Monday 2nd-Friday 6th March:
On Monday the 2nd March I started my second industry placement. I secured the placement through the Tatty Devine jewellery collection design competition. I looked forward to the change of pace and workplace atmosphere from starting my placement with Tatty Devine. It would be my first time working in London, commuting into Shoreditch it was exciting to be working in a faster paced city environment.
To start out my first day I was given a tour of the Brick Lane studio, the studio has a store front as well as the studio where the team can work on the new CAD designs, social media content, and laser cut Tatty’s bestselling name necklaces. I was then shown how to use Tatty’s studio server, how to save work files in the correct file, name, and format; sorted into sections for colour swatches, past collections, and customer profiles.
For my first project at Tatty, I was to work on the customer profiles that make up the companies type of customers that they target when designing their collections. The Scarlette’s are young, aspirational customers new to the brand with a more alternative aesthetic, Poppy’s are easy going customers that buy the simpler pieces, Sarah’s are the loyal return customers that will buy the larger statement pieces. I would be using Pinterest to gather images to update the profiles, to be used as inspiration in future collection photoshoots when selecting models, props, and aesthetics to be referenced by the Tatty team and any photographers and hair or makeup stylists they collaborate with.
In my previous years at university, I have used moodboards to create a general mood and aesthetic for my designs and collections. After working on the customer profiles on Monday and Tuesday, I have been learning how to identify a core customer I have in mind when designing or working on styling and photoshoot ideas. When designing for my final collection, I will need to visualise my ideal customer or ‘muse’, forming a cohesive theme for my work.
On Wednesday I started to work on my project for the rest of my week, helping the team with creating decorations for a company event; a collaboration with POW (Power of Women) a non-profit that organises arts and culture festivals. On the weekend of International Women’s Day, Tatty were hosting a jewellery workshop, I would be working on flags to be used to decorate the workshop space. I started by learning to scale up a document that would be used to laser cut the satin fabric that would spell out the company name and logo on the flags. Next, I cut out a range of shades of satin into the right size for each flag, then sewing a channel into the top of each of the flags for the flags to be suspended in the air. Once each of the flags were ready with their letters and logo details, I finished off each flag with a fringing trim; this required more precision in my sewing, after completing my previous placement at BB I was able to do this to a standard I was happy with.
Monday 9th-Friday 13th March:
After completing all my boards on Pinterest, I spent Monday making the reference document. Gathering the best images, I made a page for each of the board sections, finishing off the document on Illustrator with a Venn diagram to find the differences and similarities between each of the profiles.
On Tuesday I started my new task for the week, making a design resource of all the bead and sequin samples. First, I photographed all the samples and placed them onto illustrator boards, labelling each bead/sequin (e.g. FB2 meaning Flat backed sequins).I would next need to measure each of the beads and created accurate to scale CAD drawings of each of them. I also worked on more Pinterest boards; this time focusing on upcoming contemporary collections: Acid Rain, Garden Animals, Cocktail Umbrellas, Woodstock, Glam Rock, Shimmer Eagles. On Friday I completed the pose, makeup, and hair sections of each board.
Unfortunately, the next week I received the news that my placement would be cancelled due to the COVID-19 lockdown. However, in the two weeks I had been working in the studio I had further opportunity to experience work in the industry. I was introduced to illustrator in my previous years at university, working with Tatty required me to improve the existing skills.
Now that I am in isolation, I have had time to work on improving my latest CV draft and placement year poster reflecting on the skills learnt in my placement year and how these will improve my employability. They will continue with the colour scheme of my blog, with my use of symbols and colours. I am also working on updating my digital portfolio, including new work from my placements and updating it with a more professional layout.
TIANI ETHERIDGE DESIGN 