Creative Boom

http://creative-boom.com/

I have included a link for the Creative Boom website, this is a great place to look for things such as:

• Inspiration for advertising
• Doing freelance work
• Getting Noticed
• Winning work
• Success Secrets
• Career Advice

Sending Emails to journalists and bloggers to get published is a really good article on this wesbsite, it tells you exactly what you need to do and breaks it down to make you understand it more easily.

Trade Fairs

100% Design

Date: 17 - 20 September 2014

Venue: Earls Court London

Surtex

Date: 18-20 May 2014

Venue: Jacob K. Javits Convention Center 
New York City





All Images are from http://www.100percentdesign.co.uk/page.cfm/action=library/libID=3/libEntryID=70/listID=1

Self Employment

Personal traits you would need to become self employed:

• Motivated - keep up to date with all work you are doing.
• Timekeeping - meeting deadlines, planning your time wisely.
• Organisation - making own decisions, doing things for yourself.
• Teamwork - Not necessarily working in a team, but being able to socialize well with clients and people you may be working with on a project.
• Skilled with computer softwares - confidently being able to use Excel, Photoshop and Illustrator.

Funding/Finance

• You could pay for everything yourself
• Get a Loan (however this would need to be paid back)
• Building Societies
• Family and Friends
• Government
• Crafts Council
• Arts Council England
• AN Artist Newsletter
• Axis
• Department of trade and industry

The Princes Trust - Enterprise Programme

• Between the age 18-30
• Self Employed or working fewer than 16 hours a week
• One to one support to turn your idea into a business plan
• Sole trader - £4000
• Partnership - £5000
• Live in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland
• You are not eligible for this if: you are a gap year student, graduated less than 6 months ago, people with a post graduate degree or a professional qualification

Gov.uk - Starting your own business

• This tells you specifically what you need to do to create your very own business
• You will need to register your idea to make sure nobody else will copy it without you knowing
• Research into your market, talk to potential customers find out if your idea is needed on the market
• Make your product and test it on the market, maybe you could do a trade fair and see whether your product sells well. This way you know how to improve your product or adapt is so the consumer is more interested.
• Start contacting possible suppliers and partners. Who will help develop and sell your idea?
• Do you want to sell shares? Decide which legal structure is most suitable for you
• You need to look into funding. Explore government schemes, bank loans and business finance.

Equity funding

• http://www.bvca.co.uk/
• http://www.ukbusinessangelsassociation.org.uk/be-an-angel
• http://ngfc.org.uk/

Setting up a website for your business

• http://www.marketingdonut.co.uk/marketing/internet-marketing/your-website/designing-your-website

Finding Business Premises

• http://www.rics.org/uk/knowledge/more-services/small-business-hub/small-business-property-hub/proberty-in-business

Insurance for your business

• http://www.smarta.com/advice/general/business-insurance-the-basics

Copyright and Intellectual Property

Rachael Taylor & Marks and Spencer



Above is an image of a T shirt from Marks and Spencer and on the right is Rachael Taylor's design. As you can see they are both extremely similar. From what I understand I don't think Rachael Taylor received any compensation for this. Here is a link from Rachael's blog http://rachaeltaylordesigns.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/my-marks-spencer-ordeal.html

Cath Kidston

Here I have included some images of Cath Kidston bags. These are copied quite a lot, not necessarily the actual patterns, but very similar ones.

Orla Kiely



Above are patterns of Orla Kiely's wallpapers, these are very simplistic and this is a style which is very popular at the minute. Similar patterns and colours are always copied and seen on the high street.

Trade Fairs

Surtex http://www.surtex.com/

Date: May 18 - 20 2014

Venue: Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, New York City

Registration form - https://glmshows.wufoo.com/forms/surtex-request-for-attendee-registration/

Tent London http://www.tentlondon.co.uk/

Date: 18-21 September 2014

Venue: The Boiler House, Loading Bay Gallery, Gallery 12, Dray Walk Gallery, Gallery 13, Gallery 14, T3 Sml, Wilkes Street

How do I get funding for this?

• North East Finance
• North East Access to Finance
• Northumberland Business Service Ltd
• UKTI (help fund trade shows abroad)

Trend Companies: WGSN

I'm currently researching into WGSN, this is a fashion, trend forecasting website. It focuses on colours, materials, designs and catwalks. It also has a variety of target markets such as; womenswear, menswear, footwear, textiles, youth and knitwear. I always look at this when I am about to begin a project because there are so many possible trends to follow. Here are a couple of trends which I find interesting:




All Images are from www.wgsn.com

Target Market

Who would my customer be?

I think that my customer would be a young adult who likes bold colours, interesting drawings and unique patterns. Sometimes the colours are use are quite daring and I think would scare a lot of people off, but in my opinion the bolder and brighter the better. Therefore my customers would be young and daring.

Who would my target market be?

I think my target market would be young to middle aged. They would have a quirky style and enjoy explorations of colour. I think they would be mostly female because the images I use are normally quite girly. I would like my work to be sold in high street stores as a one off designer collaboration, like designers such as Henry Holland who also has a selection of his work sold in Debenhams. But my main collection of work would be middle to high end.