Manic Trout: The design process...

Its hard to create a space online that is similar to what a real studio space is, but I try to give little glimpses and tidbits that can give you a real feel of Manic Trout as much as I can. Today I thought I would show how I go through the design process...

Usually I start with either a doodle or sketch or a rough idea in my mind...then I start going through books of images that I collect as inspiration, I usually group photos with an idea in the back of my head of how they will fit together....although sometimes the way I group things will subconsciously affect the design, all the pink on these pages made the color choice hard to avoid when I started designing this necklace...

At this point I start pulling materials from the vast amount that I have in the studio...

Once I have all the materials I want to play around with I start to try different things until what is in my head is in my hands.

When the design is what I want, I draw a sketch of it with notes on measurements and materials and take a photo which I blow up and print for a binder of all designs so I can reference it when making each piece.