Creating a tartan for my college

[nagod]

has the school shown an interest in having/registering and using its own tartan or is this personal?

[Liam]

Correct. There isn't a need, per se, of the school having a tartan. Yes, it's a school in a city with its own tartan in a state with its own tartan, but I still thought that it would be cool for the school to have its own tartan.

And, it wouldn't be alone. http://www.collegiatetartan.com/ shows quite a few schools with their own tartans. And I'm assuming these schools are in states that have their own tartans, and possibly cities with their own tartans as well.

Does your U have a tie? I have a tie from my U that I wear with my kilts. It is a much more affordable way of displaying your affiliation.

[OC Richard]

I'm going to weigh in with my Art School stuff, sorry!

And take my comments in the intended spirit, that of constructive criticism, of dispassionate discussion of purely technical merits.

I feel that tartan has a lack of integration, in other words it doesn't work well as an organic whole. What does this gobbledygook mean? I mean that it seems to be two different pieces of fabric, one laid over the other, because the two portions are different both in colour and in scale, and there's an abrupt change between the two (no area that serves as a transition to smooth the eye's movement across the tartan).

A picture is worth a thousand words and I'll make a quick demo to show what I mean.

Here's a very quick stab at it. I've kept the red/black/white and the blue/gold/purple portions separate, yet there's not a jarring disconnect between the two sections, rather they feel like one whole piece of cloth to my eye. (It would help to know the exact shade of blue, the exact shade of purple.)

Now why did I make the black and white lines thin? Because they were overpowering the rest of the design unless they were reduced. Likewise I had to keep making the purple and blue stripes fatter until they could hold their own. It's all about balance.



Here's a different colour selection etc. The white and black, relatively larger, are starting to overpower the rest of the design.



Here's a different version, probably too intricate and busy.

[YOJiMBO20]

has the school shown an interest in having/registering and using its own tartan or is this personal?

This is just a personal venture. If I like it, I might submit it to the school as have them decide whether they would like it.

[Mike_Oettle]

Richard has some good ideas there, although I am still battling to see the purple in the proposed setts – unless the blending of blue and red threads is the purple you are talking about (this crops up in at least one of my designs).
I would say this is a worthwhile project that deserves to be taken further. If the university is not interested, you could always put it on ice and bring it out at another time when it might be better received.
Regards,
Mike