UO X LCA PORTFOLIO

Follow me on ISSUU to see some of the portfolios I have been working on. 

URBAN OUTFITTERS FINAL

My final image/illustration for the Urban Outfitters brief. Technically it's two images, because i'm greedy. The embroidered image is supposed to be my only final but I absolutely love the image on the left from the photoshoot, it would be a shame not to use it, so I created a double page spread! 

I'm not entirely sure when the zine will be on sale or when it gets put up on display in-store unfortunately. Hopefully i'll find out soon! Let me know what you think (:

URBAN OUTFITTERS DEVELOPMENT

I originally chose tartan as my trend for this project, but as I was toying with the idea of laying the embroidery over my models face, my boyfriend kindly expressed that he thought my model would end up looking like Mel Gibson in Braveheart. So floral it is! Floral is a forever recurring trend that can be worn throughout any season; whilst tartan on the other hand, on the mass scale is bound to be cast aside  any day now in my eyes. I was crushed when I had bought some vintage tartan fabric with plans of making a blazer for winter, only to see a similar jacket in Primark weeks later. Getting off point now. 

I found an old embroidery book from the 70's in a Charity Shop and it had a great pattern in it for a chair cover. I altered the design quite substantially to fit my aesthetic but it was a great starting point.

 I used 17 different coloured/shaded threads for this piece and it felt like it took about 100 hours. Hmm, that was probably an exaggeration… Let's just say it took a long time. I definitely underestimated how time consuming embroidery could be, this piece is about A4 size. 

I put my photoshoot images and embroidery into photoshop and played around with different compositions, opacity, layering, etc, etc. I ended up with a good amount of final ideas which is great, but not so great when you have to choose only one to submit!

URBAN OUTFITTERS PHOTOS

Here are my 3 favourite images from my photoshoot for Urban Outfitters. In total I had taken around 70 photographs, half with a colour film and half with black and white. I developed the black and white film by hand in Uni; I hadn't done it for about 2 years so it took a little bit to refresh my memory. I really enjoy film photography, I like having the control and being able to 'photoshop' your images the old-fashioned way. I would have liked to have posted my contact sheet but I left it at Vernon Street campus and I keep forgetting to retrieve it, oops. 

Originally for the photoshoot I was just going to take head-shots because if I was going to embroider over it I wanted it to be simple. I did take the first 10 as head-shots against a white background but they just weren't doing it for me. I was pretty relaxed with the styling for this photoshoot, my sister model dresses well to begin with (which I take full responsibility for) so I didn't have to put too much thought into it. Obviously I wasn't going to put her in something like a floaty dress and high heels, the outfit has to fit in with the surroundings. I love the jacket Bethany is wearing, she picked it up in a charity shop a couple of weeks prior; paired with a velvet top, high-waisted jeans, a tartan scarf and vintage docs. 

I love these photographs. It was made even better when a neighbour's little cat came to say hi and sat on  Bethany's knee. It is called Apollo.

URBAN OUTFITTERS PHOTOSHOOT

For my illustration/artwork for Urban Outfitters I decided to do a styled photo shoot using a couple of old film cameras I picked up from my Dad and in a charity shop. The plan was to use a black and white film in one, and colour film in the other. I wanted to somehow layer an image with embroidery that I would later have to do. I had my photoshoot just behind my house in Leeds, not the most spectacular destinations but I think it fit well for what I was wanting; A fairly simple background that wouldn't distract you from the main subject. The fact that it was quite dingy was a plus in my eyes. 

I developed the black and white film by hand in Uni, but the colour film had to be developed in some sort of machine, it didn't turn out very well at all which is a shame. 

URBAN OUTFITTERS ILLUSTRATION PROJECT

For Personal Professional Practice we had been given an exciting brief for Urban Outfitters. I was to create a fashion illustration or style a photo shoot for a zine that would be sold and exhibited in store. 

I put together a series of mood boards to gather inspiration from street style features in magazines, clothing websites, instagram and Pinterest. 

I haven't drawn in such a long time and i've never been outrageously talented in that medium. I wanted to do something a little different to what I assumed everyone else on my course would be doing. I looked at various trends I could incorporate into my piece, composition and different techniques. Embroidery really interested me from the beginning of my research. I'd never done any embroidery before but how hard could it be?