For the past 2 months I've been designing and producing 21 products that will hopefully all be sold at the pop-up shop that we've set up to raise money for next year's graduation show. This pop-up shop isn't just a fundraiser but it's also our end of the year project. It was all about 'the designer as producer.' It's been hella intense at times but it was fun and I learn a lot too this term. We all had to keep blog-diaries and having the opportunity of following the work-processes of a 100-something other students, step-by-step, was so helpful. I wanted to get away from the magazine/book/poster design niche for a bit so I thought I'd get crafty again and designed a herbal pillow that functions as a natural sleeping aid. (This involved a lot of Laura Ashley-ing; buying and testing textiles and herbs, -pastel- color matching, sewing, excuses for trips to Liberty's...;) For this project I've played with the concept of worrying about environmental damage and not being able to sleep because of it. I've always been a fan of pandas, so I took this occasion to create a product dedicated to one of the most endangered species out there. The Giant Panda is also the international symbol of conservation, £0.50 of every herbal pillow sold will be donated to the WWF. So yesterday we had to hand-in 1 boxed item with a step-by-step instruction sheet and a product photograph for evaluation and 1.5 kg. lavender, 1 kg. lentils, 500 gr. cloves, 4m2 satin, 1m2 cotton, 1m2 felt, 80 m cotton thread, 5 sheets transfer-paper, 30 sheets sugar paper, 35 brown paper bags, 5 hours image research, 10 hours silkscreen printing, 25 hours hand stitching, 8 prototypes, 1 Martha Steward bitch fit, 2 lovely tension-releasing dates and about 100 change-of-plans later, it may as well be called official; my 2nd year is over! I'll be a 3rd year student for the first time ever and if all goes well I'll be graduate next year, which is a big first for me too. In other news, my previous boss (the creative director at the Jewish Chronicle) thought I was graduating coming June and offered me a job for a year as one of their art directors was going on maternity leave! How great is that? I'm soso thankful for these people. But I'm not graduating this year, let's just hope that next year job offers will come at me just as easily :)
Here they are; my 21 herbal pillows, lined up as proud little environmental activists . The bags, notes and pillows are all hand cut, hand silkscreen printed and hand stitched and go for £10 a pop. So buy my herbal pillows; help the Giant Panda and help me graduate.
Product prepared for final hand-in
And here's a bit of my workprocess.
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