Digital Costume Design and Collaboration gives in-depth instruction on how to draw, render, and fully design costumes using online tools and software. Grounded in the use of Photoshop, the book explains the process of building a costume design from scratch, including information on digital tools and painting techniques. The book demonstrates how to utilize social media, such as Flickr and Pinterest, to compile research; how to create user-friendly web based slide shows; and how to archive digital files for portfolios and personal websites. It also demonstrates how to organize spec sheets, plots and inventories using Google Docs for easy editing and Dropbox for easy file sharing. A companion YouTube channel featuring video tutorials of exercises and applications compliments the book.
Teaching Costume Design and Costume Rendering: A Guide for Theatre and Performance Educators clarifies the teaching process for Costume Design and Costume Rendering courses and offers a clear and tested path to success in the classroom. Drawing on the knowledge and experience of the author’s twenty-five years of teaching as well as many decades of work by multiple other educators, this book provides a clear roadmap for teaching these two popular Theatre courses. It includes information on pedagogical theory, creating syllabi, preparing and structuring classes, crafting lectures, and analyzing students’ work, with a heavy focus on specific teaching projects that have been proven to work in the classroom. All aspects of teaching costume design and rendering are considered, including body awareness, cultural sensitivities, script analysis, elements and principles of design, psychology of dress, choosing fabrics, period styling, and requirements of dance costumes. Included in the appendices are sample syllabi, and additional reading and research resources. Teaching Costume Design and Costume Rendering is a guide for theatre and performance educators ranging from secondary education to undergraduate programs and graduate studies. It is a valuable resource both for costume educators approaching costume design and rendering classes for the first time and for experienced instructors looking for new material for these courses.
The Costume Designer’s Toolkit explores the wide-ranging skills required to design costumes for live performance in theatre, dance, opera, and themed entertainment. Arranged in chronological order to create a design, each chapter describes tools, strategies, and techniques costume designers use to create lively and believable characters within a story environment. The book provides a step-by-step outline of the costume design process beginning with developing as an artist and creating an artistic vision for a script. It covers a wide range of topics, including: Assessing the scope of a production Understanding design thinking and the creative process Project management and budget forecasting Collaborating with and leading creative teams Current practices in costume rendering and communication Mixing purchased, rented, stock, and built costumes to form a design Designing a garment with impact Fitting costumes on performers Combining grit and grace for a successful career Each topic includes case studies and tips from experienced professionals, identifies vital skills, describes techniques, and reveals the essential elements of artistic leadership, collaboration, and cultural acumen. The Costume Designer’s Toolkit is the perfect guidebook for the student, aspiring, or early-career costume designer, to be used alone or in costume design university courses.
Successful costume design requires a solid foundation in general artistic principles and specific knowledge of how to apply those principles. Cunningham presents readers with just such a foundation and develops it to expose beginning costume designers to the myriad skills they need to develop in order to costume successful stage productions. She begins at the most basic conceptual level—reading plays from a costume designer's perspective. She then follows through with the practical considerations that must be considered at every stage of the costuming process—research, development, sketching, and costume construction. Cunningham has built on the long-standing success of the outstanding first edition with new figures and updates throughout the text, including 24 pages in full color. Examples have been selected from a wide range of stage productions representing a variety of designers, styles, and approaches. Interviews with award-winning designers from stage, film, and other media show the practical importance of the book's concepts. Every chapter incorporates material reflecting the ever-increasing impact of technology, especially computers, on costuming. New to this edition is an ancillary download package (available here), giving students a selection of basic figure drawings to serve as the base layer for digital renderings, ready-made forms and checklists for assembling and organizing costumes for shows, and a list of research and reference websites with easily clickable links.
Costume is an active agent for performance-making; it is a material object that embodies ideas shaped through collaborative creative work. A new focus in recent years on research in the area of costume has connected this practice in vital and new ways with theories of the body and embodiment, design practices, artistic and other forms of collaboration. Costume, like fashion and dress, is now viewed as an area of dynamic social significance and not simply as passive reflector of a pre-conceived social state or practice. This book offers new approaches to the study of costume, as well as fresh insights into the better-understood frames of historical, theoretical, practice-based and archival research into costume for performance. This anthology draws on the experience of a global group of established researchers as well as emerging voices. Below is a list of just some of the things it achieves: 1. Introduces diverse perspectives, innovative new research methods and approaches for researching design and the costumed body in performance. 2. Contributes towards a new understanding of how costume actually 'performs' in time and space. 3. Offers new insights into existing practices, as well as creating a space of connection between practitioners and researchers from design, the humanities and social sciences.
The Art of Theatrical Design: Elements of Visual Composition, Methods, and Practice, Second Edition, contains an in-depth discussion of design elements and principles for costume, set, lighting, sound, projection, properties, and makeup designs. This textbook details the skills necessary to create effective, evocative, and engaging theatrical designs that support a play contextually, thematically, and visually. It covers key concepts such as content, context, genre, style, play structure, and format and the demands and limitations of various theatrical spaces. The book also discusses essential principles, including collaboration, inspiration, conceptualization, script analysis, conducting effective research, building a visual library, developing an individual design process, and the role of the critique in collaboration. This second edition includes A new chapter on properties management and design. A new chapter on makeup design. A new chapter on digital rendering, with evaluations of multiple programs, overviews of file types and uses, and basic tutorials in Adobe® Photoshop® and Procreate. An expanded and revised chapter on traditional rendering, with the inclusion of new media, including watercolor, gouache, and mixed media, and updated exercises and tutorials. Revised and expanded chapters on individual design areas, including additional practices for conceptualization and collaboration, with new exercises for skill development. Additional exercises in all elements and principles of design chapters for investigation of each design principle and skill development. Revised and updated content throughout the text, reflecting current pedagogy and practices. This book gives students in theatrical design, introduction to design, and stagecraft courses the grounding in core design principles they need to approach design challenges and make design decisions in both assigned class projects and realized productions. The Art of Theatrical Design provides access to additional online resources, including step-by-step video tutorials of the exercises featured in the book.
New Approaches to Decolonizing Fashion History and Period Styles: Re-Fashioning Pedagogies offers a wide array of inclusive, global, practical approaches for teaching costume and fashion history. Costume designers, technicians, and historians have spent the last several years re-evaluating how they teach costume and fashion history, acknowledging the need to refocus the discourse to include a more global perspective. This book is a collection of pedagogical methods aimed to do just that, with an emphasis on easy reference, accessible activities, and rubrics, and containing a variety of ways to restructure the course. Each chapter offers a course description, syllabus calendar, course objectives, and learning outcomes, as well as sample activities from instructors across the country who have made major changes to their coursework. Using a combination of personal narratives, examples from their work, bibliographies of helpful texts, and student responses, contributors suggest a variety of ways to decolonize the traditionally Western-focused fashion history syllabus. This collection of pedagogical approaches is intended to support and inspire instructors teaching costume design, costume history, fashion history, period styles, and other aesthetic histories in the arts.
Theatre Artisans and Their Craft: The Allied Arts Fields profiles fourteen remarkable artists and technicians who elevate theatre production to new dimensions, explore new materials and technologies, and introduce new safety standards and solutions. Readers will learn how the featured artists delved into entrepreneurial ventures and created their own work for themselves; researching, studying, and experimenting, seeking answers when none were available. The book explores how to make an impact in the entertainment industry from behind the scenes, and how students can model themselves after these successful professionals to jump-start their career in theatre production. Aimed at theatre and film practitioners in the allied arts fields, Theatre Artisans and Their Craft offers a collection of success stories that are both inspiring and informative.
Costume Craftwork on a Budget demonstrates how to use inexpensive materials to create durable costumes and props in a short amount of time. Fully illustrated step-by-step instructions teach readers how to use 3-D makeup and create teeth, wigs, masks, hats, nonhuman costumes, leather products, and other accessories. This new edition features updated introductions for each chapter and project, expanded chapters on 3-D Makeup, Wigs, Masks, Headdresses, and Animal Costumes, and projects from shows such as Shrek the Musical (latex ears), Orphie & the Book of Heroes (headdresses), and Side Show (a lizard costume). From creating armor out of laundry baskets to detailed tricks for creating a witch’s prosthetic nose, this book equips aspiring costume designers with the techniques needed to produce costumes and props that are beautiful, economical, and safe.
Costume in Motion is a guide to all stages of the collaboration process between costume designers and choreographers, documenting a wide range of approaches to the creation of a dance piece. Featuring interviews with a diverse selection of over 40 choreographers and designers, in-depth case studies of works by leading dance companies, and stunning original photography, the book explores the particular challenges and creative opportunities of designing for the body in motion. Filled with examples of successful collaborations in contemporary and modern dance, as well as a wide range of other styles, Costume in Motion provides costume designers and choreographers with a greater understanding of the field from the other’s perspective. The book is designed to be part of the curriculum for an undergraduate or graduate level course in costume design or choreography, and it can also be an enriching read for artists at any stage of their careers wishing to hone their collaboration skills in dance.
