The development of digital printing is a major change within the textile design process as a designer is no longer restricted to number of colours, repeat patterns, may include photographic images and intricate detail, and can print between a metre, or hundreds of metres, at the click of a button. However, there is a marked difference between screen-colour and print-colour. A textile designer using Computer Aided Design to create a design will be required to experiment with a number of variables in order feel confident about the colour outcome. The range of printing machines, and the methods that they use to apply and represent colour, can impede the designer’s sense of understanding within the process. A user may choose from a variety of image editing software and print via inkjet or thermal dye sublimation processes onto an assortment of fabrics. Thus, my research inquiry will consider how designers can ensure colour assurance when digitally printing through an exploration of existing colour tools and methods. The aim is to produce an accessible colour toolkit for practitioners that may not have access to highly technical equipment and software, providing specific knowledge as to how designers can achieve and maintain colour assurance and accuracy. In order to test this, I will identify, from archival and primary sources, a particular colour palette, that was used in the domestic interior of British homes in the interwar period, the time of Britain’s house building boom when homeownership and interior decoration were made available to the masses. Colour creation entered a chemical sphere with the introduction of bright colours that came with them. Through deconstructing and observing colour use in interior textiles from this key era in the development of British interior design, I can inform the construction of colour use in a digital age.
Supervision Team: Professor Carinna Parraman (Director of Studies), Dr Matthew Partington and Dr Simon Clarke (Falmouth)
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email: Becky.gooby@uwe.ac.uk
