Words as Character

Typography communicates meaning. It also expresses it. This project explores they many ways text can express meaning both visually and textually. Imagining the word literally, as a character on a stage, these composition studies demonstrate how spacing, proximity, scale and repetition can visually speak the meaning of a word.

Composition Constraints/ Requirements:
The composition set would include four words total.
Two words were assigned.The third word is a neologism we would create by combining the two previous words together. The fourth word was our choice. We could only use the letters in the word. The only typeface we could use was Univers. Warping and distorting the letter form was not allowed.

Define Illuminated letterform.

Illumination is an embellishment. The term Illumination comes from Illuminate, meaning to fill with light. The illuminated manuscript is a body of text that was hand crafted and supplemented with decorative elements, boarders and miniature illustrations. Literal Illumination was achieved through application of gold leaf. The content of the Illustrations were biblical or containing other religious undertones. The illuminated letter was usually the first letter of a page or paragraph. The scale of the letter in comparison to the surrounding body text was increased. The images incorporated in the letter forms could depict animals, plants and mythological creatures. The creatures could fit around the letter forms or become

the letter entirely. The creatures could fit around the letter forms or become the letter forms entirely. The Illustrations found within these letter forms carry a significance which not only lies in the artistic vision and style of the time but also in the link to the manuscripts content. These letter forms could convey a narrative for those who may be illiterate. The representation of living beings in Islamic manuscripts is replaced by intertic geometric, floral, and textural patterns. They embodies an increased fascination with Islamic calligraphy. The prophet Muhammad warned against idol worship because the creation of all living forms is unique to god.

Research.

R for Reality .

Jaron Lanier, the “father of VR” weaves together a hearty dose of memoir while breaking down the origins of Virtual Reality technically and philosophically. His writing style is visually rich, descriptive and playful, the perfect character for this assignment.

Lanier’s mother died when he was young. When his father finally check him out of the hospital after a year of battling various illnesses, he purchased land in New Mexico. He was an architect. The lived in a tent for two years while Lanier designed their home, a geodesic dome. After dropping out of high school at 14 he attended computer science classes at a local college, played music and raised goats in his spare time. Raising goats eventually allowed him to generate enough funds to go to art school in New York. He later followed a girlfriend to California where he discovered he could make money by programming computers. The company he later started in the 1980’s, VPL developed a virtual glove long before a headset. Translating movements on a screen was a challenging task, especially when it had to interact with virtual objects. VPL discovered a bug were users hands grew the size of buildings in virtual worlds. This lead to his more

interesting discovers, such as how easy it is for people to adapt to different kinds of body shapes and sizes in VR. He speculates that our brains are a lot more plastic than we realized and we can adjust to accommodate new perceptions in virtual worlds.

Part hippie, part sci-fi, part nerd, part psychedelic

I choose to work with Baskerville because it’s history reminded me vaguely of virtual realities history. Virtual reality has been around for years but has been sluggish to appear in our everyday lives. Although, more recently it has been making a comeback.

John Baskerville designed Baskerville attempting to perfect the styles of Caslon. The goal was to make it more legible but many claimed it was too “stark” for the eyes. When Bodoni was released, Baskerville was pushed away. The typeface was given life again when Bruce Rogers began to use it for Harvard University Press. The popularity quickly increased.

Sketches.

Rana Plaza

Why Won’t We Learn from the Survivors of the Rana Plaza Disaster?

Completed in a collaborative studio: ADN 560 Graduate Art & Design Studio | CSC 495 Computer Science

In this mini three week project, a team of two students would complete an historical short looking towards a speculative past or future scenario. The project was inspired by the film category Machinima, using real time computer graphics engines to create a cinematic production.

Proposal | Action through Education

Inspired by excerpt from WOMEN IN CLOTHES, by Sheila Heti

an eighteen-year-old garment worker and survivor of the Rana Plaza collapse in Dhaka, Bangladesh, talks to Sara Ziff, founder and executive director of Model Alliance, a non-profit labor group for models working in the American fashion industry.

Our Narrative: You are an 18 year old garment worker. You are working on a sewing machine. Cracks begin. Workers are concerned but continue to finish the day. The next day, management returns with a crowd of workers who won’t enter the building. Management begins to shout, “just go inside.” There are stacks of clothes and boxes inside the Plaza. It’s clearly an overcrowded environment. You sit down at the same workstation and begin hemming a stack of jeans. Lights go out. It’s dark and you begin to make your way down the stairwell. Right before you exit the building you hear a huge boom from the floors collapsing above you. The plaza falls, but you escape. You were lucky and now you are a survivor. You will live to tell the truth of the true cost of fashion.

Why?

More than 1,100 people were killed in the horrific building collapse and over 2,500 were injured. Five years later, the garment industry seems to have returned to business as usual. This historical moment demonstrates why we need creative content to document our mistakes.

In order to not repeat the past, we must remember the tragedies and stories that were a result of poor decisions. The campaign #WhoMadeMyClothes allows consumers to collectively question transparency in the social responsibility of supply chains and calls for sustainable improvements. It is also a chance for fashion brands, sustainable or otherwise, to show what they have improved in the industry. Ideally, this project could be content released by the #WhoMadeMyClothes campaign. Hashtag could be included in the final scene linking you to further education and resources to learn about the impacts of fast fashion.

SketchUp, Loosely modeled off the original floor plan.

This was my first time working within a 3d space. Various assets from SketchUp warehouse were used to compose the set. Small alterations were made such has replacing texture imagery. As the Designer of the team, I produced the storyboards, built and composed the 3D environment and assembled final film short.

After Modeling the Building in SketchUp, we figured out that the building could be fractured in Blender. Getting this file from SketchUp, through Blender and into Unity was more troublesome than one might expect. In Unity, the fractured building would act as a shell triggered by the destruction script placed at the top of the steps. At the time, we were thinking about a user interacting with the scene. Looking back now, we really didn’t need a trigger, only a separate Unity scene. The scenes could have easily been assembled in the post production video. Scripting a ball and altering the physics to “break” the building is ultimately how we achieved the results we did.

“Fernando” and “Katie” Garment factory workers

We needed workers in our building but we couldn’t find an appropriate set of assets to work with. The models above are were made with a 3d scanner are are placed in the scene at each sewing machine. By removing the color of the scans, the environment and ambience became the focus. With a topic centered around worker rights, It felt appropriate for the workers to not exhibit a sense of individualism. Especially, since this event could have been prevented. Large structural cracks were discovered in the building before it collapsed. Shops and banks located at the lower levels closed but the garment factory owners ordered the workers to continue.

While lighting in Unity was not a requirement for this assignment, It was obvious after importing the model I would have to explore further. I experimented with HDRI lighting and Baking.

This Project marks my new interest in the world of 3D asset creation and interactive content. I was blown away by the level of detail and nuances one could convay in a 3D scene. The level of detail that could be spent on just the lighting and render configuration could be utilized to achieve almost limitless possiblibites.

TWENTYONE-Ology

Nature’s diverse collection of phenomena contribute toward shaping our terrain. While time is an abstract measure, we can still comprehend its passing as visual records that color our landscapes. As earth's surface continuously molds, we simultaneously impact these patterns. Visually constructing climatic, geologic, and geomorphic regimes, 21-ology celebrates unique qualities and embraces a lack of predictability. This zero waste collection is inspired by the culmination of transformative, organic processes governed by nature. The integration of sustainable electronics serves as a blissful reminder of our marks on the natural world.

This Collection began as a single look. The look was for my final Special Topics in Design: Material Manipulation class which turned into a collection about a week before jury day. Jury day is held the 1st weekend of December. A blind jury chooses the collection that will walk come April. You are required to present two looks with a mood board and concept statement. This collection will work in collaboration with another graduate student, Ty Van De Zande and his light up circuits and prints. **2020 Art2Wear Collection; Making In Progress

Natural dying, zero waste patttern-making and circuit integration are three challenging components to plan. Therefore, these sketches represent a predicated outcome. The process of constructing this collection requires back and forth sketching, samp… — Natural dying, zero waste patttern-making and circuit integration are three challenging components to plan. Therefore, these sketches represent a predicated outcome. The process of constructing this collection requires back and forth sketching, sampling and implementing. Making this collection is about tackling new challenges; trust, observation, teamwork, and problem solving.

Special Topics in Design: Material Manipulation | Final Project Sketch

Weekly Sample Studies | Special Topics in Design: Material Manipulation — Weekly Sample Studies | *Special Topics in Design: Material Manipulation*

Natural dyed cotton, ready for construction

Layers of natural dyed cotton in slashed pants

The Truth of the Matter

Data, Stories & Interpretation

The author and artist Manuel Lima has argued in his book, Visual Complexity, that (sic) our capacity to collect data far outweighs our ability to understand it. As a result, the need to visualize complex data is a growing field of study, but one that often elevates one over the other—either the data over the visualization or the visual aesthetics over the data itself.

Computational and generative art hold immense potential for artist and designers to think about artistic creation. The visualization of data can tell a rich, dynamic and multi-layered story with multiple perspectives. The tension between, bias, and interpretation are inherently embedded in data collection, synthesis, analysis and translation. This project emphasized the use of systems that drive the actualization of the art. The final outcome of this assignment was to introduce different types of art and design generation while attempting to work through a different visualization platform. The software, Processing, is an open-source, Java language, graphical library and IDE integrated development environment built for electronic arts, new media art and visual design.

We were prompted to chose a data set which would consider the following:

What social, environmental, political, economic problems do you see in the world?

What is relevant to social discourse that is happening right now?

What is available?

What size is the data set? Will it update regularly?

1960-2015 Data on Textiles in MSW by Weight (in thousands of U.S. tons)

EPA measures the generation, recycling, composting, combustion with energy recovery and landfilling of textile material in MSW.

Project Reflection:

I hadn’t heard of Processing before this assignment. While I was aware of this thing called “Creative Coding,” I didn’t have any prior experience as to how and what went into it. While I have experience learning other software like Adobe and AutoCAD, Processing was an incredibly challenging program to dive into comparatively. Thinking in the form of equations just doesn’t come naturally to me. I will admit that as time progressed, I started to understand the general syntax of Processing. This was crucial because once I could understand the flow of the program, I was able to start using “the palette” of processing to adjust and combine simple elements. In the beginning, I spent a lot of time playing with what I now understand was pretty complex code. I figured having zero previous experience, it would be best for me to explore what the capabilities are within Processing. While this works for learning other programs, it was a bit distracting in the case of coding. Processing is similar to constructing a garment in the sense that there are specific steps and you really need to go through the actions in a specific order to achieve results. This is especially true in the beginning. My process started to evolve as I spent more time working in Processing. I found myself focusing on a specific problem and not moving on until I figured out exactly how to achieve the result that I was after. Scaling my data and changing the x,y (0,0) coordinates are two cases I applied this rule to my Processing progression. Previously, I would get hung up on how to do something, but while searching the web for answers, I would get side tracked and start working with another snippet of code which didn’t relate to the problem I was attempting to solve. In the end, I realize coding is all about minimal adjustments, which layer and build over time. While I feel I have come a long way since my previous compositions, I feel that I am just now starting to have a little bit of a break through with writing if statements. This project has sparked a curiosity for the integration of code in garments. This is a topic I plan to further explore in the future.

Early exploration | drawing with code

Containing value inside defined boundries

Mend Art2Wear Collection

By encouraging all consumers to re-evaluate their current clothing consumption, Mend intends to design garments for the greater good. Primarily focused around sustainable design practices, the collection is constructed with used, cast off clothing and textiles. Consumers are informed of the fiber contents incorporated into each garment. This concept of ‘circular fashion’ is based on principles of circular economy and sustainable development. Designed for deconstruction, “the life after garment” is valued and considered while also celebrating global craft ad traditions lost to fast fashion. Mend embraces new explorations in surface design through laser removal of indigo on denim and screen printing with water based inks.

360 VR by Rhett Hissam | Click around inside of this video

The front half of the top is made with 100 % upcycled men’s shirting. The back half of this top is made with 100% polyester men’s shirting. Each half is labeled, designed for the consumer to easily recycle at the end of the garment’s lifespan or to interchange with a different color palates or cut. This tank top is reversible and provides the wearer with multiple options. The front and back are attached by buttons.

The skirt is made with 100% upcycled cotton denim. The pleated panels of this skirt are made with a blend of both cotton and polyester men’s shirting. While my goal is not only to use sustainable materials moving forward but to find new purpose and ways to recycle the waste that already exists in the United States. It takes quite a lot of energy to recycle a blend like cotton/polyester. In some cases, it really cannot be recycled. The process involves separating the individual fibers. If the material is not recycled, it is potentially donated. While this seems like an act of goodness, only 10 percent of clothing in donation centers are resold in the United States. That means the other 90 percent is sold by the pound and shipped overseas. The abundance of clothing our fast fashion culture has created is harmful to the environment, its people, and cultural textile traditions.

The process towards developing the collection Mend begin with research in sustainable practices and fashion houses. Following this Research, an inspiration board was created. This inspiration board was purely inspirational! All things that inspire you, zero expectations, zero limitations.

An additional round of research into sustainable aspects I would explore, sample, or take precedent from.

Every piece had a hand screen printed tag. Parts of the garments were made with cotton, others were made with blends. Designed to ensure and encourage proper future recycling.

Photographs above by Rachel Berbec

Uploaded by NCState on 2018-04-18.

Research

This was a collection developed for the runway of Art2Wear 2018. Every year Art2Wear releases a theme in which the designers are to incorporate within their collection concepts. The Theme of Art2Wear 2018 | CAESURA

长恨歌 Chang Hen Ge Poem Poem Illustration

After mind mapping, I concluded that I would would draw my inspiration from a Chinese poem. While Caesura is usually categorized as breaks and pauses between lines in poetry, I concluded that caesura could also be interpreted as a key component found in storytelling. Story is used as a way for us to experience and gain insight. In its simplest form, story is a connection of cause and effect events. A good story can reveal or teach new perspectives. Usually this new insight is driven by interruption, sorrow or trouble. Our story characters struggle, persevere, and adapt as our story unfolds; an action of caesura.

Spoonflower had the pleasure of sponsoring several students at this year's Art2Wear, a student-run fashion show put on by NC State's College of Art and Design. The show, now in it's 17th year, gives students real world production and fashion exhibition experience.

The process of each look was approached differently.

Many of the pieces in this collection were projects for different classes. In other words, I did not have a formulated recipe for designing this collection. While I would always have to meet the requirements for each assignments rubric, I would also have to make appropriate aesthetic decisions that would fit the theme of Eternal.

The design process was experimental and fluid

Things adjusted accordingly based on reflection and crit feedback. I used primarily collage as a tool for sketching. These sketches remained as working pieces throughout the entire construction period. My sketch process utilized a backwards approach; a 3-dimensional form of sketching, which later would become translated into a 2-dimensional drawing and college.

The First Piece: Latchhook Bird Kimono

“臨別殷勤重寄詞，
詞中有誓兩心知，
七月七日長生殿，
夜半無人私語時。
在天願作比翼鳥，
在地願為連理枝。
天長地久有時盡，
此恨綿綿無絕期

She asked the messenger to bring back a verse with a clue.
There was a vow in the verse only the two of them knew.
On a Valentine’s Day in Longevity Hall away from the crowd,
At midnight when no one else was around, they vowed.
“Let’s be two birds in the sky flying side by side.”
“Let’s be two branches on the earth inseparably tied.”
The sky and the earth will not be eternal, however.
Only this regret remains and lasts for ever and ever. ”

— Translation by Ying Sun

The first latch hook jacket was inspired by the translated section above. Each piece in the collection was comprised from different projects from different classes. This piece was completed in my main studio where I developed and researched the concept of Eternal. The jacket began with bird drawings completed by hand, translated digitally via a Wacom tablet. I used Adobe adobe illustrator to quickly generate color variations. There were concern weather the birds would be seen because of the pixelated nature of latch hooking. Since my collection began with this piece, it really set the tone of my collection and it’ color palette. While the poem depicts many moments of beauty through the use of simple imagery, there is also a feeling of longing and loneliness which lingers between the romance of the Emperor and Lady Yang.

Pattern generated from my hand painted samples which then were digitally printed by Spoonflower. Scale of prints became adjustable.

Painted, cut and stitched back together canvas

Sample at smaller scale, laser cut wood floral

A time before the pain of latch hooking set in.

My Looks transformed throughout the making process. Pieces were switch and moved around. To keep up with my sketches, I would photoshop the parts that changed.

finalize my sketches and photoshop parts

Jury Day Concept & Sketch Proposal

Art2Wear 2018 held a formal Jury Day. Jury day is a panel of anonymous judges who hand select collections they wish to see on the runway come April. It takes place at the end of the fall semester. We are required to present two looks with a concept statement along with potential sketches for the rest of the collection. My Jury pieces were later rearranged, as shown throughout my process.

Motif & Pattern Generation | Surface Design

Beginning with just the floral bunch, this pattern was inspired by the same translation of the first latch hook bird jacket, while not incorporating the “inseparably tied branches” into the pattern.

Willow | The Paper Project

Guidelines

I was asked to create a wearable structure that examines the ideas of gravity, light and movement. The final piece was expected to raise the viewer's awareness of each of those phenomenas. How I chose to raise the viewer's awareness of each of those terms, how I chose to highlight gravity, light and movement, depended upon which aspects I deemed important based on what I wanted to communicate with my audience.

Questions Considered

What is gravity? What is light? What is movement? Are everyday definitions suitable when applied to design? How do they work together? How would my audience respond, experience, or understand them? Through composition? Through exaggeration? Am I challenging or celebrating the audience's understanding and expectations?

Concept Statement

“Organic Materials are everywhere. Visually delicate in structure, It’s as if it could crumble in our hands, kind of like when you hold a bird wing or a dried out flower petal. Willow captures the essence of the natural world by expanding the the movement of the body. The paper manipulation placing emphasis on delicacy, while the larger than life scale challenges the materials visual quality. The construction of modular units used as connection speaks metaphorically about the natural world surround us.”

SKETCH

I began by sketching the human form. How does the body move? How does gravity effect movement? What is movement? How do our body parts work either together or against movement?

Studies of Movement with Chronophotography

Movement: Motion of all or part of the body, especially at the joint or joints

Chronophotography: an antique photographic technique from the Victorian era (beginning about 1867–68), which captures movement in several frames of print. These prints can be subsequently arranged either like animation cels or layered in a single frame.

Newton's third law states "A force is a push or pull that acts upon an object as a result of its interaction with another object."

I attached glow sticks to each body part. While taking a step forward, my arms swung in a full range of motion. Movement reaches it peak when the light appears the brightest. Each time I take a step forward, movement is halted for a slight second. In response, my force is distributed upwards. This explains why each part of our body is essential in moving us forward.

Paper Studies, Sketches, Natural Science Museum

*Sketchbook page with final paper type: tracing*

*Observations from the North Carolina Natural Science Museum*

Prototyping

CREATE A SEVEN PANEL TRANSFORMATION OF YOUR TOOL.

Panel six must contain a magnification | Each zoom should be consistent in location 200% | Pen and ink only | 12 by 12 inches each

The process began by sketching tools from all angles. I initially started sketching tradition tools. I decided to look up the definition of a tool. I discovered how I could be a little more creative with the choice of a tool.

TOOL /to͞ol/ noun

1. a device or implement, especially one held in the hand, used to carry out a particular function.

The roller skate us used for the particular purpose of roller skating.

Studies of the Roller Skate were also drawn digitally using Adobe Illustrator. Digital studies emphasized using line weight and gradient mesh to achieve form.

The guidelines placed heavy emphasis on the scale of zoom. Digital images were cropped accordingly to meet the requirements. Sketches for concept development followed shortly after.

Screen Shot 2016-12-22 at 12.23.36 PM.png

Color & Pattern | Painted Color Studies

Generation of Motif

Process begin by generating 1’’ by 1’’ black and white motifs

Pattern Development

The motifs were taken digital using Adobe Illustrator. A geometric transformation was applied to the orginal motif; no rotation, no rotation 45 degrees, half turn rotation, half turn rotation 45 degrees, transverse reflection, transverse reflection 45 degrees, longitudinal glide reflexion, longitudinal glide reflexion 45

Color Studies

Digital render of basic theory we were instructed to achieve with hand mixed paint

Color Observations Applied to Patterns

" Our final piece is as much about the group as a whole as it is about the individual members. Flexible and adaptable to the surrounding landscape, the final structure defines our territory while still maintaining proper working light. "

The working space assignment was intended to challenge us to work as a team in construction of a cardboard threshold. This structure had to support our studio practice. We were free to have separate designed spaces, but only with the intention of integrating our spaces with the other group members territories. We were asked to examine these questions: What construction would serve your needs? How does one perceive our boundaries? How does our perception of space change? How do you enter, arrive or exit into our space?

Before we began playing with cardboard, we were instructed to arrange wood and metal boxes as visual terms. The object was to explore modular construction. This mundane and straightforward component offers an infinite number of possibilities challenging the way we think of part to whole relationships.

Prototyping | Hours were logged arguing and disagreeing. Nothing felt right. If one person liked an idea, you could guess someone else did not. A group of 6 design students, all with different majors and unique styles ultimately lead us to our solution. Instead of letting our differences obstruct a solution, we decided to work within the constraints of our personalities. We would each mock up a unique cardboard unit. From earlier prototyping, we discovered we could link any shape together. To unify our group, we would set our own project constrains. The strips of cardboard had to be 4 inches thick and black duck tape was only to be used for connection. Each of our own unique shapes would hang above our personal space.

Abstracted Form Sketch

Unit Sketches

Fox & The Hare | Sewing & Construction

Final Assignment Completed in Sewing & Construction 1. I was Inspired by material. The fabric Swatches were chosen before the final design was decided.