Every year, there are many students with zero foundation who want to apply for fashion design across disciplines to find us. In the process of students with different professional backgrounds creating a collection of clothing professional works, the original major will also give them many unique advantages. Through professional guidance and their own efforts, most students have also achieved their ideal results. This trend also makes us start to think, what advantages can different professional backgrounds bring to the study of fashion design? Today, we will take the graphic design with the largest student base in China as an example to summarize our experience in teaching and coaching, and analyze interdisciplinary thinking for everyone. How can the thinking skills in graphic design be used in the collection of clothing design works to inspire you to express more creative ideas!

　　 1. Open design thinking

We know that graphic design is a free profession, and different fields can be used as a source of inspiration, or we can use any way and carrier to express our creativity. In general, graphic design is an art that solves problems in visual form through stylized expression.

This kind of open interdisciplinary thinking is also very suitable for the field of clothing design. In this diversified era, the development of clothing is no longer satisfied with the model of "good-looking" and "wearable" as the criterion. Colleges and universities also want to see us, as future designers, show our individuality through clothing and open up new design paths.

Of course, the control of professional knowledge is indispensable to the reasonable expression of creativity. The basic structure of graphic design roughly includes aesthetic foundation, perspective, composition, color foundation, plane composition, etc. Each course is an indispensable foundation for creative works, and also has reference significance for the clothing design specialty.

For example, we often see clothing works with exaggerated shapes, bold colors, and distinctive and unique fabrics at Fashion Week. The reason why they are praised by everyone is not only because of the visual shock, but also because the realization of each creative point includes the designer's control and exquisite design of the structure, color, and aesthetic standards.

The student Biwei, who won the offer of Huangyi's collection of clothing design works, has a group of works called "Buried" in his collection of clothing design works. The inspiration comes from the maritime silk road, which played a vital role in China's ancient foreign exchanges. A sunken ship named "Batu Hitam" recorded the events of the maritime silk road in the Tang Dynasty.

Biwen extracted a series of visual elements from various items salvaged from the sunken ship in combination with the characteristics of the Tang Dynasty to create this costume work.

From Biwen's works, we can see that he extracted abstract conceptual materials from specific historical events, and then completely transformed them into visual elements. In the final ready-made clothes, the presentation of structure, color and form perfectly conveyed the atmosphere of the theme, and also reflected the students' innovative spirit and ability to spread inspiration.

　　 2. Stylized visual language

Graphic design and fashion design both take "vision" as the way of communication and expression, and form the theme and content of works through the combination of various elements. Therefore, these design elements we choose are equivalent to the components of the work, and each part needs to have the purpose of conveying personal style and strengthening the depth of content.

In graphic design works, these elements include text, color, background, tone, main figure, visual center, etc; In clothing design, there are structure, color, material, pattern printing, thread routing, etc. The most overlapping element between the two is the use of pattern printing and color.

Both the discovery of ideas and the research of techniques originate from the extension of graphic design. The first is pattern printing. As the most intuitive visual element in clothing works, we can draw graphic expressions with the same artistic conception based on the inspiration of graphic design and the theme and inspiration source of the works.

In addition, in terms of techniques, we can use collage, software, photography, hand painting, or any combination to convey personal style and creativity in rich and vivid forms.

The second is the collocation of colors. The color of clothing is the element that can best convey the theme concept in the whole work. In terms of color matching in three-dimensional works, we must not choose from the texture and form of structure and material itself, but draw inspiration from attributes, emotions, turning surfaces, and themes to give the works a deeper visual experience and psychological effect.

Harvest harmony Central St Martins Yuexuan, a student in the clothing design double record, has a project named<Wonderland>in the collection of clothing design works, with the theme of autistic children. The original intention of this theme also comes from a personal experience of Yuexuan: in a charity activity for autistic children, Yuexuan first came into contact with the group of autistic children and their paintings.

Because it is difficult for people to understand their inner world through simple and direct communication, autistic children also have a name - "Son of the Stars". The name is fantastic and full of imagination, but it also makes people feel deeply sad.

In terms of clothing color, Yuexuan chose to extract color from the paintings of autistic children, and combined felt wool as the main fabric. In terms of fabric selection, felt wool is mainly woven from fibers. The random and orderly combination of fibers reminds Yuexuan of the unique thinking mode of autistic children.

From the design of patterns, the matching of colors to the expression of techniques, each design element fully reflects the personalized visual language of Yuexuan, determines the emotional tone of the work, and becomes the key to sublimate the quality of the whole work.

　　 3. Final presentation with both commercial and artistic values

The biggest commonality between graphic design and fashion design is that both of them have the dual value of goods and works of art at the same time. Graphic design is the use of art to package or promote goods; Clothing, as a commodity itself, needs designers to endow raw materials with higher value, and there are many overlapping areas between the two.

For example, brand logo design, packaging design, effect drawing, film shooting and other links in clothing design actually span the scope of graphic design. As a collection of overseas works of art that attaches importance to the whole process, each link cannot be ignored.

London Fashion Week 2020 - Bottega Veneta

Taking film shooting as an example, as the final effect presentation, it is also an important addition item to attract the attention of the admissions officer and improve the quality of the work. In the process of shooting, students must strictly run through the theme of the work and selectively highlight the key points for the construction of the scene, the selection of models and the later stage of the photo.

For example, the focus of this group of works is structure, color, material or concept. We can strengthen the expression of this concept and texture through series of photos. Secondly, in the overall composition, we should also refer to the blank rule of graphic design, remember that the center of the photo must be clothing, the background need not be too complicated, and do not dominate.

In addition, it is worth reminding students to grasp the proportion of art and commerce in clothing works. For example, Saint Martin pays more attention to the personal style of designers, Lunshi is more interested in training clothing designers in the corresponding market Students should also make the most targeted preparations according to different colleges and universities.

Take down LCF London Fashion Institute The second item in the work of Xuelan, a student who offers from other universities, is about thinking about fast fashion. In terms of theme, it is actually a question of how to balance art value and commodity value from the perspective of market;

Secondly, in the form of expression, Xuelan combines the techniques of sculpture and creative collage, deconstructs and reconstructs the design elements, breaks the shackles of artistic creation of popular trends with reverse thinking, and endows the works with more profound cultural significance.

Finally, in the presentation of the renderings, she used clothes hangers, cartons, old clothes and other elements to correspond to her project theme; In addition, the focus of the whole set of works is on complicated structures and the use of old things. Therefore, from lighting to the later stage, in order to highlight these two characteristics, the texture of clothing is handled more clearly.

Fashion design is a subject with both logic and imagination. As long as the basic professional framework is established, everything can become the source of our creative materials and inspiration. Not only the graphic design that we specifically explain today, but also the art majors have their commonalities and mutual reference.

"Interdisciplinary thinking" is also the focus that we have repeatedly emphasized and constantly practiced in teaching. In natural light, we will regularly hold various forms of interdisciplinary workshops, landing practice projects covering the whole profession, and phased critiques, organize students from different professional backgrounds to collide with each other for inspiration, and gain multi-dimensional professional promotion in exchange and creative communication. Today, we introduced how the thinking skills in graphic design can be used in the collection of clothing design works. We also hope that students can learn innovative ways of thinking from today's case sharing, learn to draw inferences from one instance, open wider creative ideas by learning new knowledge in different fields, and tap their more dimensional design potential!

This article belongs to the original article of Natural Light International Art Education Team. Without permission, it cannot be reproduced commercially in any form. If it is found, it must be investigated for legal responsibility.