Monday 19 May 2008

Michael Douglas and Sarah Hinton

Michael Douglas and Sarah Hinton are both undergraduate students studying Theatre Design and Textile Design at Nottingham Trent University and have been working together since moving to Nottingham in 2005.




Our interest in art and design lay within a broad range of disciplines including craft, architecture and sculpture. The diversity of our courses has enabled us to explore our individual practices and push our collaborative work in a number of new directions. The thought of being able to create different types of work enthuses us greatly- we are often inspired by anything ranging from literature, to a walk through the city, or even purely by the qualities of a particular material. Material manipulation and the experimenting with ways of creating form and structure are key components in our work. We are interested particularly in the role of craft within contemporary design.

When thinking about a record and the geometric shapes it is made up of, the actual LP; a simple circle, and its case; a simple square, we were inspired to create a series of pieces where objects are normally very flat are transformed into interesting and delicate 3D forms. Our decision to use black and white as a base for designs was to play on the simplicity of the form of a record and its simple shapes. The boldness of the contrasting colours encourages a graphic like quality, which works well with the simple shapes and lines within both our designs and that of the record. Each design was first drawn out onto graph paper. The album covers were carefully eased apart and the measurements transferred to the back of the image. Each design was cut by hand using a scalpel before the two sides were reattached.

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