Over the past 4 months of working in the industry I have developed a lot in terms of self confidence, skills and goals in life. In this months summary I’m going to highlight not only skills I have put into practice and skills I have learnt, but also skills I want to improve on which I think will be helpful in my career.

Top 5 skills I have learnt and gotten to put into practice –

  1. Marketing, During my second year we were given briefs in which we needed to design packaging and marketing campaigns. Learning these skills about how to layout visual pieces helped me to create a my own magazine styled print for Bottle Blonde which looks professional and bold.
  2. Self motivation, A lot of our projects at uni are very self lead. This means we have to be very self motivated to do the work without supervision. This self motivation has been very important for my time working remotely for Boodcia, as working from home can make you feel more drowsy and be distracting but from doing projects for university I have developed my self motivation to be able to stay focused in this environment.
  3. Timekeeping, With many deadlines for university timekeeping is a key skill. As I’m a design student timekeeping can be even more critical to a successful project as you ideally need to complete the basis of the brief well before the deadline to be able to then develop it even further creating a stunning final piece. This skill has been very useful for me to create ideas and develop them within a time limit working for Boodcia, allowing me to create unique designs without running short for time.
  4. Clothing Design, Of course being a fashion student one of the main skills we learn is clothing design which so far through my internship year I haven’t actually gotten to do. However with Boodica I finally got to put into practice my design skills which was great and allowed me to design new silhouettes for the brand.
  5. CAD’s, With clothing design comes CAD drawing, CAD’s are the flat drawings that can be sent off to manufacturers which clearly show how the design should be sewn together. CAD drawings is one of my strongest skills I have developed at university and now I have gotten to put it into practice I am even more confident in the quality of my flat drawings.

Top 5 skills I have learnt on the job that will be useful in final year –

  1. How to make a gif, This skills although some may question how it could be useful in my final year I believe will come in use somewhere. GIF’s can be an innovative way to make a flat project more interactive and being a heavily digital designer the more digital and interactive I can make my work the better.
  2. Design pack, Whilst working for Boodcia I was given the task of assembling a design pack which was a pdf of the garments drawn in CAD format on bodies, CAD’s alone and fabric suggestions laid out in a clear format. This will be helpful in my final year for designing portfolio pages that show off my CAD skills and some garment technology knowledge.
  3. Graphic design, As I am doing a lot of graphic print design at Bottle Blonde I have learnt more and more about graphic design. This will be helpful in my final year for not only developing my portfolio digitally but developing my sketchbook layout as all my of sketchbooks are digital also.
  4. Self confidence, Personally I have lacked self confidence in my work usually thinking it’s not good enough, it doesn’t look professional, other people have better skills than me. However over my time working in the industry and even interviews prior I have developed a lot more self confidence in the work that I produce and myself as a person. Believing in myself will be key in my final year to developing a final major project that reflects me as a person and my skills.
  5. How to draw mesh on a CAD, Working with Boodcia on sportswear I learnt how to draw mesh into CAD designs without any preset tools. This will be helpful in my final year if I choose to do a collection and decide to include mesh panelings, because of my hand issues if I am unable to sew myself it’ll allow me to set up someone else to sew the garment together without my presence.

Top 5 skills I want to improve on –

  1. Marketing, I had a lot of fun designing magazine covers for my print for Bottle Blonde and it’s made me curious about developing more skills in marketing which will also help with my portfolio and website layout.
  2.  Photography, This is a key skill for creating shoots of my collection however it’s something I have become increasingly more interested in during my year especially with running a blog I want to include my own photography with the best photographs I can take.
  3. Illustration, Over the course of the year so far I have done a lot of print design which I have discovered I rather enjoy however as I work very digitally I want to redevelop my illustration skills to my current capabilities to design prints to their full potential.
  4. Sewing, I personally think I have quite good sewing skills however after a year of not sewing and my hands becoming more restrictive it’s something I want to improve on to make sure I am able to sew as much as I can in my final year.
  5. Coding, From running my blog for my placement year I have found I really enjoy blogging and it helps relieve my anxiety. However I would love to learn more about coding in order to give me more freedom with the setup and layout of my blog and any future websites I run.