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!
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