Evaluation

This project is my favorite for this course. I had more time to develop my project and achieve my goal. Despite the difficulties I have been through, I have learned a lot by myself and thanks for my tutors' assistance.

This is my first time writing my own brief before doing the project, and it was helpful. It has helped me think thoroughly of the main direction of the project. But I am not really happy with the timetable and bibliography I set out before. One reason was that I spent little time on them. Another reason was that I had many uncertain things remained in the proposal, but I thought of the timetable and bibliography in a specific way. All I thought was around which kind of outcome should I make, how many works should I finish by the time I set out, etc. That's why I couldn't follow my proposal well.

I found that I didn't need to think too specifically but only the frame of to-do list would be perfect, like how many exhibitions am I going to visit, how many experimentations I am going to finish, etc. By thinking in different ways like these, I think I would be able to design a better timetable and bibliography next time.

I found it difficult to read all the books I listed in the bibliography. Most of them are theoretical books in English and I need to spend loads of time comprehending their contents. But I still wanted to understand the approximate meanings of these theories, so I found some related Chinese lectures and watched whenever I had time. The series of lectures are still too long to finish watching but I could finally be inspired by some theories from them. Like there are many attitudes toward the generation of aesthetic but not the only truth.

At first, I was too careful to make a little change to the proposal. I follow all the conditions I set out and found the project less interesting. Then after a few tutorials with different tutors, they encouraged me to step out of the restrictions and make what I like. I used to attach importance to the development process and wanted it to be perfect. But then I found that I should let making be the development.

The most three important breakthroughs were :

  • Set up the concept of the final outcome - reconstruct fashion details from Chinatown older generations;
  • Found that pixelation is a great style to interpret the concept;
  • Decided to use screen-printing as the main technique to show pixelated images.

The ideas came up along with the research and reflections, as well as tutors' encouragement. I found the contextual practice on August 1st really helpful, which was about classifying our thinkings as several themes and selecting several of them. And making the Venn diagrams really helped me find my ideal direction. I could finally work and think clearly, step by step, and developing the projects as well since I have narrowed the project theme into what I can happily work with. 

In the first place, I was going to make a lantern for the outcome, which was based on my instincts of "mixing Chinese elements together would be not bad at least". I then found it unconvincing and also hard to achieve a great apparent result. So I realized that thinking is always necessary, rather than instinct.  This is the greatest project I've ever done because I learned to throw away instinct and think a lot this time. It is a truly substantial project, even though it didn't run well at the beginning.

The main difficulties are the time restriction and technique. Screen-printing was supposed to be easy and time-saving as it can be reused for many times. But when it has more colors, more layers, it becomes much more difficult and time-consuming. How to shorten the workload and fasten the processes had become what I mostly thought about. There was no smaller squeegee so I had to tape a large square to make sure the ink wouldn't spill over onto the screen, which would damage the screen and made trouble for the next use.  And that's why I worked so slowly at first. Then my squeegee split a little bid due to being over-used. Ignacia helped me to cut the split part of it and it became smaller, which is better to use. What a wonderful accident! And there were many little accidents during the making process, which pushed me to think and reflect a lot, which also was one of my successful part of this project.

My final outcome is a simple installation. Older generations and workers in China enjoy wearing utilitarian clothes and barely care about fashion. Their fashion spirit inspired this project, which observes and extracts fashion details from older generations and workers in Chinatown. The pixelated patterns on screen-printing symbolically highlight their unique styles, showing people their contribution to fashion diversity. I am satisfied with this collection since I have devoted myself to it and I think people could be inspired by this collection. They would probably also like the Chinatown styles I bring to them.

After this experience, I feel like I am a more obsessive-compulsive disorder in my work, even in my daily life. I started to bear no more imperfection in every detail. And I recognize it as a good thing for the following study in BA.

 

30/08 THU

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 - preliminary poster

 

Still working on my final poster. I extremely want it to be perfect. "Perfect" means that it could be comprehended by the public audience directly and comfortably, which means it requires a more professional typography knowledge. After seeing Emma this afternoon, I realized that when I doing the poster, I should mostly focus on these points:

  • whether the scales of each photo is too similar to each other, which would destroy the rhythm of the layout and make people feel boring
  • whether the secondary images are too strong and dominating the whole
  • whether the blocks of the images in the poster is comfortable
  • whether the text is easy to read ( no hyphen)
  • whether the poster contains diverse information, which could draw people to read for longer
  • whether the layout of images conforms to the importance hierarchy of content

 After all, I felt like that all was about if the layout is comfortable to read and easy to understand, as well as expressing the exact meaning directly. Because my images are quite simple due to its form, the flaws in it would be pretty outstanding. So despite the original photographs had the white background, I persist in cutting all the backgrounds out then add a pure light grey background for them and then added gradual shadows around the corners, which simulated the feeling the natural lighting.

28/08 TUE

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It was a photography day, I needed to get my outcome photographed. I bought a strong washing line and 150 wooden pegs from Amazon but when I got the washing line I found it seemed not fitted with the small wooden pegs and the thin sheets well. I thought the reason was that the line was too thick and too complicated as a line in this whole outcome, which would definitely too strong as a secondary part. Despite I had considered around the selection of line and peg, I had to change another line. Then I found the flax string in a grocery store, which I thought would work better with both the sheet and peg.

24/08 FRI

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Today no workshop was open. So I continued on my sketchbook, classifying materials that I'd got, making collages, sketching and the like. I enjoy cutting paper when I could work without thinking. I found that I have plenty of things that could be used on the outcome. I did some pixelated specialties of my hometown, Guangdong. I thought they were amazing so it is kind of disappointed while I realized that I couldn't show them with the pixelated figures. But at least I have learned other useful skills while making these lovely pixelated objects. I can create both figures and stills with pixels now.

 

Self Assessment :

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22/08 WED - CONTEXTUAL PRACTICE

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We became a small class today. Maybe the name of "Contextual Practice" is scary to some of us, so we were left into about 20 people today, even less. 

In the morning, we criticized each others' interim posters with sticky notes. And I had learned several rules about typography:

  • Make everything in order as to their importance;
  • Follow the reading custom of human: from top to bottom, from left to right, and organize information as to this regulation;
  • It is important to always align everything at the grid system;
  • Control hierarchy

In the afternoon, we had the contextual practice in several desks. We were asked to bring our sketchbooks and recorded everything in the practice. 

 

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HAT WORKSHOP: 

WHITE HAT (FACTUAL):

  • materials
  • concept
  • style

 

RED HAT (EMOTIONAL):

  • concerning about if it could be sustainable
  • concerning about which scale would be perfect
  • imperfect results and time limitation

 

BLACK HAT (NEGATIVE):

  •  imperfect and delicate outcome
  • scratches on the prints
  • simple ideas for the outcome
  • delicate and bad materials

 

YELLOW HAT (POSITIVE):

  •  interesting and joyful style of the outcome
  • through the details, it could tell that it comes from the real world
  • handmade things are valuable and attractive
  • the unique ideas combine with the right techniques

 

GREEN HAT (CREATIVE):

  • the scale would be larger 
  • the single works would be more sophisticated 
  • the materials would be stronger and more sustainable
  • more research for both materials and ideas.

BLUE HAT (PLANNING AND CONTROL):

  • No lanterns but frames on a mobile or even just hanging them on a line with clips 
  • Research more about the forms of outcomes, like different installations
  • Re-print some of the imperfect pieces of prints

 

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S.C.A.M.P.E.R. STRATEGY

S - Substitute

• Materials: What materials/elements could you substitute for your outcome? • Location: What if you planned to place your outcome somewhere else?

I would like to use wood branches as a hanger and use cotton strings to hang the printed sheets on them. What if changing the wood branches into metal? The metal would be wires and still be hanger but I would like to change the cotton strings into wires too. 

 

C - Combine

• Ideas: Can you combine this idea with another to create something new? • Purposes: Could your work have multiple purposes? (list them)

 Combining with a table, which would be put on some little pieces of different details of the printed figures separately. And it would be like a lab desk, people can play with it, choosing several sheets and assemble a new looks as they want.

 

A - Adapt

• Small adaptation: What small changes could you make? (list options that you might consider) • Large: What huge adaptation might you make (eg. if you had another 4 weeks?)

 What if just changing the wood branches into a normal wooden frame and each of the sheets would also be mounted in a smaller wooden frame. using wires to hang them into a big frame.

 

M - Modify

• How could you change the shape, look, or feel of your outcome?

 Following the last altering, the alignment method could also be different in the same frame.

 

P - Put to Another Use

• What if you changed the audience or function of your piece?

 What if I put these into a Chinese screen and sell them in a store. I would like to choose a small normal store in Chinatown, where my theme born.

 

E - Eliminate

• What could you take away to simplify the idea?

 Talking about the screen. why not just on a card, like a folded festival card that can be a present and negotiable to anyone.

 

R - Reverse

• Concept: What if you try to do the exact opposite of what you're trying to do now?

Maybe on a grass?  And the sheets are enlarged and just standing on the grass like a sculpture.

 

20/08 MON

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Screen printing day. Above is the process of screen printing.

16/08 THU

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Still not sure if I should use lantern as the frame of the final outcome.  Keep on researching more about lantern and Mid-Autumn Festival and try to find some interesting relationship between them and my project theme.

Updated time plans

14/08 TUE

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I kept working on abstracting and blending styles and making the pixel looks. It sounds easy but actually, it was rather complicated. I had to consider loads of things throughout the making.

  • Designing the post of the former model is one of the biggest challenges. Which angle is the best to present as many different clothing and accessories as possible? And I needed to readjust the details of the post every time I tried a new look in order to fit it with every item perfectly.
  • To work in concert with my concept, select the proper elements from my researches( street styles of Chinese old generations and workers), considering the visual effects and representation of the communities;
  • Which quantity range of pixels is appropriate to present the styles? Not being to details but still remains some. After researching some pixel artists' works and tried in person, I got my answer.
  • How to remain as many details as possible with a single color to present one piece of clothing and item. Mind the shapes! See through clearly the shapes of each item!
  • I had trouble how to style them more interestingly. But finally, I found that imaging each characters' story could really help styling them.
  • Because I don't have much time, I only design female figures but fashion elements were abstracted from both male and female Chinese old generations and workers.
  • How to place the detached pixels properly? Stick it carefully on a transparent film paper!
  • Order the items' layers base on actual shielding effects. (body-->clothes; body-->hair-->glasses/hat; etc.)
  • Couldn't set the background as black or white and any other color that would be shown on the looks. So finally I chose green, just like the green screen for filming, as it would seldom be used on the normal look.

12/08 SUN

I hung out with my friend yesterday and we went shopping in IKEA. Before it, I haven't been sure about almost any aspect of it. But after a short relaxing time in IKEA, I became interested in making something, like handcrafting. I saw some plain paper lanterns, which reminds me that the Mid-Autumn Festival was coming soon.

I suddenly thought lantern would be a perfect medium to present my concept - utility fashion of Chinese old generations and workers. In my point of view, somehow it shows the similar personality as these two communities. Lantern is used to be the essential good in ancient China, as everyone needed one to lighten their rooms, or to lighten the road when they went out. But now after being promoted by people of generations, it became a symbol of practical and beautiful. The practical meaning is reflected not only in its actual usage but also the moral (implied meaning) within it - reunion and auspicious. The history of lantern is quite similar to the aesthetic evolution of those communities.

They coincidentally wear clothes on the basis of utilitarian, and then the communities have generated a unique and respectable vibe of fashion. The fashion of them is independent, bizarre and even bold since they seldom care about others opinions but spontaneously follow their own instincts. And that's why their fashion is always reasonable and more intriguing which can hardly be outdated in a way. They are equal in the circle because of their same attitude to fashion.

Thanks to the lantern, it has helped reflect on my theme more objectively and thoroughly.

10/08 FRI - Make it in a day

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Today we were asked to make a prototype for our final outcomes. It was quite hard because I wasn't ready for it.

Plus, I wanted to make it in 2D, using different digital techniques like synthetic photos, pixel photos, digital collage, and many other effects which I hadn't tried before. It is hard to imagine a 3D prototype to present my digital images because there are many questions must be figured out before I start:

  • Which materials match with the style of my project?
  • In which kind of way would it connect to the theme?
  • How big is it? How big is the digital image on it?
  • How to display in the exhibition?
  • Would the image on it be flat or be curve along the surface?

But somehow I started to work before solving the problems, and I created some paper lanterns which I believe could be a nice shape for presenting the cultural meanings. But the biggest problem is that I can hardly put an image on it because of the irregular surface. I think I would try another 3D form to contain my image better, which could also express the cultural meanings properly.

08/08 WED - CONTEXTUAL PRACTICE

Today we got a materials workshop with Alastair. 

Many of us didn't prepare well for our materials. I showed some of my medicines and pieces of cut papers as my materials. Then we put all our materials onto the desk and answered the sheet that provided in front of others site. We were asked to analyze unknown materials from others and were supposed to know more about our own materials from others' feedback sheets. I found my feedback interesting and it remains many surprising details. I think it is because of the questions on the handout that let us think more about the material we face. I think I will keep the handout well because I could probably use it for the following projects in the future, especially when I am confused about choosing materials or getting a strange one.

I got Anna's objects, which were both A4 paper with images on it. I started to descript the objects in a way that I  have never tried before. I wrote down as many details as I could see and deduce.

06/08 MON

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We were asked to fill a schedule sheet for this week. It reminds me that this course is quite short actually. What's more, it means that we only have a few days to finish our outcome basically. I browsed some work of the outstanding alumni, who have been studying Fashion Communication or Creative Direction for Fashion in UAL. And I felt even more confused. They present all kinds of wonderful works, from 2D to 3D, from photography to styling, from fine art to design. Actually, I am still worried about the form of the outcome. When I did projects, I used to focus mostly on the graphic design or photography but they were regarded as "lack of fashion". When some ideas come up, I feel excited at first and then turn down immediately, due to a series of concerns. For example:

  • Whether I can finish the workload within the requirement?
  • Would it too complicated to understand for the audiences?
  • Is the form consistent with the concept?
  • Is this an outdated idea?
  • Is the logic among the process farfetched(unconvincing)?
  • INFINITE QUESTIONS

02/08 THU - PREMIERE WORKSHOP

Today is the deadline for the project proposal, as well as the digital workshop day. 

I spent four hours on the premiere workshop since morning. Actually, I couldn't catch up in the first place, but then I got into it and found it really interesting. The interface of this software was too complicated for me before, but when I followed the tutor step by step, it became much clearer. 

However, I needed to revise my proposal twice because of my carelessness.

31/07 TUE

Today I went to the Design Museum in the afternoon, and it was really an eye-opener for me. The exhibition involves almost all fields of design, and basically, they are product design. Some are so appealing that they activate my desire to make a relevant project in the future; some are instructive and have impacted on my notion.

Inspirational sources:

  • The manufacturing operation of tennis balls
  • ( It shows the importance of conforming design to efficient manufacture. )
  • The manufacturing process of yarn-dyed fabric 
  • ( It shows me that there are many possibilities to mix ideas and technology together. )
  • The typography design in the transportation system
  • ( It reminds me of the importance of details and comprehensive reflection of our work. )
  • The handcrafted process of leather boot 
  • ( It shows me the charm from the construction of craftsman. )
  • The evolution of electronic products 
  • ( It shows me plenty of other possibilities of products; and the unique relationship between the specific products and era. )

 

30/07 MON

Frankly, I stayed up late and crammed for the project proposal last night. I felt pretty bad for it. Actually, I am supposed to finish it earlier, but I spent too much time on worthless things like checking my WeChat moments, Instagram and stuff. I really need to improve my self-control ability. And then I realized that "interest is the greatest teacher". I probably should regard this project as my interest and pay more attention to it.

I had a tutorial today, and Allen was my tutor who was in charge of revising the project proposal for me. I used some obscured phrases and Allen pointed them out for me, which help me realize the importance of accuracy. What's more, I realized that I have to improve my English writing skill in order to be ready to take the challenges from BA courses.

28/07 SAT

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To grab more information that might be useful to my project, I went to Chinatown today. I walked around the Chinatown and found many interesting things. In SeeWoo grocery, there are so many kinds of  Chinese vegetables that I couldn't recognize some of them. And in a Chinese style boutique, I saw many unique Chinese style decorations and accessories.

26/07 THU

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Today I found a YIXI lecture that related to this project. It is called My Real Fashion Story, given by Raquel Sanchez Montes, who is working as a trend forecast specialist, basically help the fashion brands to predict what comes next.

On November 22, 2014, she arrived in Guangzhou, which is my hometown. In a very organic way, she started to take pictures of old people. She said she's not really interested in young people because she thought that young people all wear the same. And was these old people who gave her the more fresh ideas. "They are not really focused on fashion or just clothes, they are also focused on lifestyle, love, happiness."

24/07 TUE

Today is Tuesday. Because of illness, I stayed at home this morning, but when I got better in the afternoon, I went to KX's library and did some research. I did what Karen told me and found the book The Fashion System by Roland Barthes. Actually, it is a theoretical book in English and I found it really hard to read because of both language and the profound meanings. 

Then I went on finding other books, trying to know more about the history of fashion in China, like the Fashion Revolution in China by Anthony Bednall, which is a booklet including summarized changes happened in China since 1949. It shows how the policy influenced people's attitudes and behaviors in fashion. It inspired me to think more about the relationship between the environment and fashion in different periods

"Mao Tse-tung, the party head and supreme leader, recognized the power of dress to create shared identity and the style of clothing he and the communist party members favoured became the dominant style from the 1950's through to the late 1970's."

FINAL POSTER

31/08 FRI

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It seems that today is the last day studying in Foundation Plus and this whole week is for practicing how to leave it.

I finally got my poster signed off after a lot of adjustments. Through this journey of editing final poster, I realized that my knowledge of typesetting is still very limited. Somehow I was even proud of it as a unique skill of mine. It is just a necessary skill for every art and design student and praticien. I started to be curious about curation and other backstage work

Thinking of the process of making the poster, I have done a lot to meet the effect I want in the end. For example, I have cut out every background of the outcome photographs and then put an artificial background with gradual white. Before using this method, I have tried several methods too, like replacing or adjusting the background color by the curve tool and many other solutions. But they took me a lot of time and the results were not so good. I also decided to make more pixelated images from my research photos, in order to make the research picture looks more convincing and abundant.

I've learned the importance of layering, being coherent and integrated.

29/08 WED

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Today we handed in our texts for our posters, which is supposed to be written for a public audience to understand our work. I found Alastair to help review my texts. He didn't alter its main meanings but only substituted some improper words, or replaced some verbs with better words. I realized that I still need to study English grammar harder and read more professional texts to enrich my English skill, which would also be important in the following BA course.

27/08 MON

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I stay in my new home today since it is the bank holiday. My photography day is on Tuesday so I need to polish my works nicely today. I used cotton sticks and wet tissues to wipe my outcome carefully. I found it so delicate that I have left several scratches onto the prints. So regretful! I could have prevented this kind of thing's happening if I was more careful and peaceful when wiping. But it reminded me of the other inevitable scratches that happened during screen printing. If I have more time to finish this project, I could probably have printed more of them and thrown the imperfect ones away. But what would it be different from now? Somehow, I felt that the scratches have brought the pixelated prints alive by weakening the impression of digital. Alastair had explained the similar opinions to me. He said that one of the most impressive points of this outcome is that it shows the contrast of digital and reality by combining them together, which is original and nobody has done this. I don't know if I could explain his words correctly, but this is kind of what I agree with. I enjoy creating things that people have never done before. I could only do such things with my full energy and passion.

25/08 SAT

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Finally, it is Saturday. I had a very busy week and really wanted to take a break. But no, I couldn't, since I had to move this weekend and it would be a huge challenge. It would be my first time moving without my parents' assistance. It's sunny today and I felt pretty good. But when we arrived at our new home, we found a lot of flaws in it.

There were some scratches on the walls, the sticker of the wardrobe's frame split out a lot, some bulbs were lacking or broken, and we even didn't satisfy with the off-white color of the wall. However, it was cheap and in a good location. I was imagining the following busy studying days when I would walk to the CSM's library after dinner every day.

23/08 THU

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It was a photography day for Fashion media students. Maggie asked me to be her model for this time. I was impressed by the speed of producing the campaign. Maggie did a quick make-up for me according to her sketchbook and then we went upstairs and started to seek a corner with a clean white wall. It was not my first time being a model, but every time when I was being a model for someone else, the feelings changed and they are so different. This time, I am trying to act like what she wanted me to be, such as being angry and sad, and the like. After this experience, I could feel like more from the model's situation. It is really helpful for me to direct my model to act better next time.

21/08 TUE

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I had an amazing group tutorial today since it had helped me a lot. Our tutor was Chris. Before the tutorial, I had heard that he was a strict man, who would even not let the best student go easily. 

In the beginning, we listened to Adriana's works. Again, I had a chance to know closely to other fashion students' works and it really inspired me. I could feel energetic from it since it was full of experimentations and ideas, which are bold and interesting. I always feel that I can't stay too long just in my subject because it would only numb my sense of everything. I could feel that which style would she be obsessed with, how did she feel when she was doing those experiments, etc. Everything that she presented just refreshed my sense of creating and then I feel campaigning again. 

Then was my turn. I was nervous because I was lack of confidence in my progress. I explained the research I did and they were kind of confused and asked me some questions about them. I realized that I should have done more clear annotation on the sketchbook, which would remind me as well as others. Then Chris praised my works and provided me with a clear direction for the next step. He thought the connection between the project concept and lantern was not strong and obvious so that I could just dump this idea and remain the rest of the outcome, which would be only sheets of pixelated patterns and use some simple installation to demonstrate it, like the mobile. Plus, keep the form simple could help highlight the patterns I made, which would be abundant enough.

 

15/08 WED - CONTEXTUAL PRACTICE

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Sorry that I didn't attend today because of some physical conditions. I know that today was the Text Analysis Workshop and we were supposed to bring a text to analyze. But I think I could probably understand the workshops' meaning through the notes above. It seems that a distinction is supposed to not only include the thinking from the text itself but also the thinking of other stuff like the influences on your project and idea.

Text: Thinking Eye - Kiyoshi Awazu

Analysis:

Kiyoshi's words show how he feels about the relationship between creating and watching. I am surprised that he said sometimes watching is more important than creating. I think it inspired a lot. However, I always thought that thinking could only happen while creating, but I have never thought about the influence of watching.  I think I would stand further and watch my works from more angles and perspectives. Take this project as an example, I would stand further to see the textures and other feature of the prints during or after I print them. And also think about more other possibilities of different methods after it.

 

13/08 MON

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I had a tutorial with Ignacia today and it greatly boosted my project. 

I explained my ideas to Ignacia and she was so patient to hear all of it carefully. She kept asking me the logic of each step because I didn't put relevant annotations on my sketchbook, which I should. And it was lack of experimentations of the project. Then I came up with the idea that creating lanterns and print pixel characters on them but had no idea how to print nicely rather than only using a printer. She mentioned the idea of screen-printing, which I've tried a year ago but thought it was too complex. I told her my worry and she explained the process of it thoroughly:

  1. make digital images of the characters;
  2. cut a black piece of card with the shapes of different colors from the images;
  3. choose the fabric I want to print on;
  4. put the little cards on the screen and then put it in a UV unite to accelerate exposing;
  5. blend colors I need and start to print each shape individually.

After accepting her advice, I was full of energy and couldn't wait to work.

 

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This is one of my inspiration as to pixelation. It is so amazing that little square pixels can build up such a sophisticated image and it could show all kinds of textures from different objects. I want to create a pixel world on my own right now.

11/08 SAT

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Still working on research analysis today. I separated the fashion details into several sessions like accessories, shoes, hats and hairstyles, and the like. I found it an extremely helpful analysis method because it not only helps to develop my design of final outcome but also show me more invisible stories behind this community.

 

07/08 TUE

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Today I went to stitch workshop and did some experimentations with the sewing machine. Actually, I found myself pretty enjoy doing the stitching. It was kind of like Chinese calligraphy, which could help me to relax and concentrated. I created several kinds of paper nets, which were connected with threads. I tried different alignment methods, the different distance between each paper, and also practicing how to connect two paper with a big gap. I was very concentrated on it and what I did made me feel satisfied.

PROJECT PROPOSAL

03/08 FRI

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I started on my project today. First of all, I wanted to retouch the pictures I took last weekend. I enjoyed retouching pictures I took but before long I got problems. I was still not sure about the tonality of my final outcome, which meant that I had no direction for the retouching. Then I asked myself "Why am I doing this at present?" Then I turned to work on the venn diagram which I almost forgot.

01/08 WED - CONTEXTUAL PRACTICE

 

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To help us more easily to get into our projects without making disastrous mistakes, we were asked to fill each slot with specific ideas. I started to carefully fill these slots and tried to give more answers. I thought quickly because most of the answers were came from my original thinking of the projects separately. Then I found that it is quite a good way to organize my messy thoughts in my brain, as long as I classify those ideas into these sections.

Then we were asked to select three or more sections to build up our projects' structures. One should be our discipline, and the rest could be any others. The intersection of all those sections is supposed to be our project. The intersections between each two sections are supposed to be the references we find for the project.

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27/07 FRI

I was still working on the pictures taken by Raquel.

There are several themes she classified from these pictures.

  • Sleeping beauty -- the lovely people sleeping in public places, with diverse postures.
  • Beauty in daily life -- the ordinary things become extraordinary, like the oversleeves. Some people in China regard it just as a protector with function, something useful. "The crazy mixes. It is true that in fashion nowadays, everything is possible." There was an old lady she showed on the ppt, who always has the same style in fact. She wears the hat, with the mask, also like mixing prints, the tracksuit, the sneakers and the white socks.
  • Pajamas -- She thought the coolest pajama was in China. There were many patients walking around in pajamas.
  • Plastic -- like Raf Simons and Balenciaga, they have elevated the plastic from trash to luxury. There are also many local people in Guangzhou use plastic as their daily accessories (with actual functions), to take shelter from the rain or avoid getting dirty. These ideas are all about giving a second life to daily accessories.
  • Towel -- used by some fashion brand like Loewe, also used by some Miao village girls to cover their bun.
  • Crop top -- maybe the inspiration is coming from the hot Chinese guys, who rolls up the T-shirt because of the hot weather. 
  • Queens of style -- people who don't have any knowledge about fashion and even don't care about fashion, would probably come up with natural style, natural sense of fashion.

25/07 WED

Today we went to KX in the afternoon and I continued to research. 

As my theme is about blue-collar workers' fashion in China, I thought they might appear on the street photography books. Then I read a book called Shanghai Street Style in the library.

  • Although I found it not as practical to my project, I enjoy reading this book cause it brought a different angle to appreciate the normal street styles in China.
  • Also, reading this book could enrich my knowledge of fashion as well as the vocabulary of fashion. It reminds me of the saying:" Was vernünftig ist, das ist wirklich, und was wirklich ist, das ist vernünftig. (What is real is reasonable, what is reasonable is real.)", by Hegel.
  • It inspired me with its methods of recording street fashion. It shows not only the whole looks of people but also some detail‘s closeup of the looks, like glasses, shoes, bags, accessories and the like.

 After reading this fashion album, I really like to try taking photos of people in the street. But before doing it, of course, I need to read more related collections and find the proper way to go into action.

23/07 MON

IMG_6093.jpg.1

 

Today we were introduced more about unit 7 by Allen. I came up with 3 themes and had thought about the rough expectation for each theme.

  • Theme1: "Accident"-- Discovering interesting or beautiful moments in accidents ( like shoe stain, car scratch, tumble wound etc. ), then create accidents on purpose.
  • Theme2: "AI Drawing Guessing"-- Comprehending and the universality that people think of specific objects ( in a philosophy way), and develop into graphic elements.
  • Theme3: "Democratic Fashion in Guangzhou"-- Collecting the way to create fashion by local people in GZ, who doesn't care about fashion.

I had a tutorial with Karen in the afternoon. I explained my ideas to her with my broken English and she was very patient and directly recommended several related artists to me. Then up to the second theme, she thought that the theme was so limited that there wouldn't be much space for me to develop the theme. Actually, that was just what I had in mind. Then she corrected the word "democratic fashion" because there is no such thing. And she recommended a book called The Fashion System in order to enhance my comprehension of fashion. I explained my exact idea of this theme to her and she thought I should change the words into "Blue-collar" or "Utilitarian", which were more precise to present my concept.

I am going to read the book and start to do some research on the same clothes in different culture and industries. It seems that there is unlimited research I could do.