Design
For my FMP this week I’ve tried to create mood boards of the ideas which are most important to me. I’ve found this difficult because I have too many ideas, and when I start researching one thing it inspires another thing and another and so on. But I know this happens, so I’ve tried to limit the time I do research and anaylse the images to figure out what to use. However even after doing this I’m still not 100% sure what I want to do. My head feels a bit of a scramble, but hopefully after the next tutorial I'll get a clearer idea. I still haven't developed the written proposal which I'm a bit worried about, but I don’t feel like my idea is solid yet so don’t want to waste time improving it and having to change it again.
I watched a few talks this week one of them was ‘F*ck being humble’ by Stefanie Sword-Williams. This was really helpful in understanding the importance of not being scared to promote yourself and your work. Some of the key points were to not be generic and let your character come across when writing a cv, cover letter, portfolio etc. I need to do promote myself through story telling rather that commentating. Another thing she pointed out is explaining your work when posting on social media rather than simply having an image. I’ve started to implement this on my own design Instagram account. Finally ensure that I'm googleable, what comes up is up to date ad that all my platforms are linked together. I plan on doing this sometime next week. I’ve gone back to connecting with small businesses on my handmade clothes account too as I’d left this alone since no longer selling things. But I want to still connect and support others as I may start this back up sometime.
Another lecture was by Amy Twigger on ‘Knit, reknit and reimagine’. I loved her new project on fashion fictions- An alternative fashion model, thinking about parallel worlds with sustainable fashion systems that push beyond what seems plausible today.
Furthermore, a talk by Paul Simmons from Timorous Beasties spoke about how when creating for a business you don’t always need to think commercial, you can just create art. By developing noncommercial ideas, they can lead to interesting things in the future that people wouldn’t expect. Another thing was to choose a name which doesn't stick you in a box, so that more companies consider you for work.
Finally, we had a lecture on fashion and identity by Naomi Braithwaite. The way she spoke about how people create an embodied experience links to my proposal. I could take inspiration form how she carried out research as this is something I haven't decided on for my own work. As part of the interview process, she got people to put on their shoes rather than arriving in them. This could translate to my proposal by getting people to put on the garment I create or their own garment which brings them joy. Therefore, you get to see someone's reaction, the change in posture, attitude etc. as they put it on.
For next week I need to really focus on getting a solid final idea for my proposal and be selective with my research.