Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/713388
24 The Costume Designer Summer 2016 Design Details: BY AASHA RAMDEEN While Costume Designers manipulate their fabric through dyeing/ageing, this comment made me wonder whether they had ever considered the fabric itself from a print perspective the way I do. With printing even before the dyeing process, an original design can be added to fabric to give another dimension to the finished garment. The idea of developing original textiles is by no means a novel one. What is new is the printing technology now available. Customizing prints means that anything can now serve as inspiration—a painting, a trip abroad, a piece of jewelry—and become interpreted into a two-dimensional printed fabric. Particular words, colors, and logos may be I have been a costume illustrator with the CDG for the past three years, but I was a textile designer long before. After posting a photo of my most recent design on Instagram, I received a comment from a fellow costume illustrator who seemed surprised to learn that I also designed prints. "Is that your work?" he questioned, beneath the photo of the La Blanca coverup. incorporated to create a design not available in stores and is unique to your character. Key elements from a film can be extracted and translated into motifs. There are several printing methods from which to choose. The most notable are screen or wet printing, digital, and sublimation. Screen printing is achieved either with flat or cylindrical screens made of silk threads, nylon, polyester, vinyon, or metal. The printing paste or dye is poured onto the screen and forced through its unblocked areas onto the fabric. Based on the type of the screen used, it is referred to as either "flat screen printing" or "rotary screen printing." The simple five-color conversational print seen here is the perfect candidate for such printing. As a singing group, this print has been tailored to the cast of Pitch Perfect; it is a reflection of them as a girl group (lipstick), their passion for singing (microphones), and personalized with their name, the "Bellas." With digital printing, micro-sized droplets of dye are placed onto the fabric through an inkjet print head, which utilizes an unlimited number of colors. A design can easily be made with 30, 50, or 100 different colors without affecting the ability to print the design. By eliminating screens, it also Bellas print and the Bellas of Pitch Perfect 2. Photos: Aasha Ramdeen; Universal Pictures and Manhattan Beachwear Consider the Surface