I have not written for a while but in the time since the last post I was asked to revisit my designs for Mary Barton which I originally designed for the Arts Educational School as part of my M.A. research. Now the AIB has an acting department from time-to-time the costume staff are asked to design the shows for the student actors. In this case I re-visited the costume design from the ArtsEd production and re-looked at them for their appropriateness for the AIB. Rebecca (the original set designer for the ArtsEd productions) was also asked to re-visit her set design and rework it for the AIB studio space.
After some consideration I decided that the original designs did not need that much work as the director’s vision was very similar to the original production and the set design had limited changes made to it. However, in the original production I had not designed all the characters due to time limitation and also because these characters were generally pulled from the ArtsEd store. Therefore, I needed to look at these characters and re-visit my research to complete the collection of designs. As I had saved the designs on the computer is able to re-print the design for the costume supervisor to work from and also use the original template for the additional design. A student, as part of their own project work, become my design assistant and designed 6 of the additional 9 characters. He chose to render the images using the similar digital drawing technique which I had used. Seeing the style and equipment used in a different way produced fascinating results. Though the designs had a similar feel and sat will with my original ones, the students own drawing techniques were imposed onto the designs. Knowing the students previous work it was encouraging to see that the digital drawing technique enhanced his drawing style and the images communicated well.
After some consideration I decided that the original designs did not need that much work as the director’s vision was very similar to the original production and the set design had limited changes made to it. However, in the original production I had not designed all the characters due to time limitation and also because these characters were generally pulled from the ArtsEd store. Therefore, I needed to look at these characters and re-visit my research to complete the collection of designs. As I had saved the designs on the computer is able to re-print the design for the costume supervisor to work from and also use the original template for the additional design. A student, as part of their own project work, become my design assistant and designed 6 of the additional 9 characters. He chose to render the images using the similar digital drawing technique which I had used. Seeing the style and equipment used in a different way produced fascinating results. Though the designs had a similar feel and sat will with my original ones, the students own drawing techniques were imposed onto the designs. Knowing the students previous work it was encouraging to see that the digital drawing technique enhanced his drawing style and the images communicated well.
Another very different angle to observe the realisation of my designs, was that in this production 4 of the costumes were being made, where in the original production most of the costumes were sources or hired. The image above shows and example of this. The costumes were to be made by 4 costume students and it was a pleasure working with them in this capacity. I observed early on that the designs were perhaps not clear enough for this process. As I knew in the original production that the costumes would be hired or sources, I spent more time trying to incorporate the feel and atmosphere of the play into the designs and though the designs were well considered they were more of a suggestion rather the communication of specific design specification. Once the costume started getting constructed it became clear that I needed to clarify things about my design decisions. This confirms my comment which I make in my Thesis that a designer must consider how the production will be realised when taking into account the style in which they will render the designs. In this situation I could have taken advantage of the digital platform and work on the digital drawings to clarify some detail in the costume designs. However, I must admit that I did not do this, choosing instead to discuss options with the costume makers verbally. On a positive note the illustrative style of the designs did allow for the costume makers to interpret the design and offer creative input into the process, something which I whole-heartily encourage. The next step would be to ask the costume makers their reflection on what it was like to work with the designs . I will have to see what their response to this is.
The production was a real success from an acting and costume point of view. I think it had the right period feel with the correct ammount of theatricallity.
