Paper & Cloth Studio - Live Brief

Paper and Cloth Studio Visit
Wednesday 21st April

•    Jennie Rivers is the owner and director.
•    She used to be a children’s wear buyer, for M and S, they trainer her to be a product developer over 10 year period, this involved looking at garments and making sure that the details were all correct, researching cost prices, renting factory spaces etc.
•    Jennie then did a degree at LCF.
•    The studio visits Indigo and NYC Print Source Shows.
•    Graphics, colour pattern – October 2007 she set up a design studio.
•    Looked for freelancers with commercial experience, talent and skills needed to pitch to retailers.
•    They wanted to be different within the markets so started with people who were highly skilled in hand drawn illustrations, getting back to grass root talent – linking with what was big on websites such as etsy etc.
•    They trained the freelancers how the industry works, showing the balance between the commercial and the creative – and how to make the designs into a format that the industry understands.
•    The design world is now more attuned to the Illustrator program, and vector based graphics.
•    Manufacturers or buyers have been given trends to follow and it’s your job as a studio and designers to match their needs.
•    Beclaires, Probasteel, Premier Vision – all do trend prediction publications.
•    Trends can be set by anything and are based on mainly the current/future cultural influences – technology/politics/colour/the economy etc have all been recent trends.
•    You can only ever buy what exists, and these could have been influenced by something in the trend predictions on some level.
•    When designing you have to have a direction, be open to buyers, have attractive colour ranges, and make a unique group.
•    You have to have a working understanding of the trends that exist.
•    Go onto designer forums, style sites and downloads the Puff’s (educational packages).
•    Be informed - research, have an updated blog, do shop reports, look at a wide range of blogs/publications and collections.
•    Link your own blog to other people. Look at someone like Abigail Brown at Portfolio or Julia Rothman – she is a great networker and self publicist, this has supported her to get to the position that she is at now – what events did she attend, who are her friends, how did she get famous?
•    If you promote your work under your own name, then you have to take responsibility for your own work.
•    If you work for a big studio, you would be expected to create up to 20 designs a day, and achieve 30/40% of those sold to keep your position. The competition is fierce!
•    Push different looks within your work, it is great to have your own ‘handwriting’ – a style that is your won, but you also have to be able to adapt to a variety of styles to make the most of the possible sales.
•    You have remembered the 4 key factors in being a designer and creating designs – employability, sellability, versatility and ability.
•    Create really cool designs, target the high end, establish who you are and research that you would like to approach for employment, be selective, whom does your work style suit?
•    Phone the studios that you would like to work with, they maybe rude, but know who and what style you are and they may be looking for and keep at it!
•    Your CV should be creative – readable, functional, have balance, show an understanding of colour, layout and typography. If you make a good impression with your CV it can open doors and studios talk! They may forward your details on.
•    Texture, hand drawn, repeat, flawless, swatch palettes, vector designs will all make your designs sellable.
•    If you lack in technical ability it will prevent you from selling designs, you should look to develop your IT skills continuously.
•    If you have an agent they will look for you to submit 10 designs a week, and will take 40% of the price paid, leaving you will 60% (designs will currently sell for £375 in Europe and $650 in the USA) you should expect to sell 10 designs at a show minimum.
•    You are paid when a client pays the agent/studio – that can be a big delay – on average 90 days.
•    If you have a contract with a studio or agent, it means that you still own your own work; you can get a license form Creative Commons to protect your work online. It is VITAL that you get one of these for the work on your blog. Or you can join Anti Copyright In Design (ACID) and put stickers onto all of your designs.