Flo Yexley – The creator of the 2nd 2018 Colour in Design Award
What was it like to be asked to make a Colour in Design Award?
It was a great privilege to be asked to make the colour in design award. Throughout my final year at university I worked extremely hard to create work that I am proud of which, I believe I succeeded in. Then for a very well respected award to pick me out of the many graduate designers of this year it was a very big surprise!
What were the biggest challenges you had when making the award?
The biggest challenge that I faced whilst making the award was teaching myself to shoot and edit videos, as this was the first video I have created.
I envisioned a smooth slow flow of the inks blending uniquely together shot in high quality to capture the folding inks. This idea was hard to take, as once the ink hit the water I had a very small time frame to shoot the falling ink. However, after experimenting with the lighting, focus and cameras, it was a great moment when the video shot just as I had wished.
The next challenge came to editing, this evolved teaching myself a software I had not learnt before, Adobe Premiere Pro. After watching many YouTube videos, seeking friend’s advice and gaining a general understanding of the basic features I had fun experimenting with the depths of this software to create a fluid video.
The whole process enabled me to push my design work even further and into a design field I hadn’t thought of venturing into. As I am a printed textiles designer everything that I have previously made has been flat on a textiles surface, so this brief was a great chance push my design skills into something different and challenge my design knowledge to make this happen.
Have you got any creative advice for the next person who makes the award?
Enjoy the creative challenge of pushing colour in new and innovative ways. Marianne Shillingford has a great eye for spotting creative ways of experimenting with colour and really helped me to reach the end goal. I would advise the next creative to soak up her comments in her tutorials, as she will pick up on something you will not have thought of but it will make a great outcome!