Summer Brief

Personal Camouflage

click below to view images from presentation

Part 1:

Over the summer you are required to design your own personal camouflage. Your camouflage will be made up of shapes that represent you and your identity. These shapes will come from your personal history represented by a timeline of 5 objects. For example you may represent yourself by your life in mobile phones, houses, trainers, t-shirts, glasses, jewellery, books, consoles, mp3 players; anything that has 5 incarnations or generations.

I am not looking for abstract shapes as on traditional camouflage; this is camouflage with a hidden message.

Consider your use of colour: will it be traditional army khaki, sandy desert shades or navy greys? Maybe you do not want any association with military colours and you can select other more appropriate colours to reflect the message about yourself in the pattern. You may want to consider incorporating typography into your design – but ensure it still functions as a pattern.

You will set up a blog and upload it with research and development into camouflage patterns, colours and uses. Examine how the shapes interact and overlap. Research artists and designers such as Michael Craig-Martin, Patrick Caulfield and Graphic Thought Facility’s Branding for the Design Museum. Research the historical origins of camouflage in Vorticism and Cubism. Sketch out and develop your designs and scan/photograph them and post to your blog. Always leave a comment whenever you post something online. There are no excuses for not accessing a blog over summer – if you do not have a computer or internet access at home, then use an app on your mobile or a computer at a library to update your blog.

Your final pattern can be either hand rendered or drawn on a computer.

Part 2:

Select one of the objects used that represents you and your personal history. Ideally your object should be portable and fit in a bag or box that you can comfortably carry into college.

You then need to camouflage it using your pattern. It is entirely up to you how you cover your object – you can wrap it, stencil it, paint it, etc. These are decisions you need to experiment with to see which works the best.

You need to have completed your blog and bring your camouflaged object into the first day of induction (TBC) at the FEED Studio. There will be prizes for the best designs!