for. To build this central structure it was a case of rotating, copying and pasting, scaling and mirroring the legs until i achieved a form i was happy with. Even without the aliens i really like the structure of these branches as they look very elegant; however, these alone in a repeat would not be appropriate for my age demographic.

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Once constructing the basic shape for my motif i did play around with the hue and saturation to see if i could make the branches something other than green. Overall i feel the form is more successful in a green hue as the other hues i experimented with were slightly overwhelming.

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Once happy with the form of the tree structure it was then a case of adding in the aliens. For this i used a variety of scales and tried to make the aliens appear to be sitting on the branches or standing on them. Once happy with their arrangement i also looked at trying a colour overlay; however, felt the aliens looked more natural within the green textured branches.

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Once happy with all these elements i then went about putting the structure into a repeat. I felt a brick repeat was most suitable as it allowed the motifs to slightly interlock.

Because of the level of detail and imagery i have decided to make this design a really large scale piece which is one of the reasons it will be one of my hero designs. As well as this, this design features all the aliens within my collection meaning it should pair nicely with almost any other design.

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Since making this design although liking the structure, the hues within it has been bugging me as i feel there is too much of a sickly contrast between the green foreground structure and pink background. I have been constantly looking at it when all my designs have been laid out together on my bed and questioning how i can possibly change it to make it any better.

Initially i started playing with the tone of the green structure; however, this wasn’t working so i gave up with it. However, now a few days later i have realised i could simply change the background hue which should make the contrast far better. As this is a very simple adjustment which i mess around with on every design i can’t understand why it has taken me so long to come up with this idea. I think this really shows that sometimes time is all you need to come up with an idea so your subconscious can really work on it.

To lessen the contrast and amount of hues i have decided to play with a green and a white background. I feel both make the design appear a lot more appealing and both have individual qualities. The white really helps the imagery to stand out where as the green creates a really subdued finish. To help me make my decision i have asked four different people of different ages and genders to see which they prefer. These include my mum, sister, brother and a friend. Although most these people are in my family they are all of different ages and have different interests so i’m hoping they will provide me with a response. Now my mentor and support worker are unavailable to give me their opinions on my work i am seeking out new people to receive judgement from.

Since updating this post i have had feedback from everyone i asked and a pretty split mixture of opinions. Despite this, i did also manage to get feedback from my little sister who is within my 5-10 year old target demographic. Her feedback was that she preferred the green background so this is what i will use within my final collection. As she is my target market i feel she is the best to listen to as i am designing for someone like her.

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Despite not having put a digital collection board together as of yet before i start on my designs each day i set up a temporary one. As i finish each design i always print it out to check its dpi and to see if it fits in with the rest of my designs. Once printing the design out and being happy with it i add it to my collection which i keep laid out on my bed and add it to either the hero, secondary or blender row. By doing this i am constantly aware of how well my designs are working as a collection and if i need to edit any designs to help them fit in better or remove some.

Although this is not the most professional way of creating a collection board, when i am doing my designs at home on a day by day basis it really serves as a vital resource to view my collection quickly and easily as a whole.

(First Row- Hero’s. Second and Third Row- Secondary. Fourth and Fifth Row- Blenders.)

Whilst taking a break from my previous design i have decided to move onto another. To create the motif for this design i have used elements from my previous hero design and manipulated them. Within this design i have experimented putting my eggs into trees so it looks like they’re growing in them. Once happy with my motif i experimented with a gradient colour overlay. Despite liking the hues and effect within this i feel the eggs look a bit like acorns so will not be using a colour overlay for this design.

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To try and develop my motif further i started to add in more imagery to make the branches look more like a tree. Although this does give the imagery the form of a tree i felt this was not very appropriate for my younger demographic; however, could be used within a design including more imagery such as my next hero design.

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Despite being happy with the idea embedded within my motif i wanted to be able to vary the trees to make the imagery appear more exciting. For this instead of having all 4 coloured eggs on one tree i decided to have 4 of the same tree displaying only a single coloured egg. This should allow me to be more experimental with my imagery and repeating structure.

Despite being happy with my motifs i found it a little hard to find a repeating structure which would attract my young demographic. I did try a variety of repeating structures; however, felt they were mostly too sophisticated.

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Eventually i managed to settle on a boarder design as i felt this gave the trees the impression of growing around the page. However, as i already have a full bparder design within my collection i wanted to vary this some more.

Eventually i settled on the bellow border design. I feel this would work as a wallpaper design so it would appear the trees are growing out of the floor and ceiling. As well as experimenting with a flat background i also tried a gradated. Because of the large amount of negative space in the middle of the design i thought this would help to break it up and add some shade. Overall i feel this does work as it helps to break up the flat green background.

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After finishing this design and printing it out i realised the white gradients stood out more than the imagery its self becoming a distraction. To rectify this i have replaced the white stripes with a lighter tone of green to minimise this contrast. Overall i think this works a lot better as these lines still add depth and texture but without overwhelming the design.

This hero design started when i intended to make a secondary design. For the secondary design i was intending to make the aliens look like they were on hover boards or mini space ships and flying around. For the look of thrust or fire power which was keeping the aliens in the air i used the liquify process i have been following throughout this project of drawing a ruff plan in illustrator and then taking this into photoshop where i would use the liquify tool. For the hover board/ space craft its self i cut the petals out of one of my aliens. Initially i was going to keep all the floral space ships the same pink; hue, however, then thought it would make the design more exciting if they were in different colours. Despite this, i found it hard to create a soft hue which was not washed out so i decided to keep all the ships pink and then only change the hue of their thrust.

Despite liking this idea i felt i could do more with it so decided instead to develop a hero design.

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Inspired by my previous hero outcome i thought it would be best to start with the background which i could then build my imagery around. For this i initially started in illustrator mapping out a rough plan. To get inspiration for this i referred to my mind maps on pages 41 and 41.5. Once happy with my rough plan i then went about loosely applying colour and adding white textures to give the hues a colour to mix with for when moving onto the liquify tool. Following this i then opened the design in photoshop where i went about using the liquify tool. Overall i feel creating a background like this works as it allows me to apply textures in a really loose way.

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Following this i then went about thinking about the imagery i would use. Inspired by a previous secondary design i wanted to use these aliens bellow as i could easily manipulate another to put on their backs. These aliens are featured most across the design and in one section i wanted to make them look as if they were looking at each other. For this i used the brush tool in illustrator and just moved their pupil facing toward each other. In the image bellow the original alien is on the right and the edited on the left.

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Following this i also wanted to add in some imagery which was not aliens so thought about how i could develop this. Using the petals initially from my hovercraft i cut these into three and then cut the legs off another alien. From here i arranged the petals into a flower shape and then lightened the brightness and contrast in some so all the petals were not just one flat hue. Following this i then arranged the pink petals on the branch and edited the colours using the hue adjustment in illustrator. Overall i really like these trees especially as i have been able to make them out of pre existing imagery.

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From here i used the same stems to make an arch like shape that i could place at the top of the river in my design. Central to these two branches shows the alien where i got the legs/ branches from. Despite liking the idea, i felt it did not fit in with my design so far so looked at what else i could do with them. Although they may not be appropriate for this design i still have the imagery saved so i could use it within a secondary design.

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Instead i decided to remove some of the branches which made it an arch like shape and then turned them into normal trees. Once happy with their form i then went about trying different colour overlays to try and help them fit in better with my design. Despite experimenting with a variety of hues i could not find one which i felt really worked so decided to leave them as their original hue.

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Not being able to make a decision on the colour of the trees i realised i may be in need of a break. Before taking this however i decided to print out my design so i could reflect on it occasionally while having something to eat. Once printing the design off i realised the green trees do actually work as they are the same hue as the stems of my floral trees so the two go together quite well.

Over the course of my small break i started to come up with new ideas which i hadn’t thought of previously so decided to map these onto my printed design so far in pencil (shown bellow). I feel if i hadn’t taken a break these ideas would not have come to me as i wouldn’t have allowed my subconscious to work.

To create my baby aliens i simply reduced the scale of my previous ones; however, creating the eggs was a little more complex. I really wanted to use the spotty textures from the aliens neck on the egg shells but the neck was not wide enough to allow me to do this. However, then i realised i could use the clone stamp tool to recreate these textures. The clone stamp tool simply picks up textures from an area you select and then acting like a paint brush allows you to draw them out so they seamlessly line up with the original image. Once happy with the new widened area i then used the circle tool to create an egg like shape out of this new larger area of textures.

Once happy with my eggs i then wanted to think of something to put them in so they wouldn’t just be sitting on the ground. Initially a nest came to mind; however, i thought there must be something more creative i could do with this. As the egg is the very start of the aliens life i started to reflect on where my aliens came from and as they were inspired by flowers i thought this would fit in well and also reach out to my young demographic.

For these flowers i wanted to keep them simple as there was already so much imagery within this design so used the petals i had created my floral trees out of and used the paintbrush tool to create a stem. As well as this, i wanted the flower to reflect the hues of the egg that was growing within it so decided to edit the petals using the hue adjustment in photoshop to match the spots on the eggs.

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Once happy with the arrangement of these flowers and eggs i then followed the rest of my plan by adding in some more trees and started to develop the heart shaped ring of flying aliens. I felt a heart would really appeal to my younger demographic and fits in the theme of alien babies and their parents. Initially i made the heart the size shown bellow; however, felt this was getting lost amidst the hues within the rainbow.

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Instead i decided to make it slightly smaller so it would fit inside. Overall i feel this works a lot better as the heart shape is a lot clearer and does not get lost amongst the rainbow.

From here there was only one last thing i wanted to do which was to add some more florals in the bottom left hand corner as well as some aliens hiding in the front set of trees. I thought these aliens would be a really nice addition as it would be fun for little girls to suddenly realise they’re playing amongst the trees.

I feel this outcome will really appeal to a little girl of my age demographic as it should play on their imagination. For the product purpose of this design i feel it would make a nice print on the bedroom wall which could either be framed or left as a poster. I have created it on an A2 canvas which i feel would be the best scale so all the imagery can be seen clearly.

Inspired by my previous design i have decided to create a secondary design directly aimed at boys within my age demographic. As well as designs for both genders coming into fashion for kids interiors SS’21, within my target market research i also noted my customer would also have a twin brother with similar interests. By producing a design directly aimed at boys i hope to widen my target market within the same age demographic and increase sales.

For my imagery i selected the aliens within my illustrations which i felt would best appeal to a boys market. From here i started to explore how i could repeat them. Initially i was considering another striped design; however, when rotating the aliens i found a 90 degree rotation repeat to be most suited. To try and extend on the masculine element of this design i wanted to avoid pretty little circles of aliens which i have in many of my other repeats and take a more angular approach.

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From my first repeat i realised i may need to increase the amount f negative space within my designs as i felt the aliens were very tightly packed. As well as this i felt my outcomes could be more experimental with scale.

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Using these these two key points i made one of the aliens smaller and experimented with its placement. As well as increasing the gap between the motif imagery i also increased the gap between the 90 degree rotation repeat as well as the block repeat to try and encourage more negative space within the design. Despite there in fact being more negative space i felt this was not balanced very well as my eyes were drawn to the large gaps between the imagery.

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To try and rectify this i placed the smaller alien in many different positions in relation to the bigger alien. Once so their heads lined up at the top, once so their feet lined up at the bottom and again where the smaller alien was central to the bigger one. Out of the three of these i found when the smaller alien was central this created the best balance of negative space.

To experiment further i also tried a brick repeat when lining up the 90 degree rotation repeat (shown bellow). out of the brick and block repeat i preferred the block as i felt this had the most fluid structure and simplified the overall design. Although this design only contains two pieces of imagery, the 90 degree rotation makes this appear more complex in structure.

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Despite being more happy with the placement of the smaller alien and there for the distribution of negative space, i still found my eye drawn to the gaps within the design. To try to rectify this i instead made the two aliens the same size and then rotated the previously smaller alien 180 degrees. Although this is not encouraging scale within my design i feel there is enough pattern within this outcome already as although there is minimal imagery there is a lot of tessellation.

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When it came to the background hue of the design i wanted to avoid the pink and purple hues within my colour pallet. Out of the two bellow i feel the green background creates a much more subdued design where all the hues are very harmonious; despite this, the yellow as a background does give the final outcome a very youthful feel, appropriate for my target market. For now i have decided to present this design with a green background; however, this could change to yellow if i feel this fits in better with my collection.

In relation to the product i have created this design for i think it would work very well as wallpaper, in particular a feature wall or on a bedding set. If i am to produce this design for a bedding set i feel this design would be the duvet cover, the mattress sheet would be the background hue, and the pillow case would be these aliens, however, just in their rotated motif.

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For this secondary design i initially wanted to create another rotational repeat; however, found the imagery was more suitable to a stripe. Inspired by my interim tutorial i wanted to experiment with my aliens interacting with each other and found i could place an alien on the back of another. Initially i experimented by rotating this design; however, felt there must be a more interesting repeat i could make out of this imagery.

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As well as wanting to mix up the repeat i also thought it might be nice if i edited the hue of the aliens so they were not all in one consistent hue. For this i selected 4 hues which are within my colour pallet, i felt this was a suitable amount as there are already a lot of hues within these 4 and did not want my design to end up with an overload of colour.

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Once editing these hues i thought if i placed these aliens in a wavy line this may break up the linear stripes and i do feel this worked. As i am working for a young demographic i feel this really reduces the seriousness of a striped pattern. Once happy with the curve of the key aliens i then experimented with putting a greater variety of aliens on the back of the original. Overall i do really like this idea and feel it will really appeal to my target demographic as it looks like the aliens are on a train ride. Despite this, i feel i could develop this further into a hero design because of the amount of imagery and hues.

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Once happy with my motif i then experimented by repeating the design down the page. Overall i feel the bellow design is too linear and the hues of the aliens really make this obvious, so i decided to experiment with a brick repeat.

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Initially i was hesitant that the wavy lines would throw off the brick repeat; however, because this is not an extremely curved line i feel it does work. Overall in relation to a girls market i do feel the light pink background is more appropriate; however, within my trend research it mentioned genderless designs will be in fashion for kids interiors SS’21. Despite the pink and purple hues within this design i feel with a green background it is more than appropriate as a genderless design, especially towards the lower end of my target market between 5 and 10.

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Inspired by my hero design i have decided to create a secondary design utilising both my imagery and a background created using the liquify tool. To create a girly feel i decided to use pink and purple for my liquify experiment.

To create my liquify background i followed the process which i have previously via mapping out areas of colour using the pen tool in illustrator and then bringing this image into Photoshop where i use the liquify tool and a circular motion to create the swirls of paint.

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From here i mirrored my liquify outcome to ensure it was one smooth pattern. Once mirroring the design i then selected imagery to include. As the background is of 3 hues and highly textural i had to be very careful with the imagery that i selected as i wanted to ensure this would stand out against the background.

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To ensure my imagery would stand out clearly i used the brightness, contrast and level adjustments to make the background ever so slightly lighter. I could have pushed this even further and made it a lot lighter; however, this created a very faded washed out look.

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From here i realised the foreground imagery would stand out better against the background if the background was at a smaller scale. So instead of using my initial square as a template for my motif i used a version that was reflected and then used these four mirrored squares to create the motif. Overall i feel this worked well as the textures from the liquify experiment are still embodied within the design; however, they are not overwhelming the foreground imagery.

Once experimenting with the placement and variety of aliens i came up with a structure i was fairly happy with. From here i would make minor changes by rotating the aliens until i found a pattern i was happy with.

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Overall i feel the variety of scale and background really helps to add depth to this image and because of the hue adjustments the foreground aliens do really stand out. As well as this, i do actually think this liquify experiment is a lot more appropriate for my target demographic than some i have previously created so may return to these with my new found knowledge.

Since creating this design i have realised it better suits my collection with just the textured background and without any alien imagery in the foreground.