Claire Lee – Looking Outwards – 08

I decided to read about Mary Huang, one of two joint speakers at the 2013 Eyeo festival that founded a software-based apparel creation company called Continuum Fashion. Huang graduated with a BA in Design/Media Arts from UCLA, and went on to receive a MA from the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design.

I really admired Mary’s projects under Continuum Fashion, which served as a reflection the emerging role of technology in society while also giving the masses an accessible outlet with which anyone could design their own apparel and see it come to life. I really liked that Mary considers her work a continuation of the constantly evolving definition of “fashion” and the social commentary behind her work. I also really liked that she put a lot of effort into the user-interface design of these projects so that they were easy for people with no coding experience to use.

Some of the strategies in her presentation that I thought were most effective were that she gave a lot of visuals and included examples of some concepts and projects (2-dimensional pictures to knitwear, different types of weaves) that served as the foundation on which her work was based. I think it did a lot to enhance my understanding of her goals for these projects and her thought process behind them. I also liked that she went in and actually gave her audience a look inside the user interface of her apparel-making programs, so they could see some of the customizations and adjustments available for the users to make on their pieces.