Tracy Kendall is another visiting lecturer who came to our college to discuss her work. The aim of her work is to create innovative wallpapers, created from hand techniques.
Tracy Kendall began her design training in Manchester when she did screen printing at the Royal College of Technical Support. She then went onto digital printing before focusing on a career of design wallpapers, which she started in 1996. Her wallpapers were about bringing textures out of the surface as opposed to being flat images like most traditional wallpapers.
Although she is not a computer based designer, which is more relevant to our pathway, it is other design techniques about Tracy that make her lecture a valuable learning tool for me. One key tool for any good designer is to be able to collect resources and gather inspiration from everywhere. Tracy Kendall will look at magazines, take photographs in the streets, talk to people, all practices that any designer, even a computer based designer, should inherit. Ways of collecting may be different, for example, Tracy will throw everything into a bag, where as someone else could collect in scrapbook, box etc. That is one of my downfalls as a designer. I take inspiration from many different sources, but I in the past I haven't recorded my ideas and inspirations. I have begun to sketch more and record ideas on the blog, which I aim to continue.
This photograph is an example of one of Tracy's wallpapers. My first thought was that I enjoy this piece as photographic composition then actual appreciating the wallpaper itself. The bold contrast between light and dark, the wallpaper being in an unusual location.
Although she is not a computer based designer, which is more relevant to our pathway, it is other design techniques about Tracy that make her lecture a valuable learning tool for me. One key tool for any good designer is to be able to collect resources and gather inspiration from everywhere. Tracy Kendall will look at magazines, take photographs in the streets, talk to people, all practices that any designer, even a computer based designer, should inherit. Ways of collecting may be different, for example, Tracy will throw everything into a bag, where as someone else could collect in scrapbook, box etc. That is one of my downfalls as a designer. I take inspiration from many different sources, but I in the past I haven't recorded my ideas and inspirations. I have begun to sketch more and record ideas on the blog, which I aim to continue.
This photograph is an example of one of Tracy's wallpapers. My first thought was that I enjoy this piece as photographic composition then actual appreciating the wallpaper itself. The bold contrast between light and dark, the wallpaper being in an unusual location.
Not only is Tracy a keen designer, she has an aptitude for business. For example, she works a lot in black and white because she feels this appeals more to a male audience. Although interior design is traditionally considered a female area of interest, she finds that it tends to be males who are buying the wallpapers, so she targets her designs towards males. Although she loves what she does, she is also driven and wants her business to succeed. She will pay expensive prices for professional photographs to be taken of her work, to be shown in magazines. Tracy doesn't work in a team, she has her own studio with one assistant. The ideas are her own, and her assistant is there to help her accomplish her own ideas. Prices are based on time it takes to make a piece, once the design is made it is quicker and more profitable to produce reproductions for sale.
From a typography angle, some of Tracy's designs incorporate text in unique styles. For example, in this piece, she has used newspaper text, taking already existing type and placed it in a new context, white text on black, on shiny surface. The image of the lamp reflecting as a creepy ghostly effect on me.
Tracy has more of an organic element in her work. She uses images of a natural items like a feather, or stem of grass. Again, the composition of this photograph is what draws me to this picture, with the stem of grass being a central, bold item in between the door and the bed, leaving lots of white space. The simplicity makes it took modern and clean. I find that its not the wallpapers themselves I like, just the way they are used in context of a photograph. I feel that her work could work just as well as framed photo pieces like this one for example.
Tracy's ideas are inspired from what can be found in the room, so wallpapers interacts with the rooms identity to adapt, not overpower. For example, this design of the plate stacks, work in context of the top of the kitchen surface.
Tracys discussed how her work has an effect on the senses. For example, you can touch, smell as well as view a wallpaper design. She stated that one piece smelt like Christmas trees. This reminded me on my research I did for the self directed project about Synaesthesia effects. Synaesthesia is a that multi-sensory effect, when something like a particular colour can experience you to hear a particular sound. Smells unlock memories. If I was to smell a Christmas Tree, I would be instantly taken back to being a very young child and remembering those Christmas mornings, the happiest moments in my life.
This is another piece where Tracy has used type, only this time the text is cut from the material. More attention has been given to spacing, shape and look of letters unlike in the last piece that used text. The metallic look really emphasis style, the expensive nature of the promotion, and also has a rather ornamental look.
This is another piece involving text, which I thought was a great concept, just using hand writing. It works along the lines of "if walls could tell stories." I could imagine this being a great idea for a doctors surgery, when all you can do is read posters on the wall. Instead of reading posters, the walls provide entertainment. The only downside is that I can imagine the walls could give you a headache after a while, so therefore only areas could be covered with it, not the whole room.
This is another piece where Tracy has used type, only this time the text is cut from the material. More attention has been given to spacing, shape and look of letters unlike in the last piece that used text. The metallic look really emphasis style, the expensive nature of the promotion, and also has a rather ornamental look.
This is another piece involving text, which I thought was a great concept, just using hand writing. It works along the lines of "if walls could tell stories." I could imagine this being a great idea for a doctors surgery, when all you can do is read posters on the wall. Instead of reading posters, the walls provide entertainment. The only downside is that I can imagine the walls could give you a headache after a while, so therefore only areas could be covered with it, not the whole room.
Tracy also likes to experiment with other mediums just as Jigsaw piece. When she first mentioned this, I thought that it would look great, but looking at this its just too over the top. What I could imagine working is taking a small section of a couple of pieces then blowing it up to a large scale size.
The same idea of blowing up this image of a few sequins is a really stylish design as it is a unusual concept with a limited colour palette of predominantly grey and black. I can imagine it used in a modern wine bar. As it is such a detailed image, it would have to be limited to part of a room or it could be too much.
This piece I really didn't like, it was to sickly and sweet. I think this design would appeal more to young girls, the colours remind me of a candy necklace.
If I was to describe Tracy's work in one way, I would describe it as like one giant sketch book of ideas and experiments. All her ideas are experiments or ideas from inspirations that she had. There will never be one true final piece because there are endless possibilities of ideas for her to work with.
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