Creating colour palettes

Still unsure on what route I would like to take within the fashion industry, I thought it would be a good idea to find out more about each role. I discovered a book called  "The Fashion Careers Guidebook" by Julia Yates which was very useful and had a very detailed description of what each job entails. The trend forecasting description was really interesting, currently, I have been learning about trends and i have enjoyed this so far. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to go into fashion but is unsure on what type of job they actually want to do.

Colour has a massive role to play in predicting trends. Using Photoshop, I selected an image from Pinterest and created colour strips to match the image, picking out all the colours that I thought were interesting and dominant. I found this task really fun, I did not realise how many colours were actually featured in one image. Below are my favourite colour palettes that i created using the images:

The first colour strip is selection - the colours that I chose to be part of my colour strip in a random order. The second strip is relationship - the colours in order, the order that I thought looked the best visually. Lastly, the third strip is proportion - changing the sizes of the colours (the more the colour appears, the bigger the strip).

Photo Credit - Pinterest

My new found love for Pinterest

As part of my course, I was introduced to Pinterest. Prior to starting at Nottingham Trent I had a Pinterest account already but only used it to browse. However, after having a lecture on the website, I realised how inspiring it is, full of varied visual content. It ranges from photography, art, illustration, food, interiors, architecture, hairstyles and much more.

In one of my lectures focused on trends and how they can be put into categories (as you can see from below). I used Pinterest to create different moodboards on some of the categories. On each of the boards, I have pinned things that I believe have been classed as trends over the last ten years. Straight away I thought about current trends such as Military and Pop Art fruit but I wanted to look deeper into it and select other trends that aren’t as obvious.

My favourite board for location trend was fashion and forests, every art director and stylist loves a mystical theme that is generally shot in a forest. I found the motif trends really interesting to research because these are trends that are seen in any sector, not just fashion adverts.  The best motif trend that I found was reptiles, I found this pattern featured in interiors, buildings, garments and backgrounds. When looking at narrative trends, I focused on fairytales, almost all the editorial images that I found included an apple in the shot. This is inspired by Snow White, the apple can convey danger, beauty and risk.

I also had to include the cliché trend of composition where models are directed to jump because when flicking through magazines, this is common. Although this is a good use of composition and it looks visually appealing, it has been done many times before. When looking at editorials that used the jump, I came across a lot of advertisements that combined women and sport. I then began to create another board that was specific for sport and fashion.

If you haven't already, check out Pinterest!

Photo Credit - Pinterest