Edward Cobb Statement
My journey towards applying for this course has not been conventional. I followed drama, economics and music for my A Levels but I now realise that design is the path I want to follow in life. I have therefore created this portfolio on my own at home over the last couple of months having finished my formal art and design training at GCSE.
I am inspired by fashion designer Tom Ford whose creative journey, like mine, has not been a straight line. He started studying architecture then moved to fashion design and is now a film-maker. He is quoted as saying "Fashion is everything: Art, music, furniture design, graphic design, hair, makeup, architecture, the way cars look - all these things go together to make a moment in time, and that's what excites me." My mind is constantly creatively busy. I create music, perform, act, sing and play guitar; I am a photographer, artist and designer. All of my interests interlink and feed each other.
I am inspired by the Bauhaus School of Art and their ideology of function over form, a philosophy I kept in mind when designing my portable chair. I chose Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe as the designer that I researched for my architecture project. The Bauhaus is still influential today for example their design philosophy influenced Jony Ive at Apple whose designs also inspire me.
I love the design of vintage hi-fi audio products, I have a collection of vintage B&O record decks and speakers. I collect vinyl and love the cover designs. I also collect old film cameras which I use for photography because of the analogue quality. I love the designs of vintage racing cars which I have photographed in the pit lane at Goodwood Revival and Goodwood Festival of Speed.
I like to carry all these ideas and influences though into my work as I inspire to create functional designs which are timeless but experimental. All of these influences have taught me to look outside of the box, at all disciplines and methods to create my work and I feel that this makes me a natural fit for a Product Design BA course.
Architecture project
In this project I researched modernism and Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe and the materials he used to influence my own designs. I combined this with the Bauhaus principles of function over form to create designs which are visually interesting and purposeful. I looked at the spaces and forms of modernist architecture and I tried to create forms for buildings from them. I used different mediums, different inspirations and different materials. The influences include rock formations, modernist and cubist art, natural forms and architects like Ludwig Mies van Der Rohe.
Product Design Project
This project aimed to design space-efficient, collapsible and portable seating. These are developmental pages containing ideas for forms, shapes, materials, mechanisms and colour. Using a range of influences for example origami and Buckminster Fuller.
The left-hand page is a development of different collapsable mechanisms for the furniture I have designed, focussing on a more mechanical implementation of my design. The two right pages display more examples of ideas for furniture, mechanisms, materials, form, shape and colour.
I studied a book called ‘Your Private Sky” by Buckminster Fuller and designed some furniture ideas and material ideas based on his architectural work. I especially liked the idea of tubular steel which reminded me of the way scaffolding holds together.
This section also displays the physical models I have created of the various designs I have come up with. These models are made of a combination of foam board, cardboard and nuts and screws. This shows the development of ideas and how they would look in 3d. It also prototyped ideas for collapsable mechanisms for example the the nut and bolt screw on the chair stand and the folding stool.
Fashion Project
For fashion design, I looked at eras and icons. I chose the 1960s as I have always been fascinated by that decade. This is due to it being a time of change and revolution that saw the emergence of different cultures, lifestyles and experimentation. I looked at different aspects, for example, the hippie movement, Woodstock, drugs such as mushrooms and LSD, cults and the emergence of communes that held ideals that aligned with communism, band artwork, nature, pop art, imagery of London architecture and graffiti from the time, Andy Warhol, newspapers and psychedelic art.
Photography Project
This section shows the photography I took at Goodwood Revival of people in costume and Festival of Speed of cars and racing drivers
Identity Project
Illustration Project
My illustration project is entitled Superstitions and Phobias. These are multimedia sketchbooks pages containing ideas for different superstitions and phobias. These include the evil eye, whistling inside invites evil and broken mirrors cause bad luck. I have used different mediums for example collage, paint, coloured pencil, ballpoint pen and pencil.
Conflict Project
This slide marks the start of my conflict project. I researched John Piper and Henry Moore and wartime landmarks and events. I took photos of Cowdray Castle Ruins which I then developed using techniques inspired by John Piper in various studies. I used old books to paint on to create texture and I used wax crayons and paint. I also used sandpaper to create further textures.
