Peter Jones, London

We recently mentioned that our students from the London College of Fashion won the Gold prize at Olympia a few weeks ago.  Well, if you happen to be Sloane Square right now, you can view their installation in person.  OK, well it is tucked away in the back streets, but then all the fun things happen there anyway, right?  So, do meander your way along here as we also found some really great schemes in the stores behind their installation which we'll include over the next few days also.  In the meantime, the guys at Peter Jones have been incredibly supportive of the new and latest talent emerging into the Visual Merchandising industry and this communicates incredible confidence in their own brand that they are able to give some (and we don't under estimate this) incredibly expensive space in support of the new industry talent.  How cool are the guys leading this, hey?

The London College of Fashion

Following on from their visit to the Science Museum recently the students of the Fashion Retail Branding and Visual Merchandising course at the London College of Fashion began to use their recorded images from their sketch books and work these in to three dimensional models in perspex. This is quite a difficult material to use initially although the group managed to produce these incredible pieces in just a few hours. These pieces were in turn sketched. The thinking behind this part of the project was to enable students to begin working and thinking beyond the two dimensional and enabling them to communicate their intentions in order to explain their thinking to someone else, such as a client, so that they in turn could understand their future concepts. Communicating ones intentions to a client is a crucial part of the Design process. As we know a client will never part with any money (and rightly so) unless they can see what they are going to get for it and therefore this is an essential skill to have in their portfolios.

The London College of Fashion

This week I took the students of the Fashion Retail branding and Visual Merchandising course at the London College of Fashion to view some of the delights of the Science Museum here in London. Now, one may not think of the Science Museum as the first place to visit while developing a concept for Visual Merchandising but the focus of this exercise was to view and record some of the mathematical models contained within the cabinets, to study shape, curvilinear, centripetal and centrifugal forms and how these can inform the development of a Visual Merchandising concept as seen below in Tiffany, London. The group sketched these pieces which in turn the group will translate into perspex models at the next stage which will then also be sketched. These will be published soon.

The London College of Fashion

After a full day of drawing and model making our Fashion Retail and Visual Merchandising course students had produced an enormous amount of work. The 2mm plywood provided for the students had been cut, twisted and manipulated into a limitless variety of possible positions and sketches of the pieces produced began to emerge. The next stage for the group will be to visit the Science Museum here in London to record some of the mathematical forms which will then be used to produced three dimensional models in perspex. This whole process of research, recording, developing ideas etc. introduces students to a variety of ways of working as many of the group had never studied Art and Design prior to beginning the course and therefore I feel this this is quite a remarkable achievement after just two sessions?

The London College of Fashion

Having taken the group Year 1 students of the Fashion Retail Branding and Visual Merchandising course to record the delights of Kew Gardens and the Natural History Museum here in London the previous week, students began to use their observational drawings, taking them from the two dimensional flat image into three dimensions. This can be a hard process to do for any novice however, the groups did incredibly well. Two millimetre plywood was soaked over night in water to soften it and make is easier to work with, and students used their initial drawings to work from. The group were not expected to produce cut out leaves of little plants in the material but to look at the lines, the shapes and forms which the plants that they had studied had produced. Once their three dimensional models were created, these in turn were recorded and therefore beginning a Design process. Students also drew random words from a hat which they also had to begin to deconstruct. This added another layer of complexity to the project which they also needed to unravel as part of the process.

The London College of Fashion

As the weather in London has been so awful lately here in London, my colleague and I decided to take our second group of Fashion Retail Branding and Visual Merchandising students to explore the rich resources of the Natural History Museum here in London. The students were tasked to create a series of observational drawings from some of the exhibits which included the most incredible natural forms such as corals and fossilised plants, crystals and prehistoric skeletons. The aim of the process was to enable students to further develop their observational drawing skills and then begin to move from the two dimensional drawings into three dimensional models in a series of materials. This helps to enable students to understand the concept of space, shape and form and how this can be utilised with a commercial environment as well as beginning to understand the constraints of a variety of materials.

The London College of Fashion

This year has seen the beginning of something new and exciting for me with a new group of students from the Foundation degree in Fashion Retail Branding and Visual Merchandising at the London College of Fashion. The students have been briefed on a new project for the term which involves them developing their creative skills to produce a creative installation. I like to spend time with my students out of the class room and experiencing the treasures around London and using these places and spaces in order to explain a Design process. Here students visited the incredible Kew gardens in South West London. It was freezing cold and it had snowed but the Palm Houses were deliciously warm, enabling the students to study some of the plants in order to develop their drawing ability as a means of fundamental visual communication skills. These two dimensional drawings will be used to create three dimensional models in a variety of materials. I will post some of their development here on the blog in the next few weeks for you to view.