Hopes, fears and opportunities...

Since my last hopes, fears and opportunities, I feel a lot has changed in the last few months of my Surface Pattern design degree.  

I have decided to take part in the teenage market in April at Stockport indoor market, to get a taste of what it is like to sell my own work. Also to explore how I would find working freelance and selling my work to the public at craft fairs.  For the market I will sell a mixture of handmade greetings cards using primary images from my sketchbooks and also postcards with watercolour fashion illustrations. I have not thought about prices just yet which is another issue I will have to think about and plan. I also need to plan how I will utilise the stall and how my cards will be displayed. I will also need to start making a sufficient amount of cards to sell and perhaps business cards. I would also like to see what other craft fairs are around and take part in others to push my work out there. Taking part in the craft fair will also help my CV as will the work experience. It could also be an idea to show cards to greetings cards shops and see if they would be happy to take some.

My biggest fear is that I will find it hard to find work after completing my degree, I think now is a good time to keep my eyes peeled for jobs and start applying. Ideally I would love to work for a company designing bedding, fashion prints or interior products such as lampshades. I find it really hard to stick to one specified area of design as I like to design for different aspects and I like the versatility. I am still considering working freelance and selling my work through an agent though I may find this a struggle to live off after I have finished my degree, but perhaps I could manage with a part time job as well. I am also worrying that my grade will not improve as I was a little disappointed from the result of my negotiated brief and aim to work harder to get a better mark.

I think this year I have taken more opportunities and felt more confident about approaching people and taking part in things. For instance contacting people for portfolio visits, taking the opportunity to intern at an organic sustainable fashion company.  I hope to go back when I have more time to spare as it was very insightful and helpful. I have one more portfolio visit to arrange which will hopefully be a lot more easier now. I found the task in the negotiated brief extremely tiring and stressful, trying to arrange appointments and then having to rearrange, this affected my mark as I did not get the third visit completed within the deadline. With my portfolio I have become more selective with which work goes in my portfolio and make it relevant to the person I am speaking to, for instance I would include my bedding designs if speaking to a designer in the bedding design/interiors field.

I have also considered other options I could take on such as fashion illustration, which I aim to research and talk to people in the know about this area of design. Next week I hope to go back to life drawing, something I’m quite used to as I did this at college a few years ago. Hopefully drawing figures will help me understand the form of the figure which will help me with my fashion illustration and become more accurate. I have not looked in to prints for fashion before which is something that I have only started on, since the beginning of third year with my scarf brief. It has been exciting and interesting exploring this other avenue of design and designing for another context, exploring more colours and patterns. It is completely different to interiors, I think this has made me more explorative with my design work to try new styles and be more experimental. This has opened my options too, if I decide to go into fashion print or fashion design. Another option I am considering is stationary and greetings cards, as I intend to sell handmade cards at the teenage market. I find designing cards quite quick and easy and I could still use my fine art background when designing, such as floral painted cards.

This year I feel a lot more open and comfortable to try new things which I would not normally do in first or second year. I feel more confident when talking to people I am not to familiar with and arranging visits etc. My PDP has helped me tremendously as I have been able to keep track of where I am up to with work, reflect on how I am progressing and what I can improve on next. In my last few months of Surface Pattern design, I hope to speak to more people in various design areas and look out for other intern positions and work experience to add to my CV.  I’m glad I have taken more risks as I would not have seized these opportunities such as work experience, craft stall and speaking to people several months ago. I am happy with what I have achieved so far but need to keep taking risks!