Studio brief 2: Developments

Solution 1 development:

figure 1

The feedback focused on the fact that by having the lines fairly thin, could suggest that the slim female body is seen to be desirable and the most suitable for the clothing. This was something that needed to be developed as leaving it would mean that the designs do not fulfil the clients needs of removing any association to slim models. Figure 1 shows the different design developments that I have tried. 

Initially I tried to decrease the line thickness in the attempt to remove the focus f it being thick enough to represent a leg. It was still recognisable as a leg and emphasised the thinness even more than the original designs. The research into colours and what they can portrayed highlighted that there is a need for multiple colours in order to suggest the particular meanings I am aiming to portray. The next designs show that the addition of lines could allow for a developed colour scheme to be displayed as part of the design, strengthening the intended concept. 

To try and represent the diversity in body sizes within the UK, I tried the designs with a variety of line weights within the same design. I do not think this worked successfully as it lacked a sense of visual consistency - started to look confusing and unplanned. 

Applying an artistic brush stroke to the design could work in a way that it would suggest that the colour is there to represent something other than just the body parts.

The fact that the colour is visually presenting in replacement of actual limbs, it would be hard to also remove this association. The idea works well visually, but in what is trying to be portrayed it does not do this in a way that wouldn't be interpreted to be showing the legs of the models and potentially as very thin legs of models. 

Solution 2 development:

figure 2 

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Figure 4

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Figure 6

Figure 7

I have decided to develop solution 2 as this had the most positive feedback, showing that it could be successful if the research into the concept was to be continued and refined. The research would need to predominantly be on colour theory and the ways in which particular colour combinations can be used to represent different feelings.

Taking the logotype for Topshop and rearranging the letters (figure 2) to try and build up patterns is based upon the feedback that the geometric shapes did not have enough relevance to Topshop as a company. I wanted to have a design that used something very heavily associated to Topshop, but once rearranged it wasn't instantly obvious what it was representing. Feedback suggested that the one using only the ‘T’ to make the pattern was the most effective as there is relevant to the company, but not too explicitly. 

The experimentation with thickness was to see which one best complimented the image and didn’t detract all of the attention away from it. The bottom of the 3 figure 3's was thought to be the best as it is still a feature, but it is thin enough that the image can still be a big part of the visuals.
Figure 4 show the colour research that has been carried out using Adobe Color CC - searching key words and then selecting the colour scheme that best represent it. This was useful as it allowed me to see a variety of opinions in regards to different colours scheme representing the same thing. I was able to see the most commonly colours to be chosen for each word. This allowed me to select the colour scheme for each of the categories of clothing for Topshop. 
Figures 5 and 6 show a mockup of how the coloured pattern could look with the image. These two have the pattern over the top of the image, but when experimenting it became obvious that it looked better as a background (figure 7) to the image.