Colour: Design & Creativity - latest issue

Issue 3 of the SDC journal Colour: Design & Creativity - published online today! - contains a fascinating range of articles on colour from leading artists and scientists working in this important field.

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This issue has been published in association with CREATE (Colour Research for European Advanced Technology Employment), a group of colour professionals who have come together to promote and exchange research and knowledge through a series of conferences and training courses. Their long-term objective is to develop with artists, designers, technologists and scientists a cross-disciplinary approach to improving colour and print.

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Freely available to all, this issue includes articles by:

-Majed Chambah (France) looking at ways of restoring movie prints by digital means

-Reiner Eschbach (USA) highlighting areas of colour reproduction that can and cannot be undertaken scientifically

-Alessandro Rizzi (Italy) reporting on a study into the properties and the limits of colour matching functions when applied in a visual context
-John McCann (USA) bridging the art and science of colour, analysing the work of early photographers and the characteristics of some of the Old Master paintings

-Carinna Parraman (UK) showing how artists and scientists have investigated the optical properties of the juxtaposition of colour.

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Other contributions are by Maria Musso (Argentina) who looks at the relationship between colour and environmental protection in textiles, Victoria Watson (UK) who reveals the concepts involved in the creation of her ‘air grid’ installations (pictured above), and Simten Gundes and co-authors (Turkey) who present a historical review of the development of Turkish tile art.

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Following on from the acclaim received for both issue 1 and issue 2, it is hope the latest installment of this exclusive journal from the SDC will be as well received. Why not have a read of the journal articles yourself and then let us know what you think: www.colour-journal.org
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by CMcN

Wonderland Project - Exhibition in Belfast

The Wonderland Exhibition opened yesterday in Belfast and runs until the 6 Nov 2008 at the Ormeau Baths Gallery. We've covered the Wonderland Project a lot recently, with a full feature in the latest issue of the SDC members' magazine The Colourist. Wonderland is a visual art exhibition, events and education programme which came about by a joint belief that drastic new thinking is required to address today's environmental issues. It is the result of the three-year collaboration between INTERFACE at the University of Ulster, scientist Prof. Tony Ryan and designer Helen Storey.
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The exhibition in Belfast will focus on how the fabrics were made and the thinking behind them (read more here). Not only will visitors get a chance to see the ‘disappearing dresses’ up-close, there is also plenty opportunity to discover the driving force behind the team’s vision of a sustainable world. There are numerous workshops and masterclasses being run by the experts at the Ormeau Baths Gallery, a full listing of which is available in the related-article here and on the gallery website.
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by CMcN

New galleries & student profiles

Now the summer is (almost) over, we thought it was about time to show off some colourful designs of the students we have met over the last few months. The galleries on the SDC sites will also get updated very soon!

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SDC Colour & Textiles Award at GFW

It was an inspiration to once again be amongst all the young designers at Graduate Fashion Week this year. Here are some images of two of the graduates we met whose designs were enter for the SDC Colour & Textiles Award 2008. To find out more, read their full profiles on ColourClick.

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Winner: Laura Fauvel : : Profile

Graduated: 2008

Degree: BA (Hons) Fashion (Womenswear/Textiles)

Ravensbourne (London)

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Above: Laura's designs

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Shortlisted: Louise Simmonds : : Profile

Graduated: 2008

Degree: BA (Hons) Fashion Design

Northbrook College (Sussex)

Above: Louise's designs

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SDC Supports Texprint First View
A whole host of deserving young designers received recognition as recipients of Texprint First View prizes in July. All the six prize winners are featured on ColourClick, with a full profile available of the Colour Prize winner.
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COLOUR PRIZE: Eleanor Feddon : : Profile
Degree: BA Multi-Media Design
Loughborough University

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INTERIOR FASHION: Victoria Shepherd

Degree: BA Multi-Media Textile Design

Loughborough University

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PRINT: Hannah Jeffries

Degree: BA Textile Design

Loughborough University

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WEAVE: Elizabeth Jones

Degrees: MA Woven Textile Design, RCA

BA (Hons) Textile Design

Surrey Institute of Art & Design

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BREAKING NEW GROUND: Helen Stark

Degree: BA Textile Design

University College Falmouth

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KNIT: Ella Jade

Degrees: MA Textiles, RCA

BA (Hons) Fashion & Textile Design

Liverpool John Moores University

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by CMcN

Colour in China

Colour technology has been the focus of the SDC-sponsored conference that has been taking place in Shanghai over the past few days - specifically with the focus on sustainability and best practice in the textile supply chain. (Read more about this event on the president's blog.)
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And colour with an eco-edge also features in Beijing at the moment - where visitors to the Olympics this summer can look forward to more than just history's largest sporting event. They'll also be able to glimpse the world's largest colour LED display combined with China's first photovoltaic system to be integrated into a glass curtain wall.


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This groundbreaking project applies sustainable and digital media technology to the curtain wall of a building complex near the site of the 2008 Olympics. The GreenPix Zero Energy Media Wall transforms the building enveloping it into a self-sufficient organic system, harvesting solar energy by day and using it to illuminate the screen after dark, mirroring a day’s climatic cycle. This screen will keep the resolution low, catering to arty abstract visuals, while keeping the carbon footprint low too. Some other of the world's biggest new green architectural projects are also in Beijing, including the award-winning Water Cube - it's big, it's blue (and green) and it's highly sustainably. Read more


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SDC link to LED article here
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by CMcN

Winner of SDC Colour & Textiles Award!

SDC award winner Laura Fauvel pictured with Chris Sargeant
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Laura Fauvel from Ravensbourne College of Design & Communication in London was crowned the winner of this year's SDC Colour & Textiles Award at Graduate Fashion Week. The Gala Show where all the winners were announced took place a week ago today - and what a glittering event it was! SDC staff and guests mingled with the likes of top designers Zandra Rhodes and Katie Greenyer of Pentland -
a member of this year's GFW mentoring panel. But most of all it was thrilling to meet the three students whose work had been recognised at such a high level and shortlisted for our award at GFW. Along with winner Laura, congratulations also go to the other finalists Louise Simmonds (Northbrook College) and Gadon Liu (University of East London).
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The judges - David Saunders (the designer behind label David David) and Chris Sargeant (SDC vice-president fashion/design) - had a formidable task when it came to the judging process as more colleges than ever nominated students for our award. But they were unanimous when it came to choosing the winner, impressed by Laura's sophisticated designs, which were reminiscent of birds of prey and had a colour palette to match. We will be showcasing Laura's work in our magazine and in our online galleries in the not-too-distant future, so watch this space!
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We were thrilled also that two of our patron colleges had winning students also - Ria Thomas from Nottingham Trent University walked away with the Pringle of Scotland Visionary Knitwear Award; and the National Magazine ‘First Word’ Journalism Award went to Jennifer Weibking from UCCA Epsom – who had all the three shortlisted students in this category. A full list of winners will be available on the GFW website in due course.
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But it's not all about the awards. Each year the GFW exhibition itself is jam-packed with an amazing array of truly inspiring talent, with literally thousands of design portfolios on show. But more on that in subsequent posts . . .
For the moment, it's all about our winner Laura. Congratulations again!
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by CMcN

Connecting Colleges with Colour @ GFW

And so Graduate Fashion Week is upon us! It starts on Sunday and runs through to next Thursday. We are just about ready to head to London and by the time the exhibition opens, our stand will be a (colourful) shining beacon that entices people to come and find out all about the SDC. The message that we want to get across to everyone we meet at GFW this year is how the SDC can connect colleges with colour. There are lots of ways . . . come and meet us at stand D106 and find out how!



As well as sponsoring the Colour & Textiles Award at GFW, the SDC will also be running a colour perception competition for students every day at our stand (a sneak preview is given in the image above). We'll be asking whether, when starting out to create a fabric or print, do designers realise the importance that colour perception can have on that design. With a bit of creativity and knowledge about how colours interact with each other, there are ways of tricking people into seeing more colours in a design than there actually are. On the Education Day (Thursday 12th), we will also have interactive presentations at various points throughout the day to inspire budding designers. Come and visit us at Earls Court 2 at stand D106. More details about Graduate Fashion Week are available at: http://www.gfw.org.uk/
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by CMcN

Colour: Design & Creativity - new issue

Colour: Design & Creativity - the online design journal from the SDC - addresses all aspects of colour and design, in art, environment, textiles, architecture, fashion, etc. It was launched at the end of last year and issue 1 received much encouraging feedback:
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* What an excellent range of material.

* Excellent articles and presentation.
* Inspiring and promising...
* Very good work. It will help me in my work as designer.
* This is a wonderful journal.

* Excellent scholarly articles full of insight and intelligent discussion. Great work.

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This journal for the professional and academic design community aims to create a forum for professionals from a diverse range of disciplines in which colour plays an important role, one where they can come together to exchange knowledge and ideas, and begin to develop a common language to facilitate communication in the fascinating world of colour.

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The next issue will be published at the end of May and will contain a rich mix of content, including a gallery of work by artist Jennifer Durant and articles focusing on colour in architecture. If you would like to receive advance notification about forthcoming issues, as well as news about the journal, please sign up for an alert here.

www.colour-journal.org

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by CMcN

New photo galleries published!

New photo galleries have now been published on the SDC website relating to the colour design competition - shots from the awards dinner, the grand final and the regional heats, along with the finalists' designs, can all be viewed here. Shots from the rest of the Day of Celebration will be added to a separate gallery soon.

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by CMcN

Link between science and design

During the recent Day of Celebration, the guest speaker
Ann Priest - the dean of the School of Art & Design at Nottingham Trent University (pictured above at the awards dinner) - spoke of the need for greater links between scientists and designers. Which is precisely what the SDC is striving for - be it through education, training or technology of colour.

Recognising that different people have different aspirations, the SDC offers a range of qualifications designed to reflect age, experience and previous education. Anyone wishing to enhance their colour knowledge and career now has a new option to consider, with the launch of the SDC Diploma in Colour Management of Textiles. More details coming soon!
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by CMcN

SDC at Graduate Fashion Week 2008

We are pleased to be once again sponsoring an award at Graduate Fashion Week, which takes place in London in exactly one months time (Sun 8 to Thurs 12 June). The
SDC Colour & Textiles Award promotes the imaginative and exciting use of colour in printed or constructed textiles and is open to students (on both fashion and textiles courses) from colleges exhibiting at GFW - we wish all the students taking part the best of luck!

Judging of the portfolios will take place on the Tuesday and the winner will be announced at the glittering Gala Show on Wednesday evening. The SDC judge will be Chris Sargeant (SDC vice-president fashion/design), and we found out this week that the co-judge for our award this year will be David Saunders (aka David David), which we are very excited about! David's trademark is his kaleidoscopic vivid prints - as seen on his recent collaboration for Fred Perry's 'Blank Canvas' project.

More on our plans for Graduate Fashion Week coming soon!
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by CMcN

Colour design competition 2008 - grand final

The final of the SDC global design competition took place in Bradford just over a week ago - and what an inspirational event that was! At the awards dinner on the 'Day of Celebration', the winner was announced as Danielle Lewis from Colchester Institute (pictured). This dinner was a colourful culmination of two days that the 13 finalists had spent with each other and with the SDC in Bradford.

We will be detailing elsewhere more about how each of the students - all winners of their regional heats - made it through to the grand final, but for now we wanted to share their designs with you!

UK (London Region): Danielle Lewis

Colchester Institute

'Get behind me Satan'

AUSTRALIA: Erin Grant

St George TAFE School of Fashion, Sydney

'Birds of paradise'

UK (Scottish Region): Lynsey Henderson

Edinburgh College of Art

'The multi-coloured world of Prokievs'

HONG KONG: Yau Yim-Fun (Natalie)

Hong Kong Polytechnic University

'Dissolve'

INDIA: Neha Aneja

Pearl Academy of Fashion

'Natural beauty'

SOUTH AFRICA: Chantelle Bekker

Tshwane University of Technology

'Urban nature'

UK (N Ireland Region): Lyndsey Bell

University of Ulster

'Eastern aura'

PAKISTAN: Sana Sami

Faisalabad Institute of Textile and Fashion Design

'Ethnic modernity'

UK (N England Region): Laura Reid

University of Huddersfield

'Back in Black'

SRI LANKA: R P E Bandara

University of Moratuwa

'Rhythmic rough'

UK (Midlands Region): Emily Scholes

Nottingham Trent University

'Moments of colour'

USA: Casey Bianco

Virginia Commonwealth University

'Natural beauty'

UK (W England / S Wales Region): Anna Wilkinson

Winchester School of Art

'Son Mélange Délabré'

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Thanks to all the students for being so brilliant - and to the judges too! Talking of which, let's have one closing shot . . .

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by CMcN

Welcome . . .

. . . to this, the first post of the all-new SDC colour blog -
a blog which is destined to be a place to cogitate about colour and to share news, stories and ideas about all aspects of colour.

Such a blog has been on the cards for some time now but we were finally inspired to get this up and running thanks to Sue Williams. Sue is the new president of the SDC and since she took office - just over one week ago - during a true 'Day of Celebration' (more of that in subsequent posts) - she has been keeping her own blog. And we wanted one too. So here it is!

Who will read this blog? We hope all users of our other websites - such as ColourClick and the recent online design journal Colour: Design & Creativity - as well as all the students and staff at our many patron colleges around the world. Basically, we hope, just about anyone interested in colour.
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by CMcN