OUGD406 (Studio Brief 1) Final design development

Now I have experimented with the stitching techniques, I want to produce a final design that I can then digitally manipulate, if the design works well. 

Below is my final machine embroidered drawing that I want to develop to create my album cover for Lordes track 'team.' 

I feel that this is successful, and I want to further my experimentations as I am not sure it is strong enough to stand alone. I could develop this by digitally manipulating, or adding backgrounds. I want to stick with the theme of elegance and also suggest mystery within my design, subtle floral backgrounds or repeat patterns could work well with the stitched drawing overlaying. 

Below is some close ups of the stitch detail, I have used several different stitch sizes and paths. Some just being a straight stitch, others being a zig-zag stitch. I quite like this piece of work, as it is different to what I usually produce, it has more tactile qualities. With this brief I wanted to explore and develop my skills further as the mandatory requirements did not specify that a graphic based response was compulsory, therefor I have chosen to create something with more textile qualities. 

After fishing this design, I wanted to play around by digitally manipulating a background and imposting the illustration on top. 

With a floral background I created on photoshop, I played around with altering the colour scheme and laying the illustration over the top and changing opacities. 

This manipulation below does not work at all, the contrasts don't work and you can hardly see the design.

This design has improved a lot, the contrasts work and the tones of green compliment each other, I like that some of the stitching in the hair stands out more than others. However I still don't feel that this is strong enough for my final design.

This shows my design standing alone, without any floral background. This has been digitally manipulated on photoshop, compared to the original stitched piece I feel like by scanning it in it has lost some of its qualities. This is bound to happen because when digitally manipulated the textile qualities are not present.

Out of the digitally manipulated ones, this one is the strongest. I like the subtlety of the floral background against the illustration which is the main focal point.