My First Real Class, and it was…

So I had my first design class today with my Tutor (used in the UK for teachers not in “academia”) Danielle Scutt, who is an up and coming designer here in London. Well needless to say she was a bit intimidating. For today’s class, we were to bring 10 A3 (approximately 17”x11”) sheets of paper worth of research on the 10 descriptor words we had chosen. I came in with my 10 sheets and after the first girl I knew that they weren’t at all what she wanted. She explained to us that what she was looking for was for us to research everything about a shirt (dress/button-up shirt in the US), for instances: what makes a shirt a shirt? Why does a shirt have certain elements, like a collar, cuff, sleeve, ect. Why were different designs popular in the time period when they were produced? Well you get where this is going.  So when it came time for me to show the research I have done for the project, she just reiterated what she had previously said to us, about starting from the beginning and working toward something that inspires you about shirts. So basically I have just wasted my time trying to sketch, going to the library and a ¼ of my new ink cartridge on nothing, great. I have been complaining to all my new friends here about how horribly vague everything is and look what happened, wasted time. Well that was first day of class, lets see how the rest of the week