Part of our trips with class we visited the National Museum of Scotland, a place I’ve been visiting since a child. It’s been a while since I was there actually and was refreshing to see everything done up and changed. The building itself is stunning to look at with the main traditional hall.
There is such a variety of things to see there that I can barely pick one set section that gave me inspiration and ideas.
Looking at the Natural World section has always been a favourite, especially with the T.Rex welcoming you in. We are in a world filled with nature and inspired by it for thousands of years, and even today we take inspiration from it.
Kelly Knox designs prosthetics for people but has not taken on the exciting path of personalising the prosthetic to the client, giving them something more personal for themselves. The piece on display was stunning with its natural design. I found it very interesting that she didn’t keep to using a normal hand but some sort of vine. It’s eye catching and daring, making you look and either feel okay with or uncomfortable.
I think this is something people with prosthetics must deal with, having people look at them feeling uncomfortable or with pity. I personally find this amazing and really fascinates me. It’s about replacing a limb but enhancing the body as well.
For a while I wanted to be a fashion or costume designer as I love the creativeness there is when making clothes. You can stick to the basics and make lovely designs or go off the track and create designs that wow and stun the world.
Pattern is important to near all designs of clothing as it gives it more depth and design. I love this dress here as it first tricked me into thinking it was made of folding the fabric to hide the pattern, giving it this layered hidden effect. But it’s part of the pattern, something I’ve never seen used before. The dress is a very basic design, but the pattern gives it so much more. A simple design can easily be changed around with some slight of hand and patterns.
Material in this world right now is important as we are desperately needing to reduce and reuse if we want this planet to survive. Using the plastic in this dress was really fascinating to me as I’ve seen plastic been reused before in clothing but using it in tiny triangle tiles was something very different in my eyes. It reminds me of mosaics but also digital design with basic use of colours and shapes. Could this be recreated with recycled plastics?
A classic stylised poster by H.G. Gawthorn, with his timeless use of flat colours build such depth to his work. I’m personally inspired by his works because of how her uses flat colours to create his work, yet it is just as detailed than something with multiple layers of more colours. Designs today seem to be going back to the simplistic use of a few flat colours. I don’t believe we will recreate posters in this style but it’s interesting to know designers today may be influenced by these works.
I personally found this funny to look at as this phone in the picture is of a Motorola 1987, beside it its my Motorola 2016. It’s almost 30 years older than my current phone but shows 30 years of designs and evolution of technology. Look at how far we’ve came from; buttons and no screen to screen and no buttons. And lets not forget the size of the thing compared to its modern counterpart. Technology is growing so fast right now that it makes me wonder what the next Motorola in 30 years’ time will look like. Will my phone be the one in the museum?
This design caught my eye instantly because of unique it is but shows what its came from. Keeping the plate beside it was a great idea as it shows it origin but whereabout on the plate each piece if from. The necklace is a piece of art but so is the place as it looks as if the necklace has been plucked right off it because of how each piece has been taken out, leaving the negative space look like a lying necklace. Again it’s an interesting use of reusing existing materials.
I took these photos as it inspired me for our current group project on creating an alternative tourist experience of Edinburgh. Showing small tokens and booklets of the events made me think of how I might incorporate that into the groups idea that we have. Take inspiration from those before you.
Going to the National Museum of Scotland was really interesting, unfortunately I didn’t get to the other side of the museum to the tower area. But I have time to see them all another time. There was so much that I could go on about; the historical tapestries, designs from other cultures, sculptures and precious rocks from all over the world.