The Universes Pupils // Hemp Fabrics

Using Print based medium create, brand and design a new and innovative clothing company that uses ethical modes of production and distribution based around skateboarding culture and current trends.

-A print based investigation of retail and garment design with a focus on hemp and natural fabrics, looking at unique cuts of apparel.

In terms of my personal brief, I want to look into sustainability and ethical materials, Today we roam around in hundreds of thousands of miles of cotton, I want my clothing company to promote environmentally friendly fabrics, specifically looking at hemp.

What Is Hemp
Hemp is a term reserved mainly for low tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) varieties of the plant Cannabis sativa. Of the approximately 2000 cannabis plants varieties known, about 90% contain only low-grade THC and are most useful for their fiber, seeds and medicinal or psychoactive oils. Hemp is one of the earliest domesticated plants known.

In modern times hemp is used for industrial purposes including paper, textiles, clothing, biodegradable plastics, construction, body products, health food and bio-fuel. Hemp is thus legally grown in many countries across the world including Spain, China, Japan, Korea, France, North Africa and Ireland. Although hemp is commonly associated with marijuana (hemp's THC-rich cousin), since 2007 the commercial success of hemp food products has grown considerably.

Interesting Facts about hemp

 

 

http://www.hempfarm.org
For Starters:

-Farmers around the world grow hemp. Legally. And they've been doing so for thousands of years. View a timeline of hemp throughout history.

-Hemp is a plant grown from a seed. It can get up to 15 to 20 or so feet tall. It is an annual, herbaceous, long fibre plant similar to flax (linen), jute and ramie.

-It's the sister plant to marijuana but it won't get you high. However, it's good at doing almost anything else except making you 'high'. You'll learn more about its versatility in this document.

-Although hemp and marijuana are both from the cannabis species, hemp contains virtually no THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.) If you smoke hemp you will likely get a headache. You will not get 'high'. Its THC level is less than 1%, whereas marijuana may contain between 5 - 15%.

-Its seeds are pressed for oil that can be used for food (salad dressings, supplements, etc.), industrial lubrication, diesel fuel, paints, varnishes and more.

-Hemp is a distinct variety of the plant species cannabis sativa L.

-Hemp is among the oldest industries on the planet, going back more than 10,000 years to the beginnings of pottery.

-The Columbia History of the World states that the oldest relic of human industry is a piece of Mesopotamian hemp fabric dating back to approximately 8,000 BC.

-For more than a century, hemp was legal tender to pay American taxes.

-Over 600,000 acres of hemp grow worldwide today. Over 8,500 acres were grown in Canada in 2008.

Fibres, Fabric & Clothing:

-The agriculture world’s longest and most durable natural fibres are hemp’s ‘bast’ fibres, contained in the bark of the plant’s stalk.

-CinemaSpace, in Montreal, is Canada's first cinema to use hemp fabric to cover its seats.

-In 1853, the first pair of Levi’s jeans was made. Due to a fire in the Levis archives (San Francisco's Great Earthquake and Fire - 1906 ) it can no longer be proven, but many believe the first pair of Levis were made from hemp.

-The word canvas (traditionally made from hemp) comes from cannabis (Latin). This word comes from kaneh-bosem, Hebrew for ‘aromatic cane’.

-Un-dyed hemp fabric will not rot and won’t fade in sunlight.

-Hemp is anti-microbial, anti-mildew, naturally UV resistant and readily takes on eco-safe plant-based dyes.

-Frequently blended with cotton, silk, tencel, bamboo, spandex and other fibres to make a wide variety of fabrics with various attractive properties. It is also an efficient insulator keeping you warm in winter and cool in summer.

Compared to Cotton:

-Environmentally, hemp is a safer crop to grow than cotton. Cotton is a soil-damaging crop and needs a great deal of fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides.

-Cotton crops in the USA occupy 1% of the country’s farmland but use 50% of all pesticides. "The pesticides used on cotton, whether in the U.S. or oversees, are some of the most hazardous available today," says Doug Murray, Ph.D., a professor of sociology at Colorado State University who has studied pesticide use on cotton overseas.

-1 acre of hemp will produce as much as 2-3 acres of cotton.

-Hemp is 4 times warmer than cotton, 4 times more water absorbent, has 3 times the tensile strength of cotton. It is also many times more durable and is flame retardant.

-Many high fashion clothing manufacturers have produced clothes and footwear made with hemp. Some of these include: Nike, Converse, Armani, Patagonia, Polo Ralph Lauren, Oscar de la Renta and many more.

-Hemp fabrics were once far more expensive than cotton and other fabrics due to limited supply, but increased demand and availability in recent years have lowered the price considerably.

-Hemp breathes well and wicks moisture away from the body better than cotton.

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I've done alot of research into wholesale suppliers of hemp within the u.k and sources abroad in China, In comparison to cotton it seems rather hard to get hold of! There's suppliers out there but negotiating an overall price for a bulk load seems to be quite difficult, I've done some research into different places that just stock meters of hemp material. As a compromise I could collaborate with some of my friends in fashion/textiles and get the t-shirts made from scratch ready to print on.

The companies below, I've emailed to inquire about wholesale prices. As I'll want around 10/20 shirts to keep costs down I need to buy in bulk so finding a cheap but reasonable supplier is essential. My mandatory requirements are 10 printed t-shirts, but realistically I think half of them will turn out to be test pieces and mock ups.

 

http://www.envirotextile.com/hemp-apparel/hemp-t-shirts/ 

 

 

http://www.onnotextiles.com
 

 

http://www.hemptraders.com

 

The website below sells all sorts of hemp products including, rope, webbing yarn and sheet fabric. I want to keep the packaging as ethical as possible, and sticking with a consistent hemp theme I was thinking of using the yarn to tie tags and labels to the garments I produce. 

 

Collaboration // Retail Graphics : Shop Research

On Friday me and Sadie ventured into town to start gathering ideas and opportunities for our shop exhibition/retail graphics brief. Our main port of call was Urban outfitters purely because this had been a shop that stuck in our minds in terms of creative and diverse ways of arranging and manipulating a shops interior.

Me and Sadie had found we slightly jumped the gun in terms of starting research and producing practical work prior to finding our audience. We thought that if we could find a store who was willing to let us produce work for them it would really help us to define our subject matter and target market, helping the design process run much more smoothly.

We tried to chat to as many shops as possible proposing our ideas and the brief we had written, we had a lot of positive responses but we found finding the right people to talk to was hard in bigger more commercial stores. In Republic we got chatting to one assistant who gave us the details for the head office and showed us a couple of big walls that he personally felt were very empty. If we could pursue an opportunity with Republic I think we could produce some intriguing work for them, we plan to take the details we received and put together some proposal boards to take down to their head office.

Below are a few images of the interior of Urban Outfitters on the high street looking at the existing ways they use retail graphics, installations and artwork to decorate and emphasize their brand.



Below are again some images of Republic, one of the stores we had the most positive response from. We noticed that some of their signage for the changing rooms didn't necessarily correspond to their signage and way finding for other aspects of the store, this could be something to think of in terms of proposal boards.


Best, is a small independent clothing store that's just expanded to having a 3rd floor. They're small and have a much more personal aura rather than a big commercial high street shop, so I would feel much more comfortable producing work for them. We were shown around and pointed out to specific spaces they suggested we could work with, however it seemed like we would be only given the opportunity to re-design their way finding which wasn't exactly what we had in mind.

Below are a few pictures of On the wall, a shop that sells a selection of prints and t-shirts, not exactly a clothing store but always worth an ask. We got chatting to one of the managers who said they wanted knew signage producing, however it was using their existing design, so me and Sadie would be left with nothing to produce.








Below is a window installation and Louis Vuitton, good example of creative window display.

The images below are from a small clothing shop in the arcades that's actually owned by all saints. When we planned our brief me and Sadie wanted to work with the subject matter anatomy and mechanics so when walking past the window we immediately stopped. The walls were decorated with photocopies of Victorian newspapers that were tea stained, old photo frames and animal skulls.

Collaboration // Retail Graphics : Subject Matter

So far me and Sadie have had multiple meetings discussing our brief, talking about our ideas for wall pieces, exhibitions, installations and research.


High street shops entice customers into purchasing their products, by providing an environment that can become associated with the act of buying into their label. Explore how retail graphics, installations and exhibitions are used within shops to suit and compliment the shops content, layout and aura.

-A mixed media investigation of retail graphics and shop interiors with a focus on anatomy and mechanics. Using screen-print and laser cutting we want to look into multi-layered posters, wall hangings and 3 dimensional pieces of print. This will be proposed to a high street shop tailoring our ideas to a specific audience.

Skill set: Digital Illustration, Hand Rendered Illustration, working to exhibit, screen-printing, laser-cut

Below is some research into the sort of areas we'd like to exploring, clarifying our proposals for experimental print methods and subject matter.

I came across the artist Josip Kelava who is a graphic designer who works with both type and image. Me and Sadie had discussed focusing our project on Anatomy and mechanics so the illustrations in the publication below really caught my eye.

http://www.josipkelava.com

 

http://www.danielcarey.co.uk/

These double layer prints caught my eye because of how detailed they are, In terms of illustration I feel as if I use the same principals, focusing on intricate details and line work.

The Graffiti artist below Nychos dismantles his subject matter and separates them out into anatomical layers, i.e the skin, muscles arteries and capillaries, veins, and bones.

http://rabbiteyemovement.tumblr.com

Another massive inspiration, is Leonardo Da Vinci, his anatomical drawings are something I've previously done research into and they still amaze me. I think his initial sketches are really good reference material in understanding the body in terms of drawing, proportion and position.

 

Another graffiti artist that came to into my mind was Roa, He paints mainly black and white characters, looking at animals and anatomy. Even though we want to focus on human anatomy I thought some of his pieces were really relevant. 

roaweb.tumblr.com

Collaboration // Signwriting

Whilst researching into animal anatomy at Leeds archives I came across some really good material for mine and James's collaboration looking at sign writing and traditional British signage. The signs below are really good examples of the style of work we want to produce. 

Collaboration // Retail Graphics : The royal Armouries and Leeds Archives

On Friday to start pushing mine and Sadie's Collaborative Brief forwards we arranged a trip to Leeds archives to Look at bones, anatomy and taxonomy. Our brief is focused around a shop installation piece, with the subject matter or anatomy and mechanics and how they cross reference each other so we got some really good reference material to get started with.

Leeds Archives - Animal Anatomy

 

Animal Heads/Plaques

 

 

The Royal ArmoriesThis was such a good experience, we got to watch a live samurai demonstration whilst re-searching at the same time. I Found the museum quite depressing by the end of it, as I realized that everything I was looking at had one design purpose only, which was to kill. But after looking at hundreds of guns, swords and knives I got some really good Ideas of incorporating some of these items into some of mine and Sadie's drawings of animal skulls etc.