DCA Windows Inspiration and Process
I was delighted to be commissioned by the DCA to create an exciting, vibrant window design that celebrates all the activity, energy and sense of community found across all the programme areas of DCA. Bringing the inside activity and energy to the outside of the building in the window areas.
The process involved research, development, prototyping and good communication with the DCA team and fabricator to creating the final designs on display.
Research
I got a feel for the building by visiting all the different departments, taking lots of photos that I could refer to in the studio.
I found lots of geometric shapes within the building from the angular windows, step shaped walls, winged gallery roof plus so many circles, from the vintage projectors, printing press wheels, pegboard, retail display units, circular fairy lights fittings in Jute Café Bar to products in the shop.
I am naturally drawn to seeing pattern and texture and loved the overlaid wire racks in the print studio that created modern checks and the negative space of the screen-printing racks full of irregular stripes.
I found colour references from the bright cinema seats, pots of ink in the print studio, participant artwork on display in the creative learning store, bright colours of the Riso print samples to the more subtle cladding of the building.
Development
To process ideas, I created sketches in pencil and ink then found visual connections. I created rough thumbnail sketches of designs in situ and mocked them up digitally to test various colour combinations and played with different juxtaposition of textures within shapes. I played with rotation and scale of the spots to capture the energy from the activity from inside of the building. I referred to the brief, discussed technical details with the local fabricator RobertSign and worked within design constraints so that the design would work practically. I selected and rejected elements to create coherent concepts for presenting to the DCA team.
The final designs are inspired from the bold geometric shapes with a playful feel using my signature style that retain the hand drawn feel of my linework and confidently uses a vibrant colour palette with clashing and contrasting of patterns bringing together all the activity of the building. I wanted the circles in the top windows to have a lot of movement the capture the energy of the building and connect to the shop windows below.
With my design work I like to capture a sense of place by creating bespoke designs that are meaningful and unique to the space and I hope these designs help people to connect to the DCA and remind past visitors to come inside and entice new visitors to see the variety of things it has to offer, from a trip to the cinema to taking part in a workshop to grabbing a bite to eat with friends or seeing the latest contemporary art exhibition.
You can find out more about my work here