10.5 tips on how to sketch

Today we were set the challenge of coming up with 50 quick and dirty ideas for our projects. Developing on from last weeks balloon task we were to be less focused on what we were trying to achieve and more open to idea and suggestion. This should hopefully open up our minds and our ideas to new avenues we have not considered before.


We started the day by looking at Rory Hamilton's website and his 10.5 tips on how to sketch a dos and donts guide to help facilitate fast idea generation in an imprecise way. I started off quickly but most of the ideas I was putting down were ones I had had for a while... this was kind of missing the point as we were supposed to be open to all sort of weird and wonderful things that would take us off on crazy tangents.


This would prove to be useful as not only would it help us to generate a lot more ideas, it could create discussion between us, and could possibly help us narrow down and define our ideas further and further.



I think I came up with a lot of daft ideas on how my project could evolve over time, but this gave me good insight into what the possibilities 'could be' and the implications of this. How people would feel about these garments or services and how ultimately they might be put into practice to help people relate more with their clothes, so they are more connected to them and see them as something special instead of throwaway.

Whilst summing up my ideas, (which I like to do as little sketches surrounded by a box, storyboard style for some unknown reason-I think that I simply cannot deal with a blank sheet, plus drawing out all the boxes in advance gives me something to aim for... then I can push and challenge myself to finish the task. Not that I would class myself as a perfectionist in any sense of the word but I simply cannot rest until a task is completed... often seen as a bit anal from friends and family members... still my sketches are not all tied up in neat little bows so I still maintain the fact that I am far from being a perfectionist...) one of my class mates Lauren (check out her renowned blog redjotter) asked if I had seen the new Howies line of Jackets and bags 'Hand-Me-Down', a beautiful idea that you are buying something that you intend to love and pass on to someone else, sharing with them the history and story of the adventures you have undertaken whilst it has been in your possession. It is an idea that I have become evermore interested in over the last few years as I have struggled with becoming more environmentally responsible in my work and the way I live my life. That in order to not deem something as throwaway we must find a personal connect with it. We must see it as special, valuable (not in the monetary sense, but that we have a strong attachment to it) and realy bond with it. If we can do this then we will have more respect for the item, cherish it and want to give it a new life when we no longer have need for it, either in giving it to someone else or making it into something new...
The cost of these items is rather high but they are made to last and to be timeless... I love the idea and agree that buying a £400 jacket that lasts you 40 years+ than can go on to last someone else a similar time scale is better value for money and for the planet than 20 £20 jackets that probably wouldn't last you a year each... It is a challenging dilemma as in our culture we have been programmed to want the, newest, latest, shiniest thing, I hope that as companies like Howies undertaking projects like Hand-Me-Down, that this become more widespread, their message might be heard and understood, not just buy the consumers but by the big corporations working within the fashion industry at large.