Paper and Cloth

Having been set a live brief for the Paper and Cloth studio we were lucky enough to meet the company owner/ director Jennie Rivers.

Jennie set up the studio in 2007 having gained a fashion degree in London and worked for several years at Marks and Spencer as a buyer and product developer in children's wear. She assumed that she would be able to find freelance designers who were talented and experienced within the industry, this was not the case so her company began to train the designers on their books to help give them a clearer understanding of how the design world works. Jennie has 7 designers on her books at the moment and promotes each of the design team under their own name within the company , she feels an illustration talent is a must. Jennie told us she is a massive researcher , she follows blogs and spends time networking in order to keep her finger on the pulse, she told us to link our blogs to as many designers as possible in order to get our work noticed. Jennie feels that vector based illustrations are the way forward rather than just photoshop images and thinks its important to keep up to date with new soft ware and to develop your own recognisable style or 'handwriting' she also loves hand drawn work that is unique and different because clients always want new and edgy design ideas.

Designs sell in Europe for around £370 and in the USA for $560 and some times it takes 90 days for payments to be made so its really important to have a contract with your agent or studio.Jennie, like most agents takes 40% of the fee and her designers produce 15 to 20 designs per week and can expect to sell 30 to 40% of them. Another useful tip she gave us was to look at protecting our work online through a creative commons licence or acid ( anti copyright in design) there is information on the Paper and Cloth website via a legal statement.Jennie explained how competitive the industry is and suggested some creative ways to present a CV in order to stand out from the crowd, she also advised joining the design forum.

It was great to meet Jennie and i really appreciated all the advice she gave us .

www.paperandcloth.net

We were fortunate enough to spend time one to one with Jennie and she commented on what we had produced.

Jennie's feedback re my work ;

some of the designers were lovely , they have textural , stencil simplicity and balance

look at the shop FRANK in Whitstable

i am clearly talented , have good ideas and make great connection, some elements are beautiful but others look as if i have run out of time or patience.

Be aware of copy right when using found images

it is possible to use hand done work but this will effect sales and production

look at lovelydesign.com

write to her, to access the Paper and Cloth portfolio in order to see the work and don't rule out designing

focus on what i can do and have faith!

thanks so much Jennie for your time it was really appreciated , and i felt like you absolutely got where i was at !