Tracy Kendall

Tracy Kendall came to talk about her work. In the lecture she discussed her educational background and working experience so far.

She studied a BA in Fine Arts and specialized in screen printing. She then worked in technical support at the Royal college for 18 years and practiced digital printing during that time. In 1996 she left the Royal College to design wallpaper and went to the contemporary fair in New York.

Tracy Kendall gets her inspirations from magazines, photographs and random findings in the street. She is constantly with a camera and takes photographs of things she finds interesting, she said it could be a stack of books or a pavement. She keeps all of her inspirational findings in a large bag and when she feels like it she will have a rummage through and be sure to find something exciting to help her with a design or idea. She is inspired by fashion all of the time, this continues to be her main inspiration.

Her career took off quite naturally and out of the blue. It all came about through her wanting to redecorate her kitchen, all of the wallpapers she liked were much too expensive so she decided to design her own pattern since she had the printing skills! She designed a simple pattern where she enlarged a knife, fork and spoon. Her design soon became noticed by some of her friends who came to her home and where involved with the creative profession. Her designs began to be noticed by Habitat and they bought the rights to apply her design elements onto lampshades. She is now very much involved with dealing with the trade.

During her presentation she talked about the importance of asking questions all of the time when you are a designer, she works with organic things a lot of the time for instance, if she sees a feather she likes she wouldn't just pick one, she would pick hundreds of feathers because each one is different and unique in its own right. Then she would look at the feathers and ask questions about them. For a wallpaper that is white with a one single feather print on it, the feather needs to strong, it needs to be beautiful....

She is used to doing trade shows on a regular basis in Milan, London and new York, this is how she mainly promotes her work.

She raised an interesting point about the fact that male designers dominate the interior design and architect industry, the reason for this is they are attracted to a more masculine colour palette, she is very clever in the way that she uses black and white and minimalism most of the time in order to appeal to the male designers at the shows, and for that reason she does well. minimalism makes the impact in her designs.

Another good piece of information was regarding the quality of a photograph. If you give a journalist a really good quality photograph, they can use it in a magazine to help promote your work. She was also talking about the importance of editorial spreads because they can bring in serious money, you can receive thousands of pounds for just one spread! She never pays for advertising, so the quality is very important. Through these magazine spreads she gained a lot of interest a couple being Whistles and she designed the changing room interior for Frost French. Obviously this is just a small example.

As she has become more and more successful, this has enabled her to employ an agent in New York to sell her work.

Debbie Lord

Debbie Lord is a part time freelancer, designing for mainly bedding. In between family life she designs for Pure Design and visits the Heimtex trade fair in Germany. Before becoming a freelance designer she first worked within the fashion industry, working for Derbyhouse fashion and then an interior company called Tom Lewis. This gave her the experience and knowledge to grow in confidence and eventually go freelance. I found it interesting to learn that she landed her first job by literally scrolling through the yellow pages and rang every company on the list asking them if they could have a look at her C.V. Debbie Lord studied a HND at Cleveland and a BTEC at Stockport college in surface pattern design.
It was interesting for me to listen to a practitioner who could stand there and talk about the reality of being a freelancer. To be a freelancer means you are self employed and with that comes professional skills such as book keeping, accounts, tax, national insurance, and also being able to e-mail and constantly remain friendly and professional with all contacts. Most freelancers will employ an agent, an agent will arrange visits, timescale, do all the lugging around and travel to the trade fairs and contacts, for all there work they get between 40-50 percent of the design price.
There are pros and cons that come with being a freelancer, pros are that it is flexible and you can do the hours to suit you. It can be a great money earner, if you are working from home you don't have the travel expense. some of the cons that come with being a freelancer is that there are times where you wont make as much money. You have to work extremely hard because it is very competitive, its a matter of you get out of it what you put in and long hours are a part of being a successful designer.  

I have realised through this lecture that there is a lot to consider regarding buying the right equipment, finding funding to start up, short courses to help with the administration side, Finding the money to attend trade fairs, professionalism, access to the future trend predictions.  Baring in mind that there is a lot to consider, it has to be realistic in order for it to really work when you leave University.  All the research needs to be done before hand so that you are not just left feeling stranded.  

I found it useful to learn about ways in which Debbie found her inspiration and motivation when working from home.  She expressed that ways in which to keep ideas going was to take a walk, visit museums and galleries, go to the library, talk to others and bounce ideas around.  Debbie talked about how all designers will suffer with mental blocks now and again so ways in which to help this is by creating mood boards, create your own reference library because you wont always have the time to go out and get new inspiration so it helps to always have something to hand.  Magazines, going to the shops and taking photographs of exciting window displays.  When an idea comes to you, learn to trust your inner guidance because it is not often wrong.  Look through books on amazon, collect vintage references such as fabric and pictures.  Go to places like B&Q and collect colour pallets, collect cards and wrapping paper.  This is a notion if how Debbie gathers and uses inspiration.