Every time we start a design, we need to determine a design theme first. However, the design theme is often the most troublesome step, which is very critical, but also often makes people feel collapsed. The world's top fashion design schools have provided solutions! Designate excellent and effective solutions - -- restricted class design theme projects. As the name implies, this is a project design task similar to "proposition composition", which is absolutely a good way to get at one stroke. These methods not only point out a clear way for students who cannot give a theme, but also broaden their horizons, telling everyone that xxx can also be used as a design theme. At the same time, it seems to limit the limited theme of students' creative thinking to a certain extent, but actually it is to cultivate students' basic qualities as designers, that is, there are "customers" Able to design well if required. Now, let's list the themes of the top 10 fashion collection projects, which have appeared or have long appeared in the curriculum of top overseas design colleges.
Theme of 10 Fashion Collections:
Shirt Project
This topic requires students to exaggerate the depth in the design of outline color and material, and the finished product must be a shirt. Then why is a dress called a shirt? It is because it has such iconic structures as collar and cuff. So on this basis, students can boldly exert their imagination and creativity. As long as there are collars and cuffs, the shape, size and position can be used.
Affiliated to the UAL London University of the Arts LCF, a famous fashion design school, once set up this limited theme project for newly enrolled undergraduates. In LCF's Shirt Project, students need to re conceive and interpret their understanding of traditional shirts through their own collection of works. For example, from classic shirts to designs suitable for modern aesthetic cognition, from deconstruction to avant-garde cognition, shirts seem to be the simplest of all clothes and do not need any formal novelty. But in fact, the shirt is also a medium for students to use their imagination.
At LCF, students participating in the project can be of any major, such as BA Bespoke Tailoring/Sewing; Fashion Pattern Cutting; Fashion Jewellery/Fashion jewelry; Fashion Design Technology Menswear and Women's Wear/Fashion men's and women's wear design is almost one of the basic courses of LCF.
Drawing from Pinterest
Color Project
This theme is well understood, that is, there are regulations on the color of the project, which is generally white or black. This kind of project highlights the design of clothing, structure and silhouette. Every year, the freshmen of CSM, a famous fashion design school affiliated to the UAL, will do a "White Project", and the famous White Show will be used as a stage to show the results.
"White Show" is a fashion show held by CSM every year before and after Christmas to let freshmen show their clothing design ability. The only requirement for all works is that "the finished product must be white". Although limited by color, there are no restrictions on materials and display methods. Even some of these works will make you suspect, Are they clothes or installations? Or has it become a full sculpture?
These clothes seem to be unconstrained, but behind each work, they are supported by rich and powerful research. No matter what the starting point and inspiration of the creative students are, they have given the works a very full preliminary research.
2018 CSM White Show
Muse Project
Muse is the general name of the nine ancient literary and artistic goddesses who are in charge of art and science in Greek mythology. In the modern context, it is generally used to describe a person, an individual, regardless of gender, who brings inspiration to the creation of works. So in this limited project, it will be stipulated that one of several characters must be selected as the theme, or assume that he/she is your client to develop the whole design. Usually, the common point of these characters is that they are very personal and have personality. They are all engaged in thought-provoking and inspirational businesses or creations.
LCF MUSE Project
This project is in CSM Central Saint Martin College of Art It also appears in the course of "Design", and CSM defines this project as "helping students deepen their understanding and focus on design". What this major gives students is not a very detailed skill, but a thinking system about design, such as how to accurately design clothes according to the objects wearing clothes; For example, the wearability of clothing is studied through different materials.
Designer Project
This topic generally requires that students can choose to introduce any theme, but they must imagine that they are designing a new series for a brand with a unique style. Therefore, they must consider the image and style of the brand and combine their own creative ideas to design.
Famous designer brand with personal style
Art Project
This limited theme means that one of the many art forms must be selected or an artist must be selected as the project theme for development. Because of the diversity and richness of art forms and the trend of more integration of art and clothing in recent years, this kind of theme is actually favored by many commercial brands and famous designers. For example, the famous British brand Burberry Spring 2017 series is a series inspired by the works of sculptor Henry Moore and praised by all parties.
Burberry 2017 Spring Collection Cape Design
In the creation of the collection, this form of project is also very eye-catching. For example, in 2018, the students of Natural Light took the Russian artist Malevich as the inspiration of their own collection project and designed a series of clothing design works based on Malevich's classic works. Finally, they got offers from Parsons and MICA.
Student Works of Natural Light
Uniform Project
This theme is relatively easy to understand, that is, to develop design with various industries as the theme. Of course, the biggest connection between different types of work and clothing design is a variety of uniforms, but not limited to this. Many functional structures in uniforms related to work content, background, and industry history can also be a source of inspiration.
List of uniforms from all walks of life
Also LCF London Fashion Institute He has also guided students to participate in projects with related themes. With "Nurses and Midwives in the 21st Century" as the main design object, students from LCF BA fashion major completed a short-term project. If you want to design clothes for employees in specific industries, you need to have a good understanding of the industry. So in this project, LCF students conducted a 4-month preliminary research, and finally focused on the topics including the history of nursing, the sustainability of textile production, and the progress of material science and intelligent fabrics in the medical industry.
Because these clothes are highly targeted, to complete these designs, students need to have a very accurate grasp of the form, practicality and functionality of the clothes. For example, for the nursing industry, they may need to carry medical equipment with them; For example, for midwives, clothing may be required to be highly comfortable and convenient.
Sports Project
In fact, this kind of project theme can be regarded as a typical one in the uniform project, which is a relatively rich branch. So, like the uniform theme, in this design project, the unique clothing, tools, sports venues of different sports, as well as the historical background, changes and other related information and visual elements of sports development can be used as materials for design development.
Material Project
Material projects generally limit the materials designed, such as cotton, linen, wool, silk, or special PVC, tpu, reflective materials. The draping feeling and hardness of different materials and fabrics. The degree of straightness is different, so when used in design, there will be different presentation effects accordingly.
Design enumeration of different materials
This kind of project usually appears in the form of material experiment in the course. For example, in the basic course stage of many schools, students will be guided to carry out relevant project research, because many students may feel that clothing design materials must be relatively common materials. But in fact, clothing design can also use many other materials, such as cement, plastic, lights, devices, and even many things can be directly used as materials, such as needles, pillows, flowers and plants.
Clothing materials can have many biases, such as "functional", "decorative", "symbolic", "conceptual (conceptual)", etc. Materials with different characteristics can be used to express different meanings or themes.
Subculture Project
Subculture or subculture refers to those non mainstream and local cultural phenomena corresponding to the mainstream culture. Generally, under the background of mainstream culture or comprehensive culture, a subculture belongs to the unique concepts and lifestyles of a certain region or a certain collective. A subculture not only contains values and concepts that are similar to the main culture, but also has its own unique values and concepts.
These ideas naturally lead to the sub cultural groups having their own unique clothing and modeling styles, which have always been the object of research in the field of culture and art, favored by the fashion design industry and become the source of inspiration for many designers.
For example, Hip Hop Culture, a branch of the popular Street Culture, as well as PUNK, which originated in Britain and developed into a well-known rebellious culture centered on music forms, or Youth Culture, a popular culture among young people known as the "Millennials", can all be included in the category of subculture.
List some typical sub cultural styles
Crossover Project
This category is easy to understand. Mixed theme, as its name implies, is a combination of two or more topics selected from the more common restricted themes mentioned above, which is generally abstract+concrete.
For example, there is usually a mixed theme of one occupation category+one artistic style. Professions bring their own uniforms, tools, workplaces and other more concrete research objects, while artistic styles are generally more abstract feelings and manifestations. The mixed use of the two themes will make the whole project more plump, but it is also necessary to pay attention to the trade-offs and balance in the development process, so as to finally achieve satisfactory design results.
Here are 10 ways to get inspiration. Although these 10 themes, on the surface, are in the form of "propositions", they are actually used to tell students a theme direction that can be extended, such as the first Shirt Project. Shirts can be said to be the most traditional stereotype of all clothes, And the simplest clothes in design. But in fact, shirts can also have many expressions, and designers can also give clothing a lot of content. Through reforming the traditional clothing, we can reconstruct the clothing design.
Especially for the students who are preparing a collection of works, in fact, they can also do more creation and practice on related topics. It is not necessary to complete the finished product, but they can spread their thinking through different themes, such as brainstorming, such as drawing creative sketches, or making some simple decisions. You may not only choose the above 10 themes, but you can also "mix and match" different themes to achieve in-depth mining.
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