Michael Kidner - live brief

After our weekly meeting I have decided to respond to the Michael Kidner live brief, I find the prospect of the brief really exciting as I really enjoy the use of bright and vibrant colours and having an extended colour pallet. So for my starting point I decided to look at Kidner’s work, the main request from the brief seemed to be to capture the essence of his work, so the colours and the general optical aesthetic. I wanted to capture the optical illusion feel that he had to his work but in a new form, so I started researching and stumbled upon the idea of paper folding. The technique seemed to capture certain elements of the geometric forms that developed in his work. So I developed this idea as my starting point, I started by using a book from the library ‘Folding Techniques for Designers’ learning how to create complex patterns from simply folding one sheet of paper. I liked the idea that from something so simple can come something so complex and interesting to look at, similar to Michael Kidner’s work. I really like how his work appears so simple yet it was all a carefully thought out, complex balance of colour and shape.

 Michael Kidner - Various works

 From these paper folding’s I knew I needed to start adding colour in order to respond closer to the brief. So I decided to start developing digital designs which I knew I could then use to fold into the work I had been creating the week before. Initially I created a few simple designs using photographs of the paper I folded adding colours which I took from Kidner’s work, this started to produce some interesting designs. However I felt they lacked depth to the designs, they seemed a bit simple and uninspired in terms of context, using simply the paper folding’s to create the shapes also meant that the structure and shape was limited.

After being unsatisfied with my initial digital designs I decided to research more to find an inspiration point for my drawings. I chose to focus on architecture which possess pattern, colour and interesting shapes. Jared Lim was a particular photographer that inspired me, his work had a definite structure and a similar feel in general to Kidner’s work. Responding to these images I created some simple drawings which I then developed into more complex designs, using the element of repetition to build an optical effect.