Teaching Snapshot: Design and Visual Communication in Textiles

Level: Year 11
Category: Teaching Strategy

With planes cancelled and roads closed due to snow and ice, the 2011 TENZ conference didn't run quite as planned. However, those who eventually made it to National Facilitator Technology Lesley Pearce's workshop – Accessing the Design and Visual Communication (DVC) Achievement Standards through a Textiles Programme – gained useful advice on teaching these standards and practised some of the suggested techniques.

With the alignment of the Technology specialist strands – Design and Visual Communication, Construction and Mechanical, Digital Technologies and Processing Technologies – students now have the opportunity to work on generic standards, particularly useful for a Textiles programme as there are fewer Textiles-specific standards. During the two-hour workshop Lesley gave tips on teaching students the skills they need for success in the DVC Level 1 Achievement Standards (AS) in a Textiles programme.

AS 91063 (1.30) – Produce freehand sketches that communicate design ideas (3 credits – external)

Students explore and visually communicate their design ideas and make 2D and 3D freehand sketches. Drawings will show functional and aesthetic details, such as construction details and design features.

AS 91066 (1.33) – Use rendering techniques to communicate the form of design ideas (3 credits – internal)

Rendering techniques are used to communicate formal design ideas and create a 3D effect. This standard allows sketched or instrumental drawings but not electronic. Drawings must be from a design brief and student-generated, and show an identified light source, shape and surface qualities.

AS 91067 (1.34) – Use the work of an influential designer to inform design ideas (3 credits – internal)

Students can go beyond fashion and look at other designers. Choosing an architect, for example, rather than a fashion designer can make it easier to put the ideas in a new context. Students can't copy a building or product but have to simulate the style of the chosen design and use that style in their own textile work. Their design can be communicated through sketches, models or computer-generated and does not have to be realised.

AS 91068 (1.35) – Undertake development of design ideas through graphics practice (6 credits – internal)

Students could use an issue such as wearable art, or a concept such as science fiction where they might not make an outcome but create a design or scale model. "Graphics is all about creativity, germinating ideas and solving problems so we need to teach our students how to be creative and how to get their ideas out there".

AS 91069 (1.36) – Promote an organised body of design work to an audience using visual communication (4 credits – internal)

Textiles students could create an organised body of work based on an installation, such as a fashion show, with photos, design sketches and models or present their final conceptual ideas. They need to think about laying out/balancing their work, using both colour and clear white space and choosing typography relevant to the design. The presentation must tell a 'story'. The work can be presented on one A3 page and include planning with thumbnails in which the student explains why they have chosen particular details.

Six styles of Sketching

Based on her research Lesley identified six styles of sketching, four of which students need to have experienced for AS 1.30: (Design Sketching: Erik Olofsson and Kiara Sjolen)

1: Doodling/thumbnails – students often don't value this "but it can be full of energy and excitement because we can see where their ideas are coming from. Put things up on the wall and explain that this is one stage of sketching that is valued; don't worry about proportion, just let the creative spirit flow".

2: Explorative – where students explore their idea in more depth, considering form, function, style, shape, types of material and where they can explore alternative ideas.

3: Thinking – students working out "If I do that, how can I make that? What will it look like?" Sketches are more refined.

4: Technical – showing the details, "Where is the pocket, the darts, the top stitching? How will the design elements all work together?"

Doodling/thumbnails	Explorative Sketching
Thinking Sketching	Technical Sketching

Presentation Sketch

Emotive Sketch

Students working on AS 1.36 will use these sketching styles:

5. Presentation – trying to make it look as realistic as possible; show the texture of the material, the colour, folds, topstitching, fit, etc.

6. Emotive – really good fashion designers use these sketches, to evoke a particular mood to sell their ideas

Lesley notes that at Level 1 the students' audience is often the classroom community and suggests putting their work on the wall – this also allows the opportunity to critique each other's work and consider the assessment criteria.

Sketching tips and tricks
Lesley emphasised that for students to achieve in the DVC standards they first need to be taught skills that are often taken for granted such as sketching, and that for most of these standards their work doesn't have to be of presentation standard to meet the assessment criteria.

Use coloured paper. Research shows that students find a blank piece of white paper intimidating but will start drawing more quickly on coloured paper – they feel they're drawing on the next layer, in comparison to starting on white, and worry less about making mistakes. It appears that light pink, green or blue are the best colours for encouraging student creativity, perhaps because they're used to these colours in computer games.

Students need to sketch their creative ideas for AS 1.30 but don't need to annotate them, "so they should just draw, draw, draw! "
In freehand sketching students are also modelling so could note why they're modelling, testing or trialling. Instead of writing all around their drawing, students should put annotations down one side of the page so that they don't detract from the design. A good student won't need lots of annotation because their drawings will explore form, shape, detail, technical features, etc.
The human body is one of the more difficult things to draw and can be daunting for students. They can easily make a symmetrical figure by folding paper in half and drawing one side of a body. After flipping the paper over they can trace the outline to complete the body.

For another technique – the 9-headed body – the paper is evenly marked and each section of the body drawn the same size as the head, except for the legs which are elongated.

Another way to make fashion sketching less threatening is the use of block shapes to represent sections of the body. This enables students to show the basic proportions – egg-shaped head, tapering tubes for limbs – without getting caught up in trying to draw a perfect body shape.

Tell the students to feel their own bodies to understand where each section joins – the neck comes from under the ear, not the chin and students often don't realise how large a hand is compared with a face. They need to understand the proportions of a body because if it's drawn incorrectly the clothing won't look as good.

The sketches should show some movement, to give a more realistic look. Students could photocopy their sketch, cut it out and then arrange it in different poses which they can trace around. At this level they don't need to worry about details such as hair or eyes, but if they are creating a garment for a client who is larger than a 'fashion model' size, then they could adapt their drawing to take account of this. Students should consider the different body types and the differences between infants, young children and older children.

Students also need to understand how clothing folds and where parts of the body will press against the fabric. If sketching a bent arm, for example, they should draw in the parts of the sleeve but leave the elbow white to show where the pressure point is. Get them to look at other sketches, to help them understand form and how it affects the look of a garment. And students sometimes forget that they can concentrate on parts of the body, they don't always have to sketch the whole body.

To achieve a loose sketching style, students need to forget the pencil grip they learnt at primary school and use their shoulder muscle instead. By holding the pencil in a different grip, maybe between the smallest two fingers, they immediately sketch more loosely and, conversely, can more easily draw shapes such as circles. And tell them the secret about paper – it can be turned around! They can shift it around to suit themselves and, with their new, loose style, achieve some lovely rendering.

Students need to use shading to create a 3D impression, so get them to make four shades – dark, light and two mediums – of every rendering sketching media they use, to help make their drawings more effective.

Tell students that they shouldn't colour every part of their drawing but leave some white, as this gives an impression that the light is hitting that section of the garment.

How to sketch the pattern on their clothing? If students pleat a piece of patterned wrapping paper or material they can see how the pattern stops/starts and achieve a more realistic look in their drawing. To help them understand how a translucent fabric will look when it's folded, wet a piece of tissue paper and gather it in places – they can immediately see where the gathers are and the light/dark effects.

Many students will use every colour in their set of pencils, so teach them some colour theory such as complementary and contrasting colours. Encourage them to use different materials to achieve the look they want in their drawing:

Wax crayon with paint over the top
Using a white wax crayon is a great way to stop the students using too much colour
Pencil crayons give an intense colour
Use a paintbrush to blend colours
To get a 'tweedy' look, put a texture, such as sandpaper or embossed wallpaper, under the paper and rub over it
Add water colour on top of crayons or wax to give an impression of a knitted garment – and remind them to move the paper so the collar goes in a different direction
Gouache gives a great look, and can be purchased cheaply
Pale markers with graphite pencil on top will give the 'blurry' look sometimes used in fashion sketches
Sketching with a blue pencil makes a 'blue print' which disappears underneath the final pen or pencil and won't photocopy.

Students wanting to use photos in a body of design work may lack the required skills but could get someone else to do the photography, provided they tell them "I'm after this look, I'm after that..." They can then manipulate the photos to get the design they're after.

See also the Resource Review Technology NZ website.

Download Lesley's TENZ 2011 presentation (PDF, 8.19Mb).