OUGD405 Studio Brief 1 - Development

OUGD405 Studio Brief 1 - Development

From our interim critique, the majority of my group all preferred the stain glass window idea to my surprise, although I like the endangered animals idea, I agree that the stain glass window designs could be more interesting and original. My also did suggest combining the two together, so linking animals and stain glass windows together. I then went away and started to create different ideas, by merging the two together. Although I thought this was an interesting concept, this is something I've seen before I'd quite like my designs to be original. In addition, when testing and experimenting with these ideas in Photoshop, I found them quite simple and myself not enthusiastic about the concept.

Therefore, I decided to experiment with my other idea along the lines of nature, and found this a lot more interesting for myself and I was keen to explore different patterns and effects that I could create with nature. As initially, I thought about my designs being something modern, bold and original, I wanted to appeal to a younger audience, therefore aiming my target audience at buyers from shops like Evolution or Urban Outfitters. With this in mind, I decided I wanted to move away from the natural colours of nature and experiment with different designs. 

To start my development of my idea, I began by photographing images of nature to use within my designs. Leaves were my main focus but as I found berries I thought it would also be interesting to include these as the repetitive shapes could be really interesting. These are a few examples of the photographs I took, I wanted to include a range of different types of leaves to have different shapes throughout my designs.

I also found previous photographs that I have taken from some of my old work. I then took these and started to experiment using different filters on Photoshop. Two that I found particularly interesting was the Glowing Edges and Ocean Ripple filters. When I tested out the glowing edge filter on my photograph it looked really interesting but it was far to busy because there are so many shapes within this photograph. Therefore I will try the same effect with minimal, bold shapes. In addition I also used an old photograph of mine, and changed the colours to create bright woodland scene, which makes it a lot more modern, while then adding the Ocean Ripple filter to it to make it look really abstract. I really love the outcome of this, but I don't think it quite fits in with the brief as it is not based on a shape, but more a landscape - but this is a design that I can come back to in the future.

To create a distinctive shape within the design, I used this close up image of leaves to manipulate. I edited all the colours of these leaves as I did in the woodland design as I was interested in what the outcome would be with these distorted colours along with the glowing edges filter, which I then found to be really interesting. It was exactly the modern, original effect that I wanted so I decided to continue on with this concept. I continued to edit the colours of the photograph, as the glow effect created a blue and purple colour scheme, so I also distorted the colours and the filter so some of the leaf vines would appear. I think adds to the overall effect of the leaf shapes by adding some detail within in the piece to enforce the leaf designs. I then added the dimensions to the piece to really complete the look of the backing, while also experimenting using a coloured, rectangular shape to made the dimensions clearer. I believe the designs works better with the shape included as the design itself is quite complex and colourful, it makes it clearer to read and catches the audiences eye.

I the tired out this same effect with my photographs of berries to see how well it would work. I started out by changing the colours again but this time in bolder, brighter colours while keeping some of the berries its natural colour - as the filter produced a nice red outline for the berries which I quite liked as it makes the shapes clearer within the filter effect. When I put the filter over the the edited photograph, it creates a really nice outline of colours, however as the photograph is quite complex, it has a lot of different shapes and altogether looks to busy for my liking. I would like the rest of my designs to be similar to my first, which has a clear shape within it and clearly shows the leaf design but in a simplistic manner. This however, has turned out to be be quite complex, and although I do like how it has come out, I don't think it links as well with my first piece and I'd rather clearer shapes. But I know now that I can use brighter colours to edit the photograph to create interesting outlines for the filter.

To make the design clearer, I think close up photographs would work better on a white background to make the shapes more defined. Therefore I took more photographs of the berries but close up and backed on white. Once I tired this by editing the colours and applying the filter, the outcome was a lot more defined and clearer as I wanted. I have three different versions as all are different, I first I made the details within the filter sharper so it was a bit more complex, although I wanted the design bolder, I quite liked the effect this gave off with the details within the image. The second is the same image but it doesn't include the details and mainly shows the outlines to make the imager bolder. The third is this same approach but I zoomed into one section to further enhance the outlines to really depict the same. I could not decide which image I felt worked best, so I made a tally and asked my peers which they thought worked best, and the result was the first and third design. 

I then went on to work with an image of another type of leaf. I wanted the outlines to be really clear which is why I took a close shot of the leaf while cutting some of it out to really get the lines clear. Once editing it I found it worked really well with the filter and the veins of the leaf came up really clearly. I also really like how the colours have come out and believe it links really well with my first design, therefore I am going to use this design in my set.

I also experimented with a photograph of a tree to see how the effect would turn out as I thought the lines and shapes would be really interesting, particularly in this photo. However when I applied the same filter, I found it didn't work well as there were to many shapes and the image wasn't clear. Although looking back at the image when I edited the colours, I found I really liked this image and it was aesthetically pleasing without the filter. I found it also related back to my original idea of stain glass windows, and has a similar feel to it. I then decided to add the 'Photo Frame' tag to see how it would look as its own piece, but as it does not link with my other sets of work, I decided not to include it. 

After experimenting with different designs and manipulations, I decided on these three designs. For the third image, although the majority of people I asked preferred the first image, I decided to ultimately go with this one as I felt as a set of three, it worked best within the set. I did try to relate it a bit more to the other two final designs, by editing the colours again to a more blue/purple tone, but I think it links to the other designs, therefore I decided to make minimal changes. I did however, change the opacity of the rectangular boxes which the text is on, so the colour weren't so bold on top of the designs.