We've got the power!

In this week's fashion challenge, we encouraged wild self expression as we created super hero-popstar outfits. Aesthetics is often an important part of design: so we wanted them to upcycle something good looking! We gave the squad a mixture of vintage garments (from the 70's and 80's of course), other textiles and interesting materials (deflated mylar balloons, faux fur pieces, mesh) and asked them to make a new and theatrical outfit. The emphasis for this class was also on fun- can they make something playful and unexpected? You bet they can!

                               

Many of the kids worked in groups, using fast sketches to merge their ideas. Armed with scissors, colourful duct tape, safety pins and elastics this was an exercise in creative destruction. Sometimes we have to take something apart to design something better. In our fashion remixes we support girl and boy power, drama and individualism.

Girl Power!

Strike a pose

In this fashion session we challenged our students to make a costume which morphs: a garment that either transforms or combines two ideas together. One of our designers thought about water and lightning, another colour and shades.  

This geometric garment -black swan, white swan- uses an interesting diagonal design and feathered fabric, reminiscent of wings. The outfit is completed with a angled triangular hat, which creates a beak like headress.

This is a pattern drafting exercise. The idea is to put together a rough working idea for a uniform -not a finished garment. Our students have to fashion something fabulous using textiles, bits of old garments, ribbons, sticky back plastic, foam sheets, mylar, tape, glue and pins. 

In this design, light and dark fabrics are used to represent good and evil. 

                                            

This reversible costume is a combination cat-ghost. The headband also twists round to reveal cat ears or  ghost horns.

Ninja man and all his accessories...

This design was split down the middle, with one side decorated with fringes and colourful bows to make a  clown. The other side uses net flowers and silver tinsel to create a ballerina.

Kinetic Sculpture

In our first session of Fall workshops at Artscape Youngplace and in the second week at the TP Loblaw K Club we issued a mash-up design challenge, asking the kids to come up with a kinetic sculpture that is also a sign. 

After a planning phase, we gave the students a table full of materials and the ever popular glue guns and they set to building their prototypes.

Quite a few of our young designers made classic mobiles. This bedroom sign used some interesting sculptural elements. 

This sculpture took inspiration from Minecraft and used a nice range of materials to point the way.

We liked the striking use of colours and the strong graphic design of this video game sign.

In this idea, the student made a table-top yard sale sculpture mounted on a flexible base with wobbling faces on either side.  

And this kinetic sculpture had a windmill feature made of plastic spoons, that could either be wind-driven or could be hooked up to a motor to make it spin. 

Both these designs used a full range of materials and included lots of interesting elements. 

This sculpture sign was for a skateboard store. The sign was mounted on a skateboard that moved down a ramp.  A fully thought out prototype!