Anna Kmita, Professor of Color Design

Project of Colour Parametrisation of the Historic Folk Embroidery

The Opolskie Voivodship has not seen such a complex and holistic support to the market development of products and services based on the local resources and cultural heritage. In order to raise the interest of contemporary recipients and encourage them to use the Opole patterns and continue the vernacular tradition, a researcher and designer, Castle Cieszyn and the Land of St. Anne Association hve taken up the initiative to create the pattern book of Opole embroidery. The book is based on the collection of the Opole Silesia Museum in Opole: “Polish Embroidery” in 1989.

The pattern book is based on the embroidery decorating the elements of folk costume in the collection of the Museum – aprons and head scarves. The drawings of flowers and leaves are based on the photographs of 24 analysed historic items. Several hundreds of various patterns have been photographed and colour parametrisation carried out. This resulted in the creation of colour palettes which, beside the standard NCS, CMYK and RGB parametrisation, have been described in the numeric nomenclature of threads and moulines used for embroidery. Each drawing of the embroidery consists of the set of its elements (vector). Every set has been assigned a suggested colour palette.

From every system, the most typical embroidery was selected, and from the most repetitive motif of the rose – the most typical shapes. The embroidery elements have been simplified for easy reproduction and use in the digital form (print, plotting, xero). An additional element of the pattern book are drawing curves – stencils, which facilitate copying the pattern in the original size directly on the fabric, also the dark one. The patterns and colour scheme can be used according to the manual or for composing original sets; let them serve to discover the beauty of the Opole embroidery and keep it alive!

Bio

Dr hab. Anna Kmita, Prof. Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice Graduate of industrial design program at the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice. Member and co-founder of Polish Association of Color. Works at alma mater, teaches color design and co-runs the Design Fundamentals Studio. Deals mainly with information and visual identity design as well as research into legibility of visual communicates and color parametrization.

In the recent years she has conducted research programs dedicated to preserving heritage and restoring social awareness of forgotten elements of industrial design, which constitute history, culture and identity of Silesia. The programs were concluded in publications, conference presentations in Poland and abroad as well as implementations within applied art in collaboration with local industry.

Her experience made her realize that well-organized teamwork brings disproportionately larger effects and satisfaction than individual projects. Therefore she is often a member of research and design teams, collaborating with other creators or experts in various disciplines. She believes that good design is focused on defining a real problem or need and providing means to solve them.

The Inter-Society Color Council advances the knowledge of color as it relates to art, science, industry and design.
Each of these fields enriches the others, furthering the general objective of color education.