Final Evaluation

Working on the Project Moving tides has made me look into a new way of making costumes and seeing how carnival are so successful and what makes a carnival costume so effective- what works, and what doesn't. Getting back into design has been a real joy for me as during my 2nd year though I feel I have learnt a lot by choosing costume construction; I have missed the design side which I feel much more comfortable with. I have always enjoyed designing fun, creative things- rather than historical pieces and from this project think that carnival designing, and costume workshops is a career I would like to pursue. 

From this project I have developed my knowledge on the background of carnivals, designed a range of costume possible to be made and worn by children with the theme ‘Oceans of the world’, developing some of the designs and presenting them to the steering group then from there coming up with my final design of a Fire Fish, made experiments and prototypes of how the costume could be made, then took them into a year 5 classroom to teach various workshops in costume making.
           Initial costume designs allowed me to be creative and exploitative again something which I have really missed. Some of my designs weren't big enough for a carnival parade and being told this by my tutor has really encouraged me to really look and analyse each of my designs and think of other ways to make them successful- even though I wouldn't be using them. Designing for carnival is great as you can never be too 'over-the-top', bright colour's- even going to far it can be classed as 'tacky', large shapes and structures, movement, and unusual-cheap material's is what carnival is all about...and I think no one have ever been told to tone down an idea ready for a carnival setting.

At first I found speaking to large number difficult, I have always struggled explaining my point, often muddling my words and meanings when nervous to large groups; I work better talking to small number and one-to-ones . From this project I have improved on presenting to groups in both steering/moving tides meetings and with the workshops with the children which has improved my confidence. Producing this blog has been extremely beneficial; I hate putting all the written work into my sketchbook- I like my sketchbook to a collection of inspiration and creativity keeping the designs and written work separately has enabled me to be more organised. My blog allows me to sort out my thoughts and backing work without feeling the need to ‘try and look pretty’.

When taking the lesson plans into the schools I was pleased to have produced templates and set designs for the children to work from so although they all worked from the same plans they all had their own personalities and ideas within each of their costumes. One thing I am proud to say is that each and every part of the costumes was made by the children. I did do some prep work in order for them to do this but from start to finish their costume have been made by them, I enjoyed being able to push them and teach them new things. Many of them had never sewn before, yet all of them attached their bells to the elastic; some did struggle; but all had a successful outcome by the end of the workshop. 

On day of the Carnival unfortunately the whole event had to be cancelled due to the weather and flood warnings but this is the nature of open air event. This was disappointing for everyone involved but understandable as if someone got seriously ill or hurt there would have been a lot more complaints and questioning of why the organisers did nothing to prevent it. The Journey getting to the carnival was more important to the carnival itself. The children have learnt new skills and enjoyed working both independently and as a group.  Because of the cancellation I could not see what my costumes looked like amongst others and how successful they were in a carnival setting, though my last workshop at Southill School we had a trying on session.  I was very happy on how consistent the costumes as a group. The use of the bells around the ankles was exciting for the kids and encouraged them to dance and have more movement in the way they walked. The repetitive patterns on the fins and the circles on the headdresses were very bold, striking, and could be seen from afar. The T-shirts were bright; I was very happy with the tie-dye effect and the vibrancy of the dyes, and the headdresses were fun, quite comical, comfortable, and allowed movement when they walked; all the parts to it bobbed up and down.

If I were to carry out this project again I would make the leader costumes more distinctly different to the Primary costumes just to make them stand out more and make it clearer to the street audience who the leaders are.

Though I knew my school teacher said she would get things finished between workshops; I now know the abilities of children at the ages 9-11 and maybe would simplify some activities just to allow for more time so that my teacher and children wouldn’t have to put in more time to get it all done. Some activities the children struggled with- such as the orange shapes for the fins, I could have made it simpler by having less shapes, but bigger shapes to stop it being too fiddly.

I have learnt that children often do not like coming up with their own design in a similar way to yours as it often worries them that they are doing it wrong, others will go out there way to make it look at different to yours as possible so keeping to a template or a couple of different templates so they can choose how theirs looks it the most successful way.

I have thoroughly enjoy developing my designing skills, and to go from start to finish researching, designing, experimenting then making has been quite a new experience for me one which is unusual from many project at the AUCB where it is quite common to either design or make, in this project I have improved both areas.