Exploring Innovative Decorative Features in Textiles

1. Teachers notes – Decorative features Background – Pupils are encouraged to express their individuality here and design an unique or innovative decorative feature for the bag. Possible teaching/discussion pointe.g. class discussion centred on what is meant by an original design or an innovative decorative feature. Pupils are give an opportunity to evaluate pre-prepared samples or bags previously made from the handling collection. They are also encouraged to make trial decorative samples using paper and sugar paper and stitching these to see what they can create. This also helps with their machining skills without using expensive resources. Possible teaching/discussion pointe.g. a range of techniques are demonstrated to pupils – decorative stitches, methods of building up stitches, using pre-cut laser shapes to make individualistic decorative designs. Concepts related to proportion are reiterated

2. Background – The importance of colour in the design and development of products. 1. Possible teaching/discussion point e.g. Discussion about why colour is such an important aspect of any product we buy. Colours having gender biases etc. A short introduction to colour prediction and their awareness of colour trends. The importance of combining colour that work well together. A guide to using contrasting colour in proportion to each e.g. one contrasting colour can dominate with the other colour used in a smaller quantity. Or the safer route of using complimentary colour and where they are found on the colour wheel. Background – Pupils are given an opportunity to evaluate pre-prepared colour combination. 1. Possible teaching/discussion point e.g. Discussion of which of the 8 exemplar digital samples on the presentation slide follow or break with the colour guidelines previously discussed. Pupils are encouraged to place various colours together and develop a intuition of which colours “go” together.

3. Background – This sounds a little brief but it is really the essence of what we want the pupils to take on board - “Less is more”. Possible teaching/discussion pointe.g. Often pupils first instinct, is to use too many decorative features. The presentation slide reinforces that care is needed in selection of decorative features, and colours need to work together. Pupils might need to be reminded that proportion will influence the effectiveness of their design, division of three guidelines could be considered. Background – Test and trial to see what could work. Possible teaching/discussion point e.g. Pupils could try numerous combinations of possible positioning of the decorative features – discuss and select the most attractive layout.

4. Background – Similarly to the previous presentation slide, pupils are encouraged to test and trial . Possible teaching/discussion point e.g. Pupils could try numerous combinations of possible, and apply their knowledge of colour theory and proportion to produce an attractive design that would sell in a high street store.

5. Background – Our laser cutter is on the Upper School site and we have therefore evolved strategies that relate to that fact. We are sometimes able to cut a specific design for a pupil but often logistics make that difficult. Therefore in order for pupils to get a “feel” for our “best toy” we cut out a wide variety of shapes and let the pupils combine them into possible decorative features or logos. Possible teaching/discussion pointe.g. A brief explanation of how a laser works and some exemplar samples of how it has been applied and could be used within Textiles. Possible teaching/discussion pointe.g.Outlying the importance that clear lines is the key to enable designs to be laser cut. 1