During her Textile Design degree, Amy completed several live briefs, working with organisations such as Happy Linen, Cosatto and Matalan which enhanced her practical experience and industry knowledge.
Participating in live projects above all helped me to gain confidence in networking and speaking to professionals in the Textiles industry. This was particularly helpful for events such as Graduate Fashion Week when I needed to put myself out there.
I also recently completed a creative task for a job interview, which helped me secure my current role as a Design Admin Assistant at JoJo Maman Bébé. The experiences of working on live briefs, putting together projects and delivering presentations made this feel much less daunting.
Here are some of the live briefs that I worked on throughout my Textile Design degree at the University of Central Lancashire:
1. Happy Linen
As part of our second-year studies, we were given a live industry brief with bedding company Happy Linen to create a new children’s bedding design. The brief asked for a gender-neutral theme and colour palette inspired by current trends. We could then choose our own age range based on the sizes of bedding already sold on the Happy Linen site and design a repeat or placement pattern from there.
To conclude the brief, we each presented our projects back to Happy Linen including digital mock-ups of our bedding designs.
Happy Linen awarded two joint first place certificates and a second place certificate, with the two winners being offered a two-week placement at their Manchester head office. Happy Linen also bought the rights to one of my classmates’ design for future use on their bedding.
Completing this live brief helped me to understand how to confidently and professionally give presentations of my work. It also helped me to take on feedback from industry professionals and get into the habit of designing with a specific customer in mind, which is a big help when it comes to working in industry.
2. Cosatto
In my third year, Cosatto, a brand specialising in pushchairs, highchairs, and car seats visited campus to set a live brief to create a new gender-neutral design for their WOW 2 pram range. We were encouraged to be as creative as we wanted and have fun with our themes and designs as this first-stage pram is designed with the parent’s style in mind.
We individually presented our projects back to the Cosatto team which included a digital render of our patterns on the WOW 2 pram. We were each given feedback, and three students were awarded certificates and placement opportunities. I was awarded second place and a placement opportunity!
This live brief was a huge help for my confidence, after being awarded a placement opportunity and spending the week at Cosatto gaining some industry experience and insight. This was a great way for me to establish industry connections early on in my career, especially with a brand like Cosatto who are so helpful and want to see students succeed.
3. Matalan
We were also tasked with a live brief for Matalan! We were asked to design a womenswear collection to sit alongside one of the existing Matalan ranges. We could choose from ranges such as sports and loungewear, nightwear, holiday and shirts/dresses.
Matalan provided outfit CADs and we designed the repeat and placement patterns for the clothing. This was a great way of playing around with the scale of the patterns, seeing how well they sit on different shaped garments and putting a cohesive collection together.
We each received detailed positive feedback, one student received a placement and mentoring opportunity, and the other students were offered placement opportunities across multiple sectors in Matalan.
Working towards industry briefs and getting feedback from professionals definitely helped me to gain confidence in my own ideas and allowed me to push my designs further. All of the companies that we worked with were varied which gave us experience in designing across a range of different sectors including childrenswear, womenswear, home furnishing and products.
Also, it’s always helpful to collaborate with your peers, especially when everyone has such different creative styles. This allows you to bounce ideas off each other and play to each other’s strengths.
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Art, Design and Fashion
