The Costume Designer's Toolkit: The Process of Creating Effective Design (The Focal Press Toolkit Series)

Description

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. Review: Great manual for costume design at the professional level - Love this book-I use it as a text for my design classes. Very well laid out, pragmatic and practical, yet still full of artmaking advice and design theory. Review: Most comprehensive book on Costume Design I have ever read. - I am developing a new musical; Celebrate ... a whimsical love story told through the magic in the music of Three Dog Night. Long story to short. I am working with the CharterTech Performing Arts school in Somers Point, New Jersey on my project. One aspect of the show's development are the costumes for the characters. I met a very creative, and talented artist, Emma, who loves the art of costume design. She is the young person in the center of the picture. I am to her left and her teacher, Jean, is to her right. To further inspire Emma, I bought Holly's book. Before giving the book to Emma I did a read through and WOW! I never had an appreciation for the art of costume design with all the shows I have produced over the years, but now I can see how involved it can be. This is a well written, comprehensive and at times very detailed book on costume design. There are plenty of pictures and illustrations for the visual learner. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is involved in any aspect of costume design. I gave Holly's book to Emma a few weeks ago and suggested she read it in two weeks. She did and is already producing some amazing costume design drawings for our show. Attached is a picture of her drawing of the character Eli. Very cool. I truly believe Holly's book will be a great reference for Emma as she pursues her passion in costume design.