Designing to Trends

The term “trends” used to scare me a lot.  Soon enough I found out I wasn’t alone in feeling a bit of apprehension at the idea of doing trends research.  In my experience, there are quite a few designers out there who fear the idea of being dictated to by trends. So The question most of us get to ask ourselves quite early on in our careers is, should I follow the trends or not?

I’d say it’s taken me over a year to get used to the concept of trends and their place/ purpose.  Short of cherishing trends, I’m comfortable with the idea of having a starting point or a reference point to guide me along much uncertainty in the process of creating a collection.  

I think the reason most people are not comfortable with trends is because once you dig in you feel like you’ve opened a can of worms and very soon you’re super overwhelmed by the vast quantity of information out there making you feel just as lost as when you started to the point of burnt out….not a nice feeling.

I remember the first time one of my tutors at college introduced to the concept of trends research.  She was quite dismissive about it...her words were “it’s a necessary evil”. My reflection of this now is, well we’re designers, we work to serve a market not purely to fulfill our artistic ambitions.  So I’m totally comfortable with trends.

The trick with fashion trends is to give yourself time to absorb them slowly, one season at a time one day at a time.   I know the task isn’t made any easier when we’re supposed to be working on two to three seasons simultaneously at any given time spanning 6-24 months ahead!  But you don’t have to know it all. What resonates with you the best will always show in your work, so concentrating on a particular style that’s up and coming and suitable to your handwriting will pay you dividends.

You learn pretty quickly that everything is very cyclical and ever so transient in this industry.  Paradoxically, some trends continue season after season but with a new twist of some sort. The same applies to colours which actually take a lot longer to transition than most people realise.  They do so with variants in tone, accents and shade so not so dramatically from season to season.

I stopped worrying about “keeping up” some time ago when I realised that trends are like artistic briefs or challenges that inspire my unique interpretation.  This is the most crucial point about who you are as a designer, short of copying you, no-one can replicate your point of view! With the huge diversity of trends going on at any one time there is something to appeal to every kind of designer as well.  

Those who choose to ignore or despise trends do so at their peril.  There is so much research and beautiful inspirational imagery that goes into trend reports that I find it hard not to fall in love with every trend direction I come across!

So go out there and educate yourself.  If you’re lucky enough to have access to websites such as WGSN, don’t waste the opportunity to look and learn.  Most universities with a design program will have access to this resource and some online courses for surface pattern design do too.

Being able to show in your portfolio evidence of trends awareness is really important these days.  And if you’re one of those designers who struggle to find the right colours at the start of a project, picking colours dictated by a trend will not only make your collection relevant but also speed up the process and take away one more decision in the process.  So what trends are you aware of currently in your field which you’d like to get inspired by?

First Competition of 2017

2017 has already brought so much into my life already...a temporary move to Spain to work on design, a fresh perspective to move forwards creatively as well as a bit of peace from the noise and pace of city life.  Yet, with all this positive mojo on my back, my to-do list seems never-ending and forever expanding like a black hole in my universe! So the thought of entering a design competition wasn’t quite planned...especially when I found out I only had 2 days to come up with a design concept and produce a collection to upload onto over 20 garments just to enter it!  But I immediately knew I had to forge ahead when I read the brief on the theme of the competition by PAOM which was: “Resistance” (definition: the refusal to accept or comply with something).  Quite topical though taking a political point of view wasn’t required.

As I had been photographing a lot of graffiti in the previous few weeks, I decided that this would be my starting point/inspiration.  I love street art in all its manifestations and recall fondly taking a two hour street art tour in Berlin a few years back which for the first time really made me appreciate the artistry involved and the spirit behind it.

To get started, I referred back to a Pinterest board I had created a while back appropriately called “Artistic Licence” based on a WGSN trend I was interested in.  I think graffiti art is the ultimate artistic licence an artist can take to some extent. This Pinterest PAOM Resistance board I created has some of the photos I took around me. So here’s how things developed from there…

I’d love to hear from anyone who’s done anything like this before for PAOM or other print on demand websites.  I definitely think it’s a worthwhile exercise irrespective of the final outcome. Let me know your thoughts if you have or are thinking of doing these types of competitions in the Comments below!

Designing to a Brief

I took a chance and signed up to a 5 week online course entitled "Designing for the Activewear Market" run by the Textile Design Lab at Pattern Observer. Any doubts about going for this course soon evaporated as I realised that this market was just perfect for me. As a new designer starting out it can be very difficult to figure out your style, let alone what market you're going to design for! So it was a great feeling to know I could focus on something I would enjoy because it suited me.

And how do you know this, you might ask? Well, even if your signature style too obvious yet, you probably have an inkling about how you enjoy playing around in Photoshop or Illustrator. In fact, even your preference for either program says a lot about you as a designer in my opinion. For me it's Photoshop hands down. With Photoshop I feel like I have a canvas in front of me and I get to work straight away. Even if I don't like the end result of any "experiment" I still feel quite free during the process. With Illustrator, on the other hand, you need to find out some basic rules about the program before you can even start or just won't even start. Maybe I'm biased on this topic because I've used PS the longest?

Anyhow, without going off-topic too much...One thing to bear in mind is that there are no shortcuts and you need to take risks to find new things. There is beauty in the unknown destination - not knowing exactly how it's going to end. Well that says a lot about my style of working so there I was faced with having to pick one customer paired with a particular trend report (created by WGSN) for Spring/Summer 2018. I was so exited but terrified at the same time!

I picked the H&M brief because the colour palette appealed to me the most and also the artistic style proposed in the brief which for me meant coming up with abstract compositions.

So here is how I got on:

I ended up producing 12 design options which I narrowed down to 3 which is the ideal number to show a client.  In the process, I also experimented with producing colour-ways..

Take-aways from this project:

• Take risks and challenge yourself even if you don't feel ready to embark into something new

• Stay true to yourself but listen to feedback

• Finding your design  niche is key so when you do, try to find out everything about it within the textile/surface pattern design industry

• It really helps to imagine the "end customer" who'd be buying your design; if you know them, the many decisions you have to take during the design process will be easier

• Joining a community such as the Textile Design Lab is priceless, not only because you can post your designs in the community forums and get feedback within hours but also because it's important to feel "accountable" especially when working by yourself and you're not at school.