Medium : Vector Illustration template inserted in photograph, fabric collage demo
Scale : Varied, 4x7 for fabric collage
I was inspired by the traditional Korean colors and patterns. The particular colors I was interested in were the five colors that were used commonly throughout Korean history and believed to bring luck to the wearers and protect them from bad luck. These five colors were yellow, white, black, blue, and red, and each colors represent an element making up the universe(it is believed that soil, metal, water, wood, and fire, respectively, were the elements making up the universe), certain directions, multiple virtues, and seasons. For the variation colors, I was inspired by the current beauty trend in Korea called “personal colors”, which divides the color family into four major tones: spring warm tone, summer cool tone, autumn warm tone, and winter cool tones. These tones differ from each other by their difference in brightness or saturation, and using this differences I created 5 shades of the original 5 colors: original 5 colors then 4 other variations of that 5 colors that will fall under each personal color categories.
I realized that today there is a trend shifting aim from the western aesthetic ideal back to asian traditional standards. My aim for this project was to create series of products and patterns, creating a brand, which would lead for the past, anachronistic patterns and elements to make a comeback and dissolve into modern lifestyle. I wanted to break the misconception that anything traditional or somewhat “old” were always stuck in that time period and could not blend in with other modern things.
For vector illustrations for the advertisements and patterns, I took the basic pattern shapes from window frames or door frames or other fabric patterns from traditional Korean housing and put in the five colors in with variations. The last image is the complete image of all the designs I have created for this project. For the fabric piece which is like a “demo product”, I stitched together a small diamond shape consisting all five colors, and made multiple of those, then stitched them together into a big piece, then put cotton and backing fabric on the back.