PPP: Working alongside Elina Pagett Designs

Recently I received an email over facebook from a friend asking whether I was open for commissions and whether I was interested in having my illustrations turned into badges. Elina is a Birmingham City University student who studies Fashion Design, having seen my most recent work on instagram Elina reached out to ask whether I had time to work on illustrations for her.
This is something that John has spoke about in class before, being careful about who you do free work for especially in friend circles. However Elina's work is going to be exhibited at london fashion week as well as being documented on several fashion bloggers blogs, so I decided to commit to the project with the hopes that someone would see the work and like it or that Elina would come back to me at some point to collaborate again.

Here is a snapshot of what she asked from me, she liked my basic illustration type (my line work basically) so that's what I agreed to make for her.

I started off by sketching basic designs in photoshop, since investing in my mac I can now use my wacom at home which was nice because now I have more time to advance my digital skills (and nice for briefs like this which need a quick turn around). 

((INSERT SCREENSHOT HERE)) 

They didn't take me particularly long and I had them back to her within her deadline of the 14th, although working on the bra's took a really long time to get right so they almost missed the deadline



Here are the finished illustrations (or can be seen bigger at Wadespace.wordpress.com) I was relatively pleased with them, some of them I coloured in to make a bit more interesting (such as the lighters and washing up gloves) but the rest were left as linework so that they would go through the embroidery machine faster. I've yet to receive the full photography of the finished product but Elina sent me over some ones that she took herself, which I was really pleased with because it showed how my work could be applied to actual real life things.



Elina herself was really pleased with the illustrations as they were exactly what she was after. Although this wasn't a professional brief, both of us are hoping to become professionals in the next few months so having this collaboration between us was what I hope is the beginning of something that might progress more in the future.
I had never thought about my illustrations been turned into badges or for embroidery before, my personal embroidery style is completely different to my illustration style so having them merge together was something nice for me because rather than sticking to embroidery I realise now that my style works if I were to get someone to make badges for me.