EPITOME OF ME

As our main focus currently is based around distinguishing what our influences are and what makes us the designers we are, I was asked to describe myself across three mood boards by collecting selected images of things I particularly like or am drawn to in terms of colours, composition and artistic style across all disciplines such as fashion, architecture, photography and art as well as music tastes, iconic figures and even film preferences. All of these things are valuable sources of inspiration, and as an artistic individual, things we draw from constantly without even making a conscious effort to do so. These sources are all around us all of the time; we can draw inspiration from anything and so I thought this was a really good excercise to visually collate examples of a huge range of things we simply 'like' and to see it laid out all together; I think its a really effective way of identifying an aesthetic and becoming aware of common features to associate with what may well develop into a personal style for your work in years to come. Of course tastes change but I think it places me at a great advantage to be able to identify my style and preference so that I am able to constantly refer back to particular images as inspiration.  Personally, as is probably apparent by looking at my mood boards below, I favour a more minimalist look in terms of shape and composition but in contrast am also hugely drawn to bold prints, colours and shapes within my own dress style which often translates through to my design work  in various ways. I think on a whole, I am simply drawn to images, fashion and such like which has the ability to make an impact in some way; whether it be because it is intrusive with colour and/or shape or if it be the content itself such as the eery Tim Walker photographs shown in the first mood board below. I think my attraction to bold colours and prints in the clothing I wear myself has a great impact on my enjoyment of adopting a simple, minimalistic style when it comes to my work and vice versa.  In terms of my mood boards themselves, it just came naturally for me to fade out the images and increase their transparency as I felt it created a cleaner finish; as someone who is effectively a technophobe and am next to useless when it comes to photoshop, I found this was the nicest way to work around and avoid the layering of images looking ugly with bold corners intruding on each other and creating a rather cluttered collection of images rather than something which works together beautifully to portray a collective image as a whole. Between myself and my partner, we used the following collection of words to describe my mood boards:

• colourful
• transparent
• constrasting
• linear
• angular
• modern
• minimalistic
• structural
• bold
• arty
• grunge
• pattern
• simple

Following on from my self analysis, I was then asked to move on to my partner's mood boards and analyse those in the same way. I began with the most obvious adjectives and then built on them, looking for less obvious but apparent qualities. My descriptive list is as follows:

(In order from top to bottom) 

• skeletal
• anatomy
• silhouette
• sculptural
• daring
• form
• experimental
• impacting
• fashion
• natural

• characters
• super heroes
• sci-fi
• make believe
• fiction
• comedy
• playful
• humorous
• sarcastic
• fastastical       

                                                        

• graphic
• geometric
• colour blocking
• scientific
• physics
• illusional
• crystals
• bold
• neon
• astronomy

I think it is clear to see from these three mood boards that Jess has a very eclectic taste, taking inspiration from a huge range of sources and genres of media. Firstly, by looking at the first mood board we are able to see that she is drawn to a very sculptural style when it comes to fashion design, with a great imaginative approach to altering and addressing the silhouette; this is also reiterated by the abstract and geometric images presented on the left. This mood board depicts a very bold aesthetic with a strong reference to science, particularly astrology suggesting that Jess takes great inspiration from bright colours and abstract shapes created in a natural way. I think with the inclusion of the 'novelty' mood board above, it suggests that Jess has a playful approach to her work and has a work ethic derived towards the idea of enjoyment and maybe even costume. Fictional characters have been inspiring designers for years; I think the idea of bringing the make believe into the real world has a great appeal particularly when it comes to fashion because, when done well, fictional characters can be translated with great effect into something of high desirability in the fashion industry due to the costume-like features without appearing to be a cheap, novelty attempt to take inspiration from such a sources.