industry

industry and education working together

/ katefarley / Leave a comment

I’ve been busy with lots of teaching activities recently including schools outreach workshops, and a teacher training session alongside my main teaching on the BA Textile Design course at Norwich University of the Arts. Last term was full of varied teaching projects and a highlight for me was to work again with two of my graduates from the last institution I worked at, Birmingham City University, in their design roles at Sainsbury’s / Habitat, leading an industry brief for my current BA3 group. One of my absolute passions is to bring industry together with education, for everyone to learn from each other.

Tasha and Charlotte graduated in 2018 and within a few months secured roles that have led them to where they are now. Having kept in touch with them both over the last few years I applied for the opportunity to participate in this industry project with the brand. Good conversations were had to shape the brief, and ensure it worked for both parties. Habitat were incredibly generous with the project offer, with three visits to Norwich: the briefing, a mid-project review and a judging / awards event. The students worked hard, asked great questions and proved their ability to respond to the briefs, demonstrating keen awareness of sustainable and innovative material solutions and textiles pattern outcomes for kids’ interiors. The students were able to pitch their projects during the seven weeks and gain feedback to consider as they developed ideas and sampling. There was certainly a sense of competition, and everyone wanted to do well in front of the judges. They made us all very proud. 

It was brilliant to see Tasha and Charlotte in their professional roles supporting the students in a kind and compassionate manner, sharing industry insights and recalling their own worries and excitement of the final year, graduation and beyond. The benefit for the students was a consideration of professional opportunity and ambition, passion and skill, and most importantly – industry feedback. They were listened to those who were working in roles they may aspire to have, and to have their work reviewed made this feel more possible.

For the academic staff and Habitat designers it was humbling to see the commitment the students made, and how valuable the journey of personal growth is at any stage of a career. I’m sure Tasha and Charlotte had no idea they would, five years on, be leading a design project with degree students, and I am delighted to be able to participate in this experience with them, reminding them of how unsure they had been back during their final year of degree study, but how far they’ve come since then. I was reminded how valuable these opportunities are. They take a lot of organising and planning, but the pay off will be long-lasting. A huge thank you to Tasha and Charlotte!

There is a university blog post here for more information, pictures and feedback.

REPEAT panel and contributor book signing

/ katefarley / Leave a comment

It’s been a while since I last wrote here – the summer term at university has been very busy, … I’ve hosted an Industry Awards Day, assessed a lot of work, put up a degree show and taken students to the graduate showcase of New Designers in London, to name a few activities, so not much headspace I’m afraid.

In the middle of all that I agreed to chair a panel at New Designers titled Contemporary Printed Textiles and Surface Design Practice. I had the amazing designers Emma J Shipley, Sarah Campbell and Deborah Bowness as panellists, sharing their expertise – all three designers are interviewees in my REPEAT book. I had some questions up my sleeves to shape the discussions, and despite not having done this sort of thing before I thoroughly enjoyed leading it. To a pretty much packed venue we discussed our individual design processes, clients and customers, how we work through licensing deals, and the decisions behind establishing brand identities. Sarah, Emma and Deborah have decades of experience between them so it was so valuable to share their generous and hard-earned experiences with the attentive audience. We could have carried on for much longer! There was also the highlight of meeting my publisher from Bloomsbury, Georgia, who I’d not met in real life before then, but came along to support me.

I also had another idea in my mind, to ask Sarah, Emma and Deborah to sign my REPEAT book to make it a special keepsake. As New Designers is a textile design industry event I also managed to cross paths with several other contributors and asked them to sign it too, including Mark and Keith of Mini Moderns, Clarissa Hulse, Daniel Heath, Jules of @thepatternsocial fame, as well as past students Tasha, now designer at Habitat and Molly, currently floral print designer at Bay and Brown. It has become a mission to find opportunities to cross paths with the many others included, but this could be a very long task!

The day ended in celebration for my colleague Jill, who retired this month after 38+ years at Norwich University of the Arts. Jill taught me when I was 18 years old, and we’ve worked together over the last five years in Norwich. She came along with Grainne, also one of my tutors, to support our graduates on the stand at the show, so I grabbed a picture with them both and the book. They earned a mention in the acknowledgments as they were hugely supportive of me as a student, introducing me to their love of drawing, colour and pattern that has stood me in the many years since.

It was a really successful few days in London with our graduates doing themselves and us proud, as they jumped with both feet in to this great industry experience, just weeks before I proudly read their names out as they crossed the graduation stage at Norwich City football ground. Now it’s time for some holiday!

Academic acknowledgement: thoughts

/ katefarley / Leave a comment

I’ve already shared the news via my other social media channels, but I’m delighted to announce here too I have been confirmed Associate Professor in Design at Norwich University of the Arts. This makes me extremely proud and at the same time reflective about the career I’ve had so far.

At eighteen years old I had very little idea what I wanted to do as a job or career, and considered widely contrasting options of occupational therapy, sports psychology, the army, teaching … something creative …. having grown out of the idea of being a bagpipe player, aged 4, and archeologist, aged 8. There are skills involved in roles across some of these that are required in my current post in academia but equally some a disastrous fit, at least to the me I am now.

Going through art school and university, even the post grad. masters course, I was petrified of the ‘real world’ of work, despite having Saturday and holiday jobs from a young age. I can clearly remember the months I earned nothing as a freelance designer, the humiliation of the job centre line and housing benefit application process, the years of no holidays unless they were working holidays to get free board, and watching peers become adults in an adult world, as I tried to work out what I wanted to do while keeping expenses low and resourcefulness high. The turning point was my first role as Print and Photomedia technician at Central Saint Martins, London, where I met people like me, dividing their weeks with practice and educational roles – this could be my real world too!

Today I can look back over a twenty-plus year academic career and so much makes sense; the joy of hindsight. Since school I have taught at play schemes, Sure Start projects, NHS trust projects, community projects, adult education workshops, school outreach, FE & HE courses. Every project taught me something that informs the educator I am today, and clarified my preferred environment for teaching and learning. For over twenty five years I’ve led a creative practice that has evolved substantially from the one I led in my studio / bedroom in south London, making books at a tiny desk, using the bathroom as a darkroom in the middle of the night, and the print room at CSM when the students had left. Artwork on the London underground network, designs on a huge hospital roof, in an airport, selling products to Japan and America … Projects happen but it’s easy to forget they were all unimaginable to the eighteen year old self. At art school I learned the value of drawing, of playing with the design process, of dedication to make something the best it could be and commitment to colour mixing. Those tutors shaped my rigorous approach to my practice today. Incidentally, my minimalist aesthetic was defined lazy by one visiting tutor I had the displeasure to be taught by – he missed the point I remember thinking, I knew he had got me wrong.

As an academic I’ve learned to continue to learn, continually … One instance: I was thrown in to the deep end to deliver design history lectures to undergraduates many years ago, with no GCSE in basic history, and only faint memories of my own design history education for support – that was a particularly low point. Hundreds of hours investment, much reading and learning, and a fair amount adrenaline got me through those early years. Some students have told me since then, that those lectures were among their highlights, and I feel pleased – retrospectively I can’t help feel grateful to my then boss for not giving me the get-out option. This skill and knowledge is now something I hugely enjoy and benefit from. I love to share my passion for design history – who would have thought? Not the eighteen year old me!

In running my design practice in parallel with my academic career I am busy. It would be easier if I was content to focus on one rather than juggling my headspace and waking hours. I’m not alone in wondering why I maintain both, but it is simple – they need each other, and I need each of them. My teaching is filled with current industry experience, my design practice feeds the lectures, workshops and tutorials I deliver. The design experience feeds my research and my practice validates my teaching. My own creative struggles and insecurities support my understanding and empathy for the students I teach and nurture to be brave soles, out in the real world, like I had to be and continue to be. I love to learn, and if I can share what I learn and understand, I can help others to enjoy the design industry too.

I’ve stood at trade shows, on my stand for 12-hour days, promoting my new collections while checking my uni emails on my phone, to make sure things are running okay in my absence. I’ve spoken to industry partners interested in my work, while at the same time my head is working out how I can link the students to the opportunities they may hold too. I’ve formed relationships with wonderful industry friends who now form a network of support for the graduates I’ve taught. The important thing to learn is that we are all in this, learning together, helping others and together making the world a better place to be. The response to me achieving this recognition has been overwhelming. Colleagues past and present, students and graduates, manufacturers and past collaborators, and so many more people have got in touch – reminding me of many precious moments along the way.

I’m grateful to have this recognition from the university. The contribution I’ve made to both the design industry and academia is acknowledged as valuable to others, and united in potential – and that’s a good starting point for the next twenty years!