Taking It to the Blog

It's probably not obvious to anyone but me, but I have slacking on my posts. Working on my portfolio is taking up all of my time but now that I've been making tons of progress I actually enjoy working on it. As of right now we're in Week 8 and my entire portfolio including designed business cards and leave behinds are due in two weeks. I've finished quite a few boards and just have to add the final touches to them. Right now I'm mostly focusing on my technical boards and I'll soon be making a trip to Pacific Fabric in Northgate to buy my fabric swatches for each line.

Last week the tutor in my Portfolio class was helping a fellow student out with starting her website and while said student was working, Kristin, the tutor, noticed that I was having trouble learning how to use Adobe Photoshop. Alena is a good teacher and helped me a lot with the program but it was a little like the blind leading the blind (since she's new at it too) so I was really glad when Kristin asked if I needed any help. What I was trying to do is fairly simple; to make my boards have some sort of continuity between all the different lines I decided to put a frame around each technical and concept picture that coincides with each line's main theme. Alena taught me how to outline the frame and make it so I could put a picture behind it but Kristin helped me with how to use all the different layers and really do exactly what I was thinking in my head, which has made my portfolio really come together.

Now that I've got those necessary Photoshop skills down along with those in Illustrator I've been gaining some serious momentum on my entire portfolio. So much that I've sort of neglected the fact that I need to design a business card and leave behind along with planning out gifts for employers as if I was really graduating. While I know my "company" is going to be Chelsea Purcella Designs, I still want my business card to revolve around the whole Mad Girl theme with my logo being what reflects that. I'm currently working on designing some sort of girl pouting and figuring out the format for the actual layout of the business card.

Something else I've been working on, that I mentioned in my first post, is applying for scholarships and internships. I've applied for a couple scholarships through my Dad's union, one of which I actually won a couple years ago, so hopefully I've got a shot this time around. Also, in February I attended Magic, which is one of the largest apparel trade shows in the industry. And while exploring the Green (read: environmentally friendly) section we ran into a Seattle based company called Alchemy Goods. They make messenger bags for bicyclists and other accessories that are made out of recycled bike inner tubes. My teacher, Karin, exchanged business cards with the woman we talked to so she could send us opportunities for internships. Just within that last two weeks Karin was contacted about an internship they had for marketing and gave me the information about it. She helped me spruce up my resume and we sent it off to them. While the internship is for marketing, as opposed to design, I think it's going to be a really valuable learning experience. What I am really excited about though is that Alchemy Goods focuses on accessories, which is something I'd like to do later in my fashion design career and I'm all about getting my foot in the door anywhere I can.

As you can see, my life has been pretty busy since I'm juggling a full class load, a part-time job and trying to maintain some sort of personal/ social life. So if everything goes as planned, I'll get scholarship money and be able to cut my hours at Urban Outfitters so I can intern and make my life that much easier.

On a final note, I was walking home from the Folklife festival with my friend Anthony today and I was telling him how I thought it was a little pathetic that I was really excited to be at school all day tomorrow (on a day I don't even have class) just to work on patterns and boards. That was when he pointed out that that wasn't a pathetic thing at all because it means I love what I do. Good point.