Bradford Competition Entry- 1st Prize

 Inspiration Board

Final Sample in Context

I won!!

Batsford Application- Shortlisted

The brief for this competition wad 'the written word'. I have been using text within my work through investigating archives. I visited the Norfolk Record Office and looked for documents relating to Poland (inspired by my recent trip). I was shown a photo album showing a mans morbid journey across Poland and Russia during the 1920's as well as a1930's photo album which told the story of the Norwich Scouts trip to Poland. I took photos of the text and made them into kodatraces and hid them amongst textures within my drawings.  

Angela Huston Award

The day before my Brainchild I had my 2nd interview for the Angela Huston Award! I won out of my year group last year, the prize was £125 which enabled me to go on the drawing trip in Spain. This year i showed work that I have made since then including my bird work and fictional city work. Whilst I was at Zandra Rhodes I wrote 200 words explaining how my work had progressed. I became the overall winner and am very very happy. I really enjoyed my interview. The competition is run by the Costume and Textile Association and the judges are so friendly and excited! I won £200 which I shall put towards my 2nd drawing course in spain :) Here I am collecting the cheque

Winning Brainchild :)

Since Christmas I have been attending the Brainchild lectures, at first not really with the intention of entering just hoping for some tips which may have helped after uni. Then I thought about how what I do could be put into a business idea and with help from my sister, came up with the idea of making personalised fabrics for other people in the way that I had done for myself, so decided to enter. The prize of the competition was £1000 as well as £4000 worth of business mentoring!

So the idea is that people go onto my website, upload photos of what ever they like, things that are special to them. Perhaps photographs of people who are important to them, places, animals and anything else! I would then draw from the photos and make a design (on photoshop) which would be approved by the customer. The client could then choose which colours, fabrics (I plan to offer a silk, a cotton and a wool)  and product they would like (which will include cushions, scarfs, bags, aprons and more) and then i would make it for them!  

I was required to think about my market, at first I struggled with this as I thought it may suit anybody who was looking for a special gift for a loved one. One suggestion that was given to me by one of the judges during the one to one sessions (which I found really helpful) was that the wedding market would be an area where people are likely to be looking for a keepsake gift! 

So whilst I was on my placement at Zandra Rhodes I sent off my application which was a form split into sections and I had to explain my idea in 300 words. Meanwhile, I was also getting questionnaires filled out (incase I got short listed). When I did get short listed I was really pleased but also a bit panicked because I knew that I would only have 2 days back at uni between my work placement and my presentation in which I needed to prepare boards and a powerpoint presentation! I was also exhausted from my placement and had caught a rotten cold of my baby cousin! AND I had another competition interview on the tuesday (which I'll tell you all about later). But I managed to get it all done. I followed up the feedback that I had received from Richard Peat who was running the competition and also had a run through of my presentation with him which left me feeling more confident!

On the day of the day of my presentation I was using the CAD embroiderer whilst practising my presentation to other textiles girls :) ! I was extremely nervous and thought I was going to be sick. I felt that my presentation went very well (even though I was very shaky) and had two hours until the presentation evening, just enough time to go out for pizza with my two housemates :)

I was VERY pleased to have won! 

My Boards

 Me with the Principal and the head judge!

 My Examples!

Receiving my certificate !

I then had to write up a press release for the next morning.
I was in the EDP but was a bit gutted because they misunderstood my idea and said that the customer would be doing the drawing and the designing when really its me! :( Never mind!