Alana Krizia Costanzo

To give us a sense of you as a designer, what is your major and why?

I am a fairly literal thinker, painter and illustrator, so being a print major was always the perfect option for me. I love having the ability to create an artwork on paper and being able to directly translate it onto fabric. It’s so satisfying spending hours engineering a print and then watching it come to life on fabric in a few minutes. I also like getting my hands dirty, it provides a sense of accomplishment.

 

Bricolage is about using and utilising what you find to hand. What tools or techniques do you find you can’t help coming back to?

Something is seriously wrong if there’s an absence of fine lines in my work. Ultra fine tip pens, watercolour, ink and oil paints are my ultimate materials of choice. I love having control over my work, layering up detail and combining different mediums and techniques to create work that is honest, rich and perplexing.

 

Why textile design? (Or maybe by the end of the course, why not...!)

Beginning with very limited textile design knowledge, I applied for this course because it encompassed everything that I loved and was interested in pursuing but couldn’t decide between. Fine arts didn’t offer enough scope, and interior and graphic design limited my creative freedom as an illustrator. I am now able to combine all my skills together in such an exciting and practical way. Textile design offers me a connection to other design disciplines, to skills, to opportunity, to myself, and most importantly, to my surroundings and my society.