Enjoy,

Jeff
The Chief Laughing Raven

The new site will integrate everything, website, blog, all of it, with one unified look, feel, and navigation. The goal is to give you easy access to everything I’m doing. So, please bear with me for the time being. It shouldn’t take too long to get the new site up and running but I felt I owed you an explanation for the crazy transitions happening right now.

Tks,
Jeff

For this installment, we fix a mistake I made in Part 3, and learn more techniques with the Pen tool, and the direct select tool. Line is extremely important in functional garments and you see what having the right line does to the overall look and appeal of the piece.

These flats have been field tested and proven to be effective in garment manufacturing facilities in Asia so they work. Watch them, follow along, learn them, and make them better. If you’re responsible for tech packs or any other documents that go to a factory, add this into those and your life will get much easier.

So here we go, Part 4 of 10 parts. Feedback is welcomed so let me know if you have any questions and don’t forget to look at the notes directly underneath the video.

Notes: 3 Tips for Mastering Illustrator for Apparel Design

• Always be aware of how your seam lines flow across the garment. Make sure to get them lined up correctly at crossing seams and always adjust your lines so that manufacturers can understand what you’re instructing them to do.
• Keep seam line weights consistent. Make the outer framing lines heavier than the rest, interior seam lines all one width, and top stitch lines the lightest.
• You can get the pdf files to work through these videos on your own right here: womensJacket100-Complete

Thanks again and come back for more. Parts 5-10 coming soon.

Jeff
The Chief Laughing Raven

Though I’ve often considered writing about it, it’s only now that I find myself beginning that practice. Research of the last week or so has turned up a a standout blog called The Sartorialist and another that makes sense to me, A Suitable Wardrobe. Both are worth checking out if you don’t know them. If you do, and I’m way behind, my apologies.

What really brought this full circle for me is the latest issue of Monocle Magazine. If you’re unfamiliar with this publication, it’s based in London, with offices sprinkled across the globe and now retail shops that sell a small variety of items such as signature luggage, fragrances, and stationary just to name a few. The magazine has always intrigued me on the stands, but this is the first time I’ve ever purchased a copy. They are quite thick – this July/August issue is 250 pages, and smaller in dimension than most standard magazine. What I really now like about it is that it’s a very international magazine, covering stories and topics from around the world. I get to peak into cafes in Australia, see what’s up at a local grocer in Athens (Greece, not Ohio), and learn much more than I ever knew about one of my favorite cities, Florence, Italy.

And what I want to call your attention to is this video, highlighting some of the trends at this years Fall Pitti Uomo show, held Feb 2011.

The trend I’m really digging is “Urban Mountaineering”. I’ve worked on a few clothing lines that have strived to mix technical garment pieces with traditional foundations and I still have the only sample in the known universe of a Harris Tweed, suede-elbow-patched, single vent jacket with totally technical innards. The lining was borrowed from a technical outwear piece, complete with mesh gear holders, zipped pockets, and wind-stop technology.

Two companies highlighted in the video are Canada Goose and Arc’teryx, both Canadian companies enjoying a renaissance of sorts as this trend starts to get some traction. The Arc’tereyx rep talks about “garments as tools”, and reimagining for the urban environment. To me, this is right on target and the underlying thought process is key. Being able to take a look at history while understanding and embracing the hottest new technology is where menswear can begin to grow, in my humble opinion.

Adding a great tech vest under a tweed jacket with a bold scarf rocks. Or step out in some of the newly imagined hiking boots you’ll see in the video. With a bit of color and humor, they’re not just for the dusty trail anymore. Wear them in the urban jungle, on your hikes to the office, or showroom, or studio.

So, is there a new revival in menswear? While the answer certainly won’t come from this one video, or from this article, I’m going to go with the proponents of this look and this trend and say that this can be a way to breathe some new life into an almost dead industry. Men – and I don’t care who you are or what you do – like to look good. We like to feel good with what we wear and we like to know that others take notice.

The Video – Monocle Pitti Uomo News Report

Thanks for stopping by,

Jeff
The Chief Laughing Raven

These flats have been field tested and proven to be effective in garment manufacturing facilities in Asia so they work. Watch them, follow along, learn them, and make them better. If you’re responsible for tech packs or any other documents that go to a factory, add this into those and your life will get much easier.

So here we go, Part 3 of 10 parts. Feedback is welcomed so let me know if you have any questions and don’t forget to look at the notes directly underneath the video.

Notes: 3 Tips for Mastering Illustrator for Apparel Design

• Use ergonomic seam lines in your design to draw the eye in and down, which creates a slimming look.
• The Pen Tool will attach the new line you’re drawing to the previous line’s end point unless you lock down the first.
• Remember to group like items and elements to give yourself a more efficient workspace. I’ll continue to emphasize this one.

Thanks again and come back for more. Parts 4-10 coming soon. And in fact, Part 4 is ready! Move ahead to it right here: Part 4

Jeff
The Chief Laughing Raven

In this video we get more involved with the Direct Select Tool and technical design basics that you need to know. These flats have been field tested and proven to be effective in garment manufacturing facilities in Asia so they work. Watch them, follow along, learn them, and make them better. If you’re responsible for tech packs or any other documents that go to a factory, add this into those and your life will get much easier.

So here we go, Part 2 of 10 parts. Feedback is welcomed so let me know if you have any questions and don’t forget to look at the notes directly underneath the video.

Notes: 3 Tips for Mastering Illustrator for Apparel Design

• The Direct Select Tool allows you to make very precise adjustments.
• Use Zoom! Zoom into your sketch and get closeup on your work. The more precisely you place your seam and stitch lines, the more professional your sketches look.
• Where your top stitch lines sit is important. The side they are on is the side your seam allowances are folded to and they do make the seam line look either on top of, or inset into the other piece.

Thanks again and come back for more. Parts 3-10 coming soon.

Jeff
Chief Laughing Raven

In this video we dive into the design of a technical flat for a warm-up jacket.  These flats have been field tested and proven to be effective in garment manufacturing facilities in Asia so they work.  Watch them, follow along, learn them, and make them better.  If you’re responsible for tech packs or any other documents that go to a factory, add this into those and your life will get much easier.

So here we go, Part 1 of 10 parts.  Feedback is welcomed so let me know if you have any questions and don’t forget to look at the notes directly underneath the video.

Notes: 3 Tips for Mastering Illustrator for Apparel Design

• Get to know the Pen tool well. It is your most powerful ally in Illustrator.
• Use varying line weights. Seam lines should be heavier than stitch lines – make those lighter and play with dash lengths until you have what looks best.
• Design as mirror images. Create a line on one side, copy it, flip it, and move it into place on the other side of the garment.

Thanks again and come back for more. Parts 2-10 coming soon.

Jeff
Chief Laughing Raven

Thanks for stopping by and I hope this quick tutorial helps you. Any time you’re working with technical flats, always try to devise ways to make quick work of repeatable tasks. The design cubes are a great way to do just that.

Jeff

Enjoy and stay tuned for the rest.  This is the overview to 11 videos in total for this set. You can move on to Part 1 right here: Part 1

If you want to see the rest now, shuffle on over to youTube and check out my channel: http://bit.ly/kLO08a

And… I’m including the pdf from the tutorials here for you to grab and work along with. ***** womensJacket100-Complete

Thanks for stopping by and please don’t be shy about adding comments. The best way for me to help is to know what your challenges are. Here is that link for Part 1 again

In 1982 I went to New York to study Menswear Design and Marketing at The Fashion Institute of Technology.  One week into the course I knew I was home.  Here were people who thought like I did.  When I’d mention something that was in my head, they had similar stories and could relate to me.  They didn’t look at me like I had three heads – they looked at me like a brother.  We were all there for the same reason – we all had a passion for creating beautiful things and getting them out to the world.

Design school – no matter what the curriculum or where it is – teaches us how to think in different ways.  It teaches us that above all else, form and function do go together – they are like two sides of a coin and the edge is what holds them together.  Of all that I learned and have practiced in the – wow, almost 30 years – since I left those halls and classrooms, these 5 things are the ones that have stuck with me and proved themselves to be needed in every project I’ve worked on.  From designing a course catalog for Queens College, to determining the right balance of colors to use in a textile print, to designing user interfaces at The Pentagon, these principles are what I believe should build the foundation of every designer’s discipline.

5 Things Design School Taught Me

1.  Research – This is number one for a reason.  Without it you will fail.  Research gets you to the heart of any design challenge.  Never go into a project without first researching everything.  Find out about your client or customer.  Find out about materials to be used.  Find out about competition.  Find out about resources.  Find out what has worked in the past and why.  Find out what current best practices in your industry are and tie them into the research. Ask intelligent questions and you will get the best answers.  All the digging you do and all the info you gather gives you the power to ask the intelligent questions.  Never go into a project without thorough research.

2.  Conviction – If you don’t believe what you’re doing, nobody else will.  This spins off of your research.  The more prepared you are, the stronger your conviction can be.  And many times this will come from previous projects of a similar nature.  You know what you’re proposing will work because you’ve made it work.  This can be while standing at a showroom table with the design director and other designers.  They want to know why you believe what you’re showing will work.  They want to know why you’ve chosen those particular colors or that font face, or that material, or that snap closure for the pocket.

And I’ll tell you something else around this too – sometimes these things just come down to a gut feeling.  And don’t be afraid to say that either.  Some of the greatest design successes have come down to a feeling someone has about something.  When others feel that your intuition guided you strongly, they will listen.

Now – other side of that particular coin.  Sometimes you will be wrong.  And that’s okay.  Ralph was never always right.  Mr. Sagmeister hasn’t always picked the winner.  And I guarantee you that Raymond Loewy had some bombs.  It’s from these mistakes and errors in judgement that we learn to get really, really good at what we do.

3.  Space – And I’m not talking about the final frontier.  Well, maybe I am.  Space is a crazy thing – either you need it or you don’t.  “I just need some space,” your significant other will tell you when you thought everything was going along quite well.   I started out that way because I’m really grasping for how to explain this one to you.  If you’re a graphic artist you know that when you group things together tightly in space they form a group.  When you’re an architect you know that when you put a higher ceiling in a smallish room, the additional 3 dimensional space makes the room feel bigger – even though the additional cubic footage is for the most part unusable.  Or think even about the modernist movement in architecture – what Neutra, Schindler and a few others brought to us and Julius Shulman so brilliantly captured.  Glass walls, huge windows, open flowing interior spaces.  In relatively minuscule amounts of square footage, they made you feel like you were living in the middle of a wide open field – they cleverly used an absence of familiar details to create the illusion of limitless space.

4.  Balance - Life always seeks balance and that holds true for everything we design.  There’s symmetry and asymmetry.  There’s the Golden Ratio and Rectangle.  Balance is a factor of space in that you can use the space to achieve certain types of balance.  Look at a Rothko and study the way he achieved balance.  Look at some of Milton Glaser’s work and the way in which he mastered balance in his work.  You can invoke feelings by unbalancing some things – they might not be good feelings, but you can do it.  Balance creates a feeling of rightness and peace.  Balance in design is a psychological trigger that either confirms or denies someone’s belief about what should be.  This holds true in all disciplines of design – clothing, industrial, graphics, etc.  An Issey Miyake suit has a different balance than a Chanel, yet they both achieve a balance that speaks to their customer.

5.  Communication – You have to learn how to talk to people.  People are the same all over the world – they like to be treated with respect and they like to be heard.  When you ask a question to clarify a point, really listen to the answer.  Watch to see if the response elicits emotion from your client, boss, director, team…  What’s coming out?  Is it passion?  Then you know you need to figure out a way to align with that passion.  Is it angst and conflict.  Then you know you need to get to the bottom of that, find the pain, and offer the solution.

Present as much as you can visually, whether in print, in fabric, or in Lincoln Logs.  Visuals get through quicker and with more understanding than words.  Paint a picture for your audience and when that’s not possible – you’ll know what those circumstances are – tell a story.  The power of story is coming back around to us.  There are countless articles on the web about using story to get your point across.  And now a big thing is canning the traditional resume and writing your bio.  Bravo to that!  Do it and stand out from the sheep.  Communicate well and be trusted.

Although I put Research as the big number 1, the rest aren’t in any particular order.  And these are my thoughts.  These are my impressions as I look back over my career and think about the lessons learned and triumphs achieved.  I’ve been around the block and I’ve been around the world.  If you get some insight from this, then I’m a happy camper.  My research came from my experience, and I have a conviction about what’s worked for me.  I hope I used this space well and gave you a balanced article.  If I have failed to communicate something, please let me know, and let’s start a conversation.

Thanks for stopping by,

Jeff