Final project: Libre graphics practice and culture

Libre graphics explores using free open software. In design there is a whole market of designers who work with libre graphics and use software such as; Gimp, Inkscape, Scribus and many other free to use software to create their work.

I decided to choose this to work on as I felt that I enjoyed this workshop and also find it interesting that there is this niche in design whereby designers can work freely.

I like the idea of producing an app/ web programme that allows designers to produce something with certain limitations. This way they may feel as though they have created the final outcome purely on their own merits, however one could question who really has authorship by the end.

Something that I have been interested in alongside my graphic design work is henna design. When I think about henna design it is a process that requires myself to think about the design that I need to do and I am able to do so freehand. However with the progression of social media and popular site such as instagram artists are able to copy designs, gain inspiration from there. This made me think that if there was a programme available that was free to use whereby henna artists could create their own designs from templates and patterns already loaded onto there then this would be a useful service.

In terms of the project and how this links in; the programme would have designs created by myself where the user can select what shapes/ patterns they would like to choose and then put this on a hand template and print this. This creates a questioning of the author. In terms of final output the user would feel that they have solely created their designs. However as the designer I have given a selection of options to the user that they are then able to use. For the topic of libre graphics also I aim to create my final stages on free software.