FT day 3

 Today was the last day of diagnostic mode and fashion-and-textile field. I worked in big group in morning and small group in after lunch. In this morning, we tried styling model and drawing them. And we used several drawing techniques.

 • With continue line: Using only one line. Do not leave materials from sketchbook until you finish.

 • Blind drawing: Drawing without seeing sketchbook. Only see model. (At this class, using continue line.)

 • Outline and few details: At first, draw outline. Do not draw detail. Next time, you choice a couple of the parts and draw detail, colour, texture and anything else.

 • With three line: Using a black pen or pencil and two colour pen or pencil you choose at the same time. You hold three pen or pencil in one hand.

 • Overlap: At first, drawing outline of a model. On the next, change your material and draw outline of the same model changed pause on top of the first drawing. 

 • Collage papers: Cut off a paper along outline of the model and stick it on sketchbook. After that, draw shapes inside outline. At the last, stick papers inspired styling.

 I especially like continue line drawing and blind drawing. Drawing with continue line, I draw outline and details using same line because I can't leave a material from my sketchbook. It makes unique expression. And I think blind drawing has strange fascination. I look my drawing after drawing time and the shape is not good but I felt form, texture and peculiarity of the model and clothes so it's working. I can see the details for example the creases of fabric in my drawing.

After lunch, we worked in a small group of seven students. We jointed each sketchbook and made a large paper. We draw a model using various materials each other at the same time. When I was drawing with other students, I feel I should dare to draw and do works more. I forgot doing without restraint by this time. This is the first time that I could relax on class time at CSM.

I learned the one of the way of the design process through works in this week. Drawing and sketching the motifs before design something is very important to us. If I made clothes inspired buildings, I would need drawing or sketching them because I can find why I'm interested in and the reason of feeling fascination. Before making final outcome, I can know the peculiarity of the motifs through drawing once time. I make whatever I do drawing and sketching  after this time. 

FT day2

I worked in small group today. We made a form using the things which our important things each other and changed the form three times. It became simple with repetition. We payed attention to a unique point of the form every time. it's the reason of making the form simple. The act of paying attention to a peculiarity is important thing. Concept of the final form my group made was "tangle". It is a peculiarity of thread and laptop cables. And it inspired my design. I realized the unique point of the form become stronger by changing the form and scale.

Working collaboratively is hard to me. But It is interesting. Through a discussion about the way of changing the form and scale, I got how I think about the issue. I can find it on the difference of a opinion between me and other students. I couldn't it myself so we need group working.

I have language problem so sometimes I have no idea about how to say my opinion. It is the cause of reduce discussion with other student. But I can understand what they said, so if I agree the idea, I made the form with them positively.  

FT day 1 

At the first of this project, we drew building structures as primary research. I confused the difference between objects and structures. But I think I solved that problem through drawing.

Today's process was interesting to me. Drawing structures is what translating 3D into 2D. And cutting sheets and scaling them on the body is what translating 2D into 3D. I could edit 3D form by translating 3D structures into 2D shapes and 3D form. When I was drawing structures, I could elect what I drew which one. But after drawing, at the time of electing 10 interesting shapes, I realized translating 2D makes new shapes I didn't know when I drew them. If I had not drawn, I could have not notice them. 

At the other hand, translating 2D shapes into 3D form was so hard. I think fashion ,especially clothes, should be beautiful on wearing it. But 2D is not same. 2D shapes look beautiful on sketchbook or other flat surfaces. if I make 3D form for the body, it should become a part of the body. And the body structure is complex. 

Before making big 3D form, I made small one.  I chose tow 2D shapes from my sketch and cut off paper. it was hard for me. I had to think about how to joint them and how to make the form enable to stand. I made the form by using twist. One shape of them surround other one twisting. I don't know if it is the best way.

After them, I made 3D form for the body. I cut off sheet along the same  two shapes using big paper. And I sticked it to a model using tape. This work was hardest to me since the lecture was started in CSM. I had no idea what to do to make better the 3D form. I thought the shapes I chose and cut off was difficult to change to 3D form. My shapes was elongate so it have little area to surround body. If I had selected other shapes having larger area, I would make the form easier.

3DDA day 3 - Architecture

Today is the final day in 3DDA. We worked in team and individually. I feel working in team is unexpected. Other students give me new idea I couldn't think ever. 

At day2, we thought chair design ideas. I learned the peculiarity of chair thorough sketching people sitting in chair, and then,I made a model. But in this project, we made structure before learning. After finishing making structure, we sketched them and  did visualization. I needed to find the unique point from the object made at random, that is, I had to reverse the process. What finding out the peculiarity from structure finishing making already was interesting but hard. I should have an open mind about how to use structure, where the location, who the target, and more. 

Thorough the 3DDA project, I leaned that the sketch is very important to design and art. It makes me realize what I didn't know. Observing an object and finding out peculiarity help to think design. I can know what people hope by them. 

3DDA day 2 - Product Design

We tried thinking chair ideas and making model today. When I was sketching the people sitting chair, I realized that the center of gravity is made by chairs. The people sitting in the low sofas made from fabric were relax and leaning on the back. But the people sitting in the chair made from wood or other hard materials were sitting forward and attention their hand. And the chairs  are used different kind depend on places.

There are the chairs made from hard materials in cafeteria and classroom. The other hand, in the library, there are the low sofas as well. I thought it is really interesting . Almost of all the chairs for one person in CSM King's cross are made from hard materials so I wanted to create one made from fabric and sitting to relax. 

I think if I didn't sketch the people, I wouldn't notice these things. Probably, I concerned decoration and didn't think about what people how to use the chairs. "How-to-use" is important to product design but I need observational research to know that. It takes long time. I felt what the important point to product designer is taking time longer to know than thinking design.

I like my idea but I have should make my model better. I couldn't notice that at the lecture. After going back to my room, I drew my chair image and realized that the proportion of my model is wrong. I made the corner and people can lean there in my idea but in my model, the corner is lower than I thought. So there are the gap between my model and drawing. I have could think more about proportion before making model. However, making model was fun and I could thought about proportion through that.

3DDA day 1 - Jewelry

 Today is first day of 3DDA and we tried making something wearing on our body. I had lecture about 3DDA pathway and jewelry. My image of jewelry was some decorative items like we can buy at department stores but it's wrong. Jewelry is a kind of art using human body as the one of the materials.

We tried "10 ideas in 10 minutes ". it was really fun and hard. Drawing whatever I thought helped me to conceive of next ideas. We shared each ideas in small group. We worked on same wards but there were no same ideas there. The way of drawing was too. 

I made jewelry from the ward "support". Jewelry is fashionable item but I wanted to attach functionality. I remembered the ruff which is an item of clothing worn in Western Europe from the mid-sixteenth century to the mid-seventeenth century. It looks supporting neck. I decided to make jewelry like a pillow because I feel straighten my back when I am wearing jewelry, so I'd like to create something we can relax and we can't sleep without relax.

I made it with some paper folding back. It was difficult to me to control the volume of paper and my jewelry got too heavy to put between shoulder and neck. I wanted to create it with only paper but it need volume without weight so I make springs from wire and put it between paper and paper.

My final outcome is different from my idea sketch. But doing try&error like this case is important to me to improve my creativity. I would make better one next time.

GCD day 3 - Typography

The tutor gave us A4 sheets and we make the fonts of A using that. We could only cut, fold, tear. I thought I should use the peculiarity of the paper. We can see a lot of the kind of font on my laptop, but in this project, I make that with paper, not on digital so I wanted to create 3D one. It needed to me to decide which one I elect as my font after making several patterns of A. It made me troubled. 

Finally, I chose one using shadow because it can't make on digital. It can make the effect like shadow on digital but can't use real one. I thought the difference of the shadow on digital and real one is the way of fading away. The real shadow is more delicate than on digital. They make obscure shape and outline by light and dark. it can't express on digital. it's the cause of choosing the font.

After finishing class, I realized that I could create more better. My font get light from front and make shadow behind but I should have thought the way which the font get slanting rays and make shadow diagonally behind. I should have figured out the way we can see the letter with the light. The font I created can be read without the light from front of the letter. It's boring and it makes misunderstand audience. Because if they can read my font, "shadow", from front without the light, they must get the question, "does this font really need the light?". So I should have thought how to make the font which it can't read the letter without light.

Three works of other students that I find especially successful:

The font ORIGAMI is really successful. It looks clearly and the photo makes me imagine something in fun. The student made this font folded papers like origami it's Japanese culture and she gave her font the title coming from that. This reason is clearly and makes people imagine what is this font like easily.

 The font DOUBLE is successful too. I like colour of the photos. The contrast between white and orange is pop. We can understand the reason why the student named DOUBLED at the moment. It is important to artist or designer not to make the needless question.

I think the font titled AMPLE is successful. It is easy to read. Because it has the rule. All letters of the font shaped like quadrangle and their line is voluminous. These rules are the reason why this font is easy to read. 

GCD day 2 - Lost Character

Today's project was "Lost Character". My letter was "3".

When I received my letter, I 'd like to use curved line. I worked out 8 deferent ideas. I decided to use whale one. I think "3" has the shape of two mountain like human hips (putting "3" down sideways, we can see it.), and it looked like a whale of spouting water. My other ideas were ear, moustache, shoes, mouth, and human, which I thought other student do that, so I chose whale one.  

I feel the screen printing need to remove what is unnecessary because too much details is difficult to express and it is not easy to see it. After working out ideas, I need to think what this detail is really need or not before printing. It is the one of the most important process in the screen printing. In my whale idea, I changed several line. My idea had thin line but it's the cause of making printing hard. Therefore I changed it to plane.Cutting off a pattern, I confused what I should cut which part. 

After printing, we tried working out each illustration into a story board.  My screen printing was whale, so I thought the ideas which whale swim various place for example, sea, sky, space, city.   

GCD day 1 - Poetic Cardboards

I worked in a group of three today. We were given two words "SOCIAL" and "ENVIRONMENT". We had to make a work using these two keywords as a concept. I think everybody is familiar with these two words. We can see these words on news everyday. But it made difficult to us to think about what to do to use these two keywords better.

Honestly, I couldn't understand the concept of my group perfectly. I heard a discussion in my group but I couldn't. The reason was language problem. But I could understand we make final outcome using Norman Rockwell's painting and plants. We thought the painting express "SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT" (Not need audience to be familiar with this painting) and plants was personifying "SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT". We wanted to make something unexpectedness so we chose them.

We needed to experiment with real plants. I looked for plants outside around CSM and picked up some plants, grasses, leaves, flowers and runners. We experimented using photo copy of the painting and real plants.After that, we made final outcome on digital. I didn't know why we use digital but we had to up-load it to tumblr so it was the best day.

I could have asked other two students in my group to tell me more detail of our concept. They explained to me but I couldn't understand immediately. I wanted to ask them to explain more ,however, I couldn't do it because I was afraid of what I disturb the process of working. Although I had to join them so I never happen it again next group work.

Final day of the collection project. I displayed my work. It was photos of 50 people's back. I sticked them on the wall and attached information, the date, the time and the place, as description each photos. We presented each works in small group and got feedback, and then, we commented to other students' works using Post-it.

At the present in small group, I got some instructive comments.

• If there are photos taken at night and other places in my work, it is getting better.

• I should have collect more.

• The detail what the date and time attached under photos makes my work strongly.

It was difficult to me to comment other students' works. I had my opinion but I didn't know how to say, so I need more practice. And sometimes I can't read someone's handwriting.

We shared each collection/s in small group. I collected people backs, foot wears and sound/noise. I did't decide which one I chose that time. Other students collection were spin tops, photos, and sound. I could feel their own view point. I'm looking forward to seeing what they make as a final outcome.

The tutors lectured us about methodology of works being made of artist's collection. I got being interested in several artists. There is a lot of the way how to display own works. They don't just display their collection and they developed them.

In after noon, I talked to a tutor. I chose people back collection and she gave me several advises.

   • How to display

   • About the distance in photos of between a person and me

   • The standard of selection

   • Don't mind hand shaking in this works 

It was really helpful and I have thinking of another idea but I should have talked to her about my thinking more.

 At my commuting, I took people back photos because I need more photos.

New project has been started.

In morning, the tutors lectured about this project, 'Collection'.

In afternoon, we went to Tate Modan to understand 'collection' seeing some works which artists created using collection.

Their works contained clearly concept, not being structured only collection, that have the reason why there are exhibited as the final outcome taken the methodology there. It is the really important point to be an artist. I felt we should have responsibility to what they do and what they create as an individual creating something.

In morning, we made presentation sheets. I took long time to decide the position of photos and drawings on my A2 sheet. The position is important to make audience read easily. After lunch, we put on wall them, and we went around and look at them one by one and left comments to any 4 ideas at least. The feedback from 4 people is really important to me, so I should face the opinions.

I felt I should have written down more description on my presentation sheet. I thought everyone have to present in front of group, so I'd like to explain it to them at in my turn, but actually, only several students presented their ideas. 

Otherwise almost of all other students wrote down them,  so I should have done as well. My A2 sheet was unkindness to audience.

Today was first day of the idea factory project.

We try the activity 'thirty ideas in thirty minutes'. The ideas related to keywords I researched yesterday in the library. It was good activity but hard to me because I didn't know how to get my ideas in shape. I thought I have to think in a  more flexible way and more know what I'm interested in regularly.

After the activity, we shared each ideas  with other students in small group. They had interesting ideas that I couldn't find it, and they had clearly concepts. Their feedback was instructive.

We try group research project at library. There are really many books in library, and it was surprised me. But it makes me hard to find out the books I need. My group had only little time to read books. One hour was too short to us.

I feel I have to decide some keywords about what I want to know before starting research.

Today is my first time to study at Central Saint Martins.

Tutors taught us the facility information, how to use workflow and the difference between "research" and "reflection". In afternoon, we tried a first group task.

There are lots of students are from different national origin in CSM, so I can learn new things which I couldn't know in Japan. But English is difficult to me. Sometimes, I couldn't understand perfectly. I need to study English harder not to waste the time in Foundation course.

In any case, I get excited about what we do after this.