Born of idea
Our team's professional background spans many different disciplines，Such as Digital Direction, Ceramics and Glass, Interior Design, Intelligent Mobility and Visual Communication. So everyone could give them different perspective with their perfession knowledge in the discussion of project. We have a great conversation when we first met. And found most of us had an interest in making the physical things with special naturally materials. We had a visit to the Materials Lab in Central London where a couple of bio-materials and their de-grading process captured our attention. The common ground for all of us circled around Ecology and Nature.The first thing we started talking about within our group was the idea of acting forward with nature rather than returning back to it.
We concern about the current ecological damage at first. Our attention was drawn to textile pollution when we researching. We surprisedly know that the textile industry produces about 100 million tons of textile waste every year. We began to have an original idea --- working with the idea of reducing the amount of waste that our generation started causing. We looked more precisely into the landfills situation, focus on the product percentages that ended up in the landfill. And we found the Bucket hats were the 3rd most thrown away item in 2023. And the bucket hat also is a popular fashion item that is loved by young people. We plan to create a project to go back to nature with a bucket hat. We try to find a possible textile mixed with seeds, and the whole hat could be blooming with soil and water when people throw it out into a landfill , just like a real plant.
We hope our project could collaborate with Bloom town festival. People could have a hat made from eco-materials for a small additional fee when booking their tickets, which can be left at the camping site after people have left the event, and the seeds in the hat will germinate and blossom in the environment of the event. Nowadays ,more and more young people are paying a lot for fashion. And many of them have a few pieces of clothing in their closet that they have bought but hardly worn. Perhaps as a result of impulse buying, they end up being thrown away in normal situation. Because people will buy more new clothes to replace the old one. These discarded clothes end up as textile pollution. We hope that through this campaign we can get more people involved in our program - Moving Forward with Nature - to add our purchases to the cycle of nature, and return what we buy and use to nature in its entirety.
Process of project
After a series of research and preparatory work, we realised that although we had a theoretical basis for the whole project, we still had some difficulties with how to implement the production of the bucket hats. We raised a number of questions about the further progress of the project.
Firstly, we are still unknown about the materials we need to use. Although we have determined that we can use seeds for the fabric, what type of seeds to choose? We first envisaged that we could define seeds representative of different regions and make specific hats for different regions. But in the end will the hats made from different seeds textile discarded in different regions involve an ecological invasion? This is a situation we do not want to see. Also, since no one in our group is work in fashion and textile discipline we don't know how to incorporate the seeds into the fabrics used to make the hats without destroying the seed's ability to grow. Will the hat still be able to grow when it is discarded in a harsh environment?
So we begin to contacts the outside organisations, whose expertise would allow us to be more precise and pertinent. We contacting the Kew Gardens and the Millennium Seed Bank, one of the biggest seed banks in the UK. The most significant interview we conducted was of Dr. John Dickie. As Senior Research Leader at the Millennium Seed Bank, Dr. John Dickie provided us with great information about the conservation requirements for seeds, helping us navigate the creation process of the actual hats. We talked about the distribution of our project involved and how it was actually used. We received different ideas and concerns from the organisms we contacted. We were not sure if our project would have a global scope, because it would involve questions about whether the ecological environment of different regions is suitable for seed growth, as well as the ecological invasion of the germination environment mentioned earlier, and so on. We ultimately chose to narrow down the scope of our project to just the UK and nearby areas.
While we continued to contact experts and organisations, we also started seeking out collaboration in the RCA student cohorts. We have been working with several students on developing our bucket hat, but one student, Reeti Roy, has been especially helpful. Reeti is a Textile student who came up with some really interesting ideas on how to physically develop the hat. She suggested using mycelium（a material commonly used in the Future Materials Lab of the RCA）to create an interior structure for the hat. This material has many advantages, such as being a great nutrient provider for the seeds that will eventually grow in the hat, even if the environment is poor in nutrients. The hat-making process that uses mycelium will also allow us to incorporate the seeds directly into the material, eliminating the need to sew them into the textile, which could damage the seeds. Reeti's expertise has helped us move forward a lot.
The work in project
The overall division of labor in our group is based on what everyone is good at. Since everyone has different disciplines and professional skills, we have listed the tasks that need to be carried out, such as brand design, textile production, website, video production and so on. Then each person chooses a job they are good at and enjoy. We always communicate instantly via notion, whatsapp, etc. We will share the good work with the team members, give each other advice and discuss. Since everyone's schedule is different, when someone doesn't have time to participate in a panel discussion or interview, we will hold a video conference or post the main points of the meeting in the discussion group. In this way, everyone can keep abreast of the overall progress of the project.
In the project I acted as the project concept poster and brand visual designer. The visual output of the project began with a poster. We needed this poster as a display to promote our concept, and I used sprouted seeds and hats as visual elements. Since I wasn't sure about the visual style of our project yet, I tried a few different visual expressions. It also iterated on different colors and finally chose a more natural visual style. The poster shows how the hat breaks down and is gradually transformed into a seed. Also attached is a brief introduction of our project and contact information. For the production of the brand logo, I extracted the key colors and graphics from the poster -- the leaves of seeds, and carried out abstract and deformed processing, so that it has both the elements of seeds and the abstract expression of the bucket hat. I also made tags and pins for the products to make sure it would work on several items. The initial plan is to make corresponding product packaging and brand surrounding, but considering that there is no possibility of secondary pollution in the product packaging, we try to reduce the elements attached to the product.
It is also at this moment that we decided to give an official name to our project. After several iterations, such as Blooming Hat, Green Bloom or Seed Hat, we agreed on the name “Bloom Bucket”. Being a bucket hat that has the goal to spread seeds and allow them to bloom, we think that this name clearly represents the core idea of our project. Once the branding and visual communication was completed, The others members started working on 3D Mockups and Website design. Designing Mockups on Blender to fit our vision, we made sure to create bright floral visuals but also natural looking bucket hats. Our team always keeps an effective collaboration. And we met each other at least one time every week. We also participated in tutoring involving tutor and peer reviews and presented our work and ideas on multiple occasions. These moments were crucial for us because they let us think about our problems that we hadn’t thought about before and really helped us to progress. Especially our tutor Amy Dickson, she always gave us some great references. And some useful suggestions to push our ideas finally into practice.
Reflection and thinking
I think at this stage we already have complete logic and adequate preparation. And we have made a great webside and the branding to be the output already. But we still work for the final product of accurate hat making. However, we have not conducted the relevant material tests yet, we still not know how does the hat growing in a long time. As well as the wearability of the hat under the use of special materials and the survival rate under water shortage, etc. We still need to solve a lot of unknown problems through tests.
But this project had a great impact on me, it was a perfect co-operation, we helped each other, we gave each other advice and encouraged when when someone made any works.The most influence for me in this project is our interview part. In my previous projects, I never tried to contact other professional organisations or professionals in the community for help, I always used questionnaires for research or interviews with familiar people around me. After this project, I will try to seek outside help during next project reseach, which can help me to deal with problems from a more professional perspective. It will also give me more different perspectives.
