Last week I posted about the Art Pimp / spray paint stencil jacket that I made for my friend Mr. Eric Matelski. This past weekend it was worn as he accepted his Mastermind Award from The Westword. He, along with myself, was very pleased with the outcome!
Playing Vanna White with the Art Pimp suit
It holds up to 36 business cards
Right now as we are deep in the design phase, I spend a lot of time using softward called Ned Graphics. It’s a suite of fashion design software not unlike Adobe. There are 6 different programs that we use:
Color Reduction and Cleaning
Design and Repeat
Easy Coloring
Easy Weave
Easy Knit
Storyboard and Cataloging
The easiest to explain and learn is by far easy coloring. While it is a quite simple tool, it is also very powerful. Here’s your quick demo.
Easy Coloring by Ned Graphics
You can see I’ve circled 4 colors on the right – this pallet that is within the circle represents the current colorway that is being shown in the pattern to the left. You can quickly create an infinite number of different colorways to see what colors look best in your pattern and in what positions. What if I flip the red and the white? Well, I will just create another colorway and see how it looks. Here below you can see what the same pattern looks like with a different colorway selected:
Easy Coloring by Ned Graphics
We have previously matched all of the colors for each of our collections (called color standards) to our printer, so when we print the patterns, the colors quite close to how they will look once made from actual fabric.
Easy Coloring is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the Ned Graphics suite, and what I’ve shown you here is a mere sliver of of that tip. This software package is quite powerful and you will learn more of what it can do in future posts.
I was recently commissioned to create a jacket for a good friend of mine who has coined himself as an “art pimp” – he helps promote artists, curates and is also an artist himself – check him out at www.artpimponline.com. In addition to a fashionable jacket, he wanted it to be functional. Now you’re idea of functional and his idea may be two different things, but what he wanted for function was the ability to hold multiple business cards inside the jacket so he could “pimp” out all of the artists he represents. The concept was similar to how shady men in NY hustle gold watches in their jackets.
To start, I wanted to get his logo on the jacket – I did so in a quite labor intensive but effective way. I printed his logo on full label sheets and proceeded to cut it out like a stencil.
Here is the stencil "stuck" and then taped onto the jacket.
The next step was to fully cover the jacket (spray paint will mist the entire thing if this is not done) with whatever material you have – could be old sheets, newspaper, I happened to have sheets of stryofoam nearby so I just grabbed those.
The entire jacket is covered and I have sprayed the stencil area, doing enough passes to get a solid "print"
And there you have it, wait for the paint to dry and peel off to reveal your masterpiece. Yes, your stencil is done – one time use only for this type of project. I realize you could screen print it (not as accesible for everyone) which would be best if you needed to make more. You’re also thinking “why not make the stencil on cardstock or something reusable?” – well folks, I tried this and you just can’t get the fine detailing – the paint “creeps” under all of the edges. The sticky label works best for great detailing.
Post stencil removal
For the final touch, I wanted to add “paint splatters” since my friend is a painter. I sprayed a bunch of the spray paint into an old cottage cheese container, took an old paint brush and then (for lack of a better word) beat it against my hand where the metal part meets the bristles. This “shook” drops of paint off and splattered them onto the jacket.
Paint splatters on the jacket
Art Pimp Jacket with Paint Splatters
Art Pimp Stencil
For the “pimp” aspect of the jacket, I sewed 2 rows of velcro strips into each side of the jacket. I took plastic trading card sleeves and attached sticky velcro to the top of those to make them removeable from the jacket for washing or they can be easily replaced once worn out. The Art Pimp now has the capacity to carry up to 36 different business cards for all of his artists. Brilliant!
Jacket is ready for "pimping"
Sales sample comments have been made and sent, glad to have that done. Now the fun really begins. While I collect and think about new designs all the time, it’s my favorite time of the season when I get to sit down and start putting these ideas onto paper (digital paper that is…I work on the computer, think it has something to do with my training as well as my personality and the way I work). That time has come as we begin design for spring 2011 (SP11), yes you read right, we are working 1 year in advance – ahead of some companies/industries/regions, and behind others. Here’s how the design process all begins…
COLOR
The first thing that is decided on is color palettes. Inspiration comes from many areas – plaids, stripes, prints, magazine tears, photos, and beyond. I always spend time shopping before deciding on color palettes, as well as browsing select sites online to get an idea of what is out there. I think about many things when picking out my color palettes – what colors have we done in the past (specifically the few most recent seasons), what season I’m working in, and what the exact ship date of that collection is. SP11 has 3 ship dates – 11/15, 1/15, 2/15. So while we are designing for spring, our first collection can have a somewhat darker palette since it ships 11/15, while the next 2 shipments should definitely feel “lighter”. My 6 color palettes for SP11 have come from the following inspirations:
2 – plaids
1 – stripe from a polo
1 – magazine tear – a photo of 6 solid polos
1 – print from a pair of swim trunks
1 – based off of what pallete seems prevalent in Europe
A color story based off of a plaid
Here is how we start to put our “boards” together, in a particular order:
ROAD MAPS
Plaids and “fancies” or “road map pieces” are often decided first. A “fancy” or “road map” is a piece that ties the whole collection together (as well as the plaid) – it usually incorporates all of the colors in the collection and can act as the “center piece” of the collection. We often design our plaid (we always have at least 1 plaid per collection) first, which will set the tone for the group. In our industry, fancies are often argyle printed polos and argyle sweaters. The plaid often goes in the bottom right or left corner of the board layout.
SOLIDS
We have our signature basics that are carried over from one season to the next, but we do try and update these every other season, which equals once a year. They are solid polos that run in selected colors for each group. Fabrications vary, as do details. This is the most important place for details – interesting buttons, coverstitching, under collar or placket contrast, and on. You must remember that it is a “solid basic polo” but at the same time you need some “flair”. As the boards start to come together, our solids line up at the top.
STRIPES
We next move on to stripes, and we create many different color combinations (using the colors in our palletes of course) and many different stripe types: feed stripes, engineered stripes, club stripes, and more. We need different sizes, different textures in the stripes, different constructions, and on. Stripes are layed out by size on the board, smaller stripes go at the top, larger towards the bottom.
COLOR BLOCKS & MAPPING POLOS
In our industry, color blocks and mapping polos are a must. If you are unsure what these are, Google them. I’m sure there will be a blog post on this later… We work hard to come up with new designs, use new textures, and be creative to put something new out there. We often will design 10 or more different colorblocks and only 1 out of those 10 will go into production. These designs get distributed throughout the board.
There is the recipe for our industries design process. Other industries may proceed differently, but this is what I know.
BOARDS
They start out like this – we use CADs with push pins on cork boards:
Board Layout - Phase 1
Once designs are complete, they are compiled on the computer like this (also serves as an example of how we lay the garments out on the boards – normally style #s, color codes and fabrications are labeled under each garment):
Board Layout - Phase 2
This week back in the office was a much needed change of pace in comparison to last week, full of final review on the FA10 collections and development of the SP11 line. I’m going to make this post about the process of moving from sales samples garments to bulk production.
After receipt of sales sample garments (which are manufactured and produced independent of bulk production, giving us the opportunity to change things – details, fabrications, colors, etc) and to drop pieces, we review each and every item and send comments back to the vendors for things that must be changed and resubmitted for approval before proceeding with bulk production. Another very tricky part of this process is that the vendor who manufactured our sales samples (SS) is not always the vendor who will get the PO for bulk production. Initially, vendors are submitted POs for a SS order, which is usually done at 1.5 times FOB cost. Vendors may run into various problems/challenges with any given style, such as limitations with the machinery in their factories inhibiting them from manufacturing to our expectations. One would think that upon submittal of the GRs, the vendor would be able to say yes or no, we can/can’t do that, but surprisingly (I think) they will often take styles and then later on (which can create many problems for us in the long run) they come to us with these problems, and many of them make it our job (which it really should be theirs) to come up with the solution. A perfect example was a knitted jacquard polo with a “cross” type design going across the left chest. There were limitations in how many colors of yarns could be knit going vertically and horizontally, and the vendor came to us 3 weeks before SS were due and asked us to change the design. Not willing to alter the integrity of our design, we came up with alternative solutions such as knitting the ground of the garment and then printing the cross design, or digitally printing the entire garment for SS purposes only. This garment is a perfect example of where the vendor took something on that they were unable to complete, giving us good reason to move this style to another vendor for bulk production in order to get what we wanted. One thing you don’t want to do however, is tell the vendor that they are not getting bulk POs for styles X, Y and Z before they have completed their SS order. At this point they would have little/no incentive to complete their SS orders (of course they need to consider long term relationships etc, and there are vendors who will still take care of your needs even if you don’t give them certain bulk POs, but there are vendors who will totally screw you, so you just have to be careful). Because of this, it’s best to wait until SS are done before issuing bulk POs. As all SS are reviewed, pricing must be finalized and bulk vendors decided. At this point, comments are sent out to vendors on things that must be changed for bulk, and we must send any quality approvals, garment samples, whatever we have for any garments that are being assigned to new vendors so that they have as much to work with as possible. It is now time for vendors to submit everything, trims, lab dips, qualities, protos etc for bulk production at which time we will “approve for bulk”. Almost everything that was approved previously was “approved for SS only” – this is a safe way for us to proceed as it always gives us an out to change anything before bulk begins.