Case Study - Andrew Taylor PDF

INTERVIEW WITH A DESIGNER 6.1 Andrew Taylor totems associated with each player and staff Andrew Taylor is the founder of Indigenous members’ heritage from their home states to fashion label Brothaboy, started as a hobby dr...

INTERVIEW WITH A DESIGNER 6.1 Andrew Taylor totems associated with each player and staff Andrew Taylor is the founder of Indigenous members’ heritage from their home states to fashion label Brothaboy, started as a hobby draw inspiration from and influence the final in 2008 and established as a business in design. How do designers evolve culturally appropriate design practices? midland Western Australia in 2012. By bringing the style of art from the players’ Andrew’s aim for the company was to home states, he could tell their stories be more than just a clothing brand: his more authentically and was able to create organisation aimed to inspire Indigenous something that brought the players together students to finish Year 12, obtain business, visually; to bring many nations together retail, design or multimedia nationally to form one, in the spirit of the game. credited qualifications, and to support and Andrew’s aim was to capture as many of enable meaningful and financially rewarding the different Indigenous language groups, careers in the fields of their choice. tribal groups and First Nations players as they come together for the Melbourne As well as his work with Brothaboy, Football Club over the many years in the Andrew runs his own digital design competition. His approach to the design business with an interest in designing First was to incorporate the different symbols Nations-inspired graphics for sporting clubs, and messages that are used for the different businesses, government and community totems in the players’ and staff members’ groups. Highlights include jersey designs hometowns. for major AFL teams, collaboration with international shoe designs for And1, digital designs for football boot company Concave, invitations to engage with international mega star Professor Jimmy Choo, fashion shows in Dubai and showcasing the Brothaboy label in Jakarta at the Mercedes Benz Fashion Show. Melbourne Demons warm-up jersey After being given the brief to design the warm-up jerseys for the Melbourne Demons, Andrew collected as much information as possible from the client to get an understanding of who the design was for and the parameters for the design work. The idea was to create a design that not only represented the Indigenous players on the team, but also the staff of the club which included eight people in all. Andrew’s research included finding out where the players and staff were from in Figure 6.10 The 2022 Melbourne Demons special Australia. Once he had that information, warm-up top, designed by Aboriginal artist, Andrew he researched the different styles of art and Taylor CHAPTER 6 Cultural ownership and design 193 ISBN: 978-1-009-33999-5 Patterson & Saville © Cambridge University Press & Assessment 2023 Photocopying is restricted under law and this material must not be transferred to another party.  And1 basketball shoes Concave football boots Opportunities and connections can provide The football boot project, as Andrew calls design pathways. When Andrew was it, was a collaboration between Andrew and registering his son for basketball, and footwear company Concave to develop the organising his uniform and training gear, he first commercially produced Dreamtime- got talking to the person at registration. This inspired boots. The design was created in happened to be Peter de Rauch, the owner collaboration with Jy Farrar from the Gold and licensee of the international and global Coast Suns, to recognise and celebrate First company And1, which had been enormously Nations athletes, their heritages and cultures influential in street basketball back in the and to acknowledge their contribution and 1990s. After conversations and connecting, influence on Australian sport. an opportunity was identified to get together The message behind the design work is for a common cause. The project involves ‘togetherness’ and is shown through the Peter and Andrew collaborating where following story: Andrew’s designs will be placed onto the templates of street shoes. Ocean to land, The template is the pattern of the shoe Our stories, our songs, including the sole plate, the top pattern Passed on by Elders, and everything else in-between, in which Andrew will apply his surface graphics. Sung for so long, The target audience for this particular shoe Written in the sands, is kids’ sizes 1–7. Not many companies target Sung through the lines, this age bracket, and yet in 2022 there were approximately 8000 students in this age It’s our time to celebrate, group registered for basketball in Victoria. IT’S MY TIME TO SHINE. There is a playful and basketball-themed Concave website, Accessed 25 February approach to the design work, which will be 2023 applied to both basketball boots and casual/ running shoes. Figure 6.11 Concave football boots, and design for the packaging 194 Viscomm Third Edition ISBN: 978-1-009-33999-5 Patterson & Saville © Cambridge University Press & Assessment 2023 Photocopying is restricted under law and this material must not be transferred to another party. The design process yellow or flat red and then place Indigenous These days, Andrew’s process is mainly shapes, symbols or textures through it digital as he has a huge library of digital depending on whether the product is cool vector imagery that he has built over enough and trendy enough to respond to the the years as a designer. He uses Adobe target audience. Illustrator for the program’s ease of changing the scale of images and the application Permissions of arranging his design work on different How do designers evolve culturally appropriate design practices? If wanting to reference a specific style, a presentation formats. He also uses Adobe totem or story, Andrew goes directly to the Photoshop to create imagery. owner of the knowledge to get permission, Andrew works a lot with primary shapes which is usually a phone call. When and Indigenous colours of the land, working on the jersey design for Melbourne bringing in elements of totems and native Demons, he had assistance in obtaining animals and plants, always aware that the permissions due to the large scale of the design must be versatile to be used on a project, specifically as permissions needed to range of final presentation formats, print come from different parts of Australia. and digital applications. Once the design Another example is the honey ants. Andrew is final, Andrew will provide advice on admired the work of an Indigenous artist how the design will work on different who had created beautiful works of honey presentations, such as a poster or shirt. He ants. Interested in using the artist’s work as takes into consideration what type of fabric part of a project, Andrew contacted the artist or materials the design will be produced to explain a concept he was working on and and printed on. For example, rather than asked if he could borrow some of her original have four different types of reds, he may use artworks to use as part of his concept. The a single red colour to keep the costs down artist agreed and shared their work. Andrew for the client. Andrew will usually create acknowledges the work, and the artist gets a three concepts for the client to choose from. commission every time an item is sold. Visually, Andrew likes to put colours of black, red and yellow as the backgrounds ‘It’s common sense … acknowledge and with all of their logos, and a background seek permission.’ that is really texturised rather than a flat Andrew Taylor Figure 6.12 Andrew promotes his designs through his website, Facebook and Instagram name Brothaboy CHAPTER 6 Cultural ownership and design 195 ISBN: 978-1-009-33999-5 Patterson & Saville © Cambridge University Press & Assessment 2023 Photocopying is restricted under law and this material must not be transferred to another party.  Questions for Andrew Can a student designer use Indigenous Where does your inspiration come styles? from? Always acknowledge the influence or where Andrew takes inspiration from history, you are getting the information from. culture and Country. His inspiration ‘There is always going to be layers of develops depending on the design brief and permission, as a student you need to get as the audience. He will also reference the close to the original source as possible.’ colours of the Aboriginal flag. Depending on the project, Andrew will look for something iconic that is trending and then transform Designing your own personal icons – that iconic image into a red, black and tips from Andrew yellow artwork and put that onto a boot, Look at your own story. shoe or art. Bottom line, it has to be cool Look at context (location). If Andrew is enough that youth will want to wear it doing a piece of art or design work, he asks himself … ‘Is this art from the land, What is one design challenge? sea, air?’. If it’s from the air, he will use One of his challenges is taking the associated colours as the background, Aboriginal flag or the Aboriginal colours blues, greys and whites. Use colour as a and making them look ‘cool’ next to big symbol. brands like Adidas, Nike, Reebok or Puma. If you find Indigenous artwork or design Andrew is always looking for red, black work that you want to reference, it is and yellow fashion items, such as shoes and always better to do your ‘own style’ clothing, to wear to his many community version of it. For example, Andrew events. Andrew is fairly sure he isn’t currently loves bright and fluro colours the only Aboriginal person looking and and textures and uses these to create his searching for the same thing. He will go to own style. Puma and pop into the search red, black and When researching Indigenous artists yellow and sees what pops up. or designers, look at their style and Do you need to be Indigenous to apply draw inspiration; however, do your own the colours of red, black and yellow? iterations. Find out as much as you can about the Andrew gets this question a lot. Indigenous artist or designer – who are ‘Hell yeah, wear it! If someone saw you their people, what are their totems, what wearing it, they would be assuming are they known for (what do they eat/ that you are an Aboriginal person or hunt?) From what you gather and read, know someone who is. It’s a sign of then, if possible, send an email to ask for acknowledgement and supporting advice and permission to use something. reconciliation and the Indigenous culture.’ 196 Viscomm Third Edition ISBN: 978-1-009-33999-5 Patterson & Saville © Cambridge University Press & Assessment 2023 Photocopying is restricted under law and this material must not be transferred to another party.