Group project #1 - color boards

This semester I worked on three group projects in my Intro to Apparel Design class. The first two projects are long since finished, and the third one is due on Monday. Project number one was a color board.
The department keeps all the boards. They are currently on display in our conference room. Mine is the charcoal gray one sandwiched between the browns. At the start of this project my class was shown the boards from last year’s intro class. Next year’s freshmen will get to see mine. I hope mine is shown to them as an example of what to do rather than what to avoid.

The purpose of this project was to learn about colors so we will understand how to use them in our designs. I am not sure what I learned. I found lots of gray fabric and gray items, and some of that stuff made it onto my final board in what I hope is an attractive layout, but what does that have to do with apparel design? I used to own a charcoal gray suit, I currently have a few pieces of gray apparel, and I have a few yards of gray fabrics, but I do not think there is anything I can do with that apparel and fabric now that I could not have done at the start of the semester.

Is this type of color boards used in industry? I have seen trend boards, color swatches, and fabric swatches, but outside of this class I have never seen three dimensional color boards like these. I think my group did a good job, but I do not find these boards inspiring or even aesthetically pleasing. As I look at the boards all I see is a lot of monochromatic stuff thrown together haphazardly.

While this project taught me nothing about colors it did provide a good lesson about group projects. Each group had eight members. That struck me as a large number for a project like this. I think a group of three or four would have been more than sufficient. The vast majority of my group’s work was done by four of us. The remaining four members showed up to some of our meetings, watched us work, and made an occasional comment or suggestion, but ultimately I feel they contributed nothing to the project. The other two projects had similar size groups with similar problems. Three or four of us do all the work, and everyone gets the credit. OK, I know I sound a little bitter there, but the past week I have been spending a few hours every day working on a group project while a few of the people in my group have done nearly nothing. Grrr. Two more weeks to break.

This is fashion?