The beginning of my summer term live brief project with SUEZ Waste Management

SUEZ is a recycling and recovery company based in the UK. Their main focus is keeping materials in a continued cycle of use by collecting waste, recycling it and then treating it so it becomes usable again. As a company, their first priority is reusing the materials, with an end goal of eliminating waste entirely. The concept of reuse is better than recycling as it’s more circular and treats materials at a greater value.

The brief they have set us is to take materials that are offcuts from the production of superyachts by Sunseekers in Poole and rework the fabric to add value, extend its life and plan how our application could be used again in a new way, deconstructed and reassembled differently or recycled. For instance, my chosen context is stationery, so I’m considering how laptop/pencil cases can be made reversible for a second use, or how wooden notebook folders could be taken apart and reconfigured to become different shaped containers.

For this project, as my last term in second year, I wanted to challenge myself with a floral collection. I haven’t tried floral work much before in my printing, and felt it would be good to show in my portfolio for breadth of ideas and skills.

I didn’t want to do a sole floral collection as I thought I would get bored too fast and run out of ideas. To overcome this, I extended my idea to include gardening too. This way, I could incorporate more structured motifs like gardening equipment, plant pot textures, benches and bird houses. Additionally, I decided to take inspiration from my grandparents’ gardens – the flowers they grow, outdoor furniture and their pet tortoise. Whilst this helps my project to be authentic and personal, which I find always helps make it more dynamic, it will also support me in staying motivated for the duration of the term as I have a personal connection to my work.

To gather research for this project I spent time photographing my grandparents’ gardens and arranging this in groups in my sketchbook to keep my ideas organised and clear. I also photographed spring blooms when I was out and about, such as day trips to estate gardens and out walking. One influential idea I got from this is the patterns within tree bark. Lastly, for theme research, I visited multiple garden centres to look at their products and what was in bloom at the start of term. By visiting garden centres, I got to see more flowers in bloom, as lots in the garden hadn’t fully come out due to the early spring weather. I also got to see a much greater variety of flowers, which my grandparents didn’t grow, so I had greater imagery to choose from.

To kickstart my project too I have spent time completing brand and artist research for inspiration on colour, composition, scale and design. Personally, I love the research stage and find it particularly beneficial and inspirational to get ideas flowing. So far in the first 3 weeks of term, I have conducted primary and secondary research into brands like Oliver Bonas, Papier, Susie Watson Design, Elizabeth Scarlett and Caroline Gardner. This has helped push my design ideas, think creatively and consider possibilities I hadn’t initially thought of which is great.

After gathering this research, I also used it to help influence my colour palette – a top priority at the beginning of term. I was excited to use fresher, lighter colours than the ones I picked last term. I also wanted to challenge myself with some new options, such as picking teal and cornflower blue. Lastly, I incorporated grey and taupe in my palette drawn from the background colours of the materials provided to us from SUEZ. By using the fabric colours in my palette, I am working with the materials more, rather than fighting them, so I don’t have to dye/ change the backgrounds as much.

I began some initial drawings from all this research to see which style I wanted to explore and what imagery I found most inspirational to draw from. I explored using oil pastels, felt tip pens and paint to see what medium gave the effect I desired. I found the line quality of oil pastels too fuzzy for this project and preferred the graphic quality of paint/pen. I also played with different styles like literal, observational drawings and more illustrative designs. Again, I preferred the more illustrative style as I felt capturing the essence of a motif more successful than trying to recreate it in an observational style. After some time in the Easter break exploring different drawings, when I came back to uni for term, I could print my most relevant research and keep my ideas concise and cohesive moving forward into my project work which was particularly helpful.

Overall, it has been an amazing start to the summer term at AUB. Our project brief set by SUEZ is particularly exciting and brings lots of new challenges and problems to solve which I love. There’s also lost of opportunity coming up for me to learn new skills, try more techniques and push my boundaries. Embracing these challenges will help my confidence and design complexity which is very exciting. I'm looking forward to how my project develops.