Desk of the Day - 09/02/14 Making uni work as kawaii as possible

Today I'm working on my tech file. Along side our projects at uni we're supposed to create a file full of techniques and things we've learned during our classes. Right now I'm working on some pages introducing all the machines we use to make shoes and what they do. As you can guess, it gets a little boring just typing up notes so I couldn't resist making the machines into little kawaii monsters! They're not all as friendly as they look & can be dangerous, but they're pretty helpful when it comes to making shoes.

More of my uni projects // More Desk of the Day posts 

The Death of a Shoe

On my first day of uni we were all taken into a room full of shoes and asked to pick one to take apart. To my flatmate Ari's horror, I chose a sneaker made by the brand GUESS (she's a Guess addict and almost cried when she saw the corpse of what once was a Guess shoe).

Taking the shoe apart was very eye opening, I discovered so many hidden parts that keep the shoe together, stable and comfortable.

Here's some pictures I took for my tech file. If you're squeamish about dismembered shoes then look away now.

You can see more of my uni work here.

Remake & Remodel - Bacteria Pattern

Leading on from my post a few days ago, after a couple of days catching up on crazy dog and fat cat cuddles, I'm feeling up to going into more detail on my current project!

This project is called Remake & Remodel. Our brief is to be inspired by a shoe we were given to deconstruct (pictures of this to come!). Deconstructing my shoe got me thinking about what goes into a shoe and what isn't shown. So, inspired by designers that use functioning parts as design features, I started thinking about what is inside us that dosn't show. I ended up looking into DNA, viruses and bacteria, all of which have some fabulous visuals to inspire a project.

Pattern has been a large part of the shoe designs I've been working on for this project, I wanted to add some fun and bright PonyChops style to these shoes. Here's a pattern I've designed and decided on to be in my final shoe design. I'm really pleased with how it's turned out, and think it works well with the style of shoe I've picked.

Remake & Remodel - finally a catch up!

Hey guys, long time no speak! I'm sorry last week was a little empty on the blog. This term at uni is whizzing past and I feel like I haven't even shared any of it with you yet! I'm hoping to organize my time a little better this next couple of weeks so I can share some more work and London life with you.

This term I have two big projects, one named "Remake - Remodel". I'm not going to go into any crazy detail with it yet as I've been sat at a computer for 12 hours today! So here's some dodecahedron patterns that I made for the project. Hopefully I'll get to explain the project to you some more in some future posts, but for now I'm off home to sunny Preston! I can't wait to finally get some fat cat and crazy doggy cuddles! Can you believe I've been away from them almost 2 months now?

My Dr Martens & Uni interviews - An update!

Earlier in the year I announced my plans to return to University and study shoe design at London College of Fashion. I also applied for a years internship in the Made in England factory at Dr Martens.

I originally didn't get the Dr Martens job, so I accepted my university offer at LCF which I am incredibly excited about! So for the past couple of months I've been pretty sure about where my life is headed, and been excitedly making plans to move to London in September.

Last week I got a phone call that is probably going to stick in my head and torment me for a long time! Dr Martens phoned me and offered me the internship. I think someone must have had to leave and I was their next in line for the job. I was stunned, I'd dreamt about having that job for months! Working for Dr Martens would be such an amazing opportunity.

My automatic reaction was to turn it down (literally 2 seconds after I said no I was like "WTF did I do that for??"). I had an encouraging phone call with the lady from Dr Martens, who assured me that I would be able to apply for a design internship there in my third year at LCF, which would be freakin ideal, and actually my dream job! I feel a little less uneasy about turning down the factory internship now. I still REAALLY hope I get to work with Dr Martens in the future, I'm such a big fan of their brand, and I'd love to get expanding their vegan range ;)

Phew, If you just read through all that you probably deserve some pictures. Here's the shoes I designed & painted for my Dr Martens and uni interviews.

A big fat shoe update

Pictured: Dr Martens Hincky Boot

Well, it feels like it's been a century since I last wrote a personal post. I've had a busy few weeks and because of that the blog has been a little neglected. I'm now getting back into the swing of things and have a few outfit posts/recipes/DIY ideas planned for the next few months!

At the beginning of the year I announced that I had big plans for my future with shoes and shoe design. One of my big goals this year is to learn how to make shoes (or at least begin to learn), It's been an ambition of mine for a long time. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE painting shoes, but it would be amazing to be able to design the whole product.

The first few weeks of 2013 were spent scouring the internet for short courses to learn how to make shoes. The ones I found were all based in London, and I couldn't learn nearly enough through one course to build a business on or base a career on. So there has been a little change of plan!

In February I found out about an apprenticeship scheme at Dr Martens! I love the Dr Martens brand, they make such fantastic shoes with a great attention to quality and functional design. Working for Dr Martens would be my dream job! So I went ahead and applied.

A couple of weeks ago I got to visit their English factory and see them making the "made in England" shoes, which was so interesting. England used to have a great trade of shoe making, so it's really refreshing to see a big, worldwide company keeping up the tradition.
Last week I was invited back for an interview and some tests, I should find out this week if I got the job. As I write this my stomach is churning with nerves!! I want this job so much.

Before I applied for the Dr Martens job, I'd also applied for the place on the shoe making course at London College of Fashion. Check out the shoes the students produce, they're freakin amazing. Last week I had an interview there and it went so well, and they accepted my application! I love the course leaders there, they're so enthusiastic about design, knowledgeable and very friendly. The course itself is like a dream come true. I'll get to learn everything I ever wanted to! I can't wait to get stuck in. It's a 2 year course with a view to doing a third year and getting a degree. They have so many competitions available to only LCF students and great contacts in the industry, it really is an amazing course.

Of course if I get the Dr Martens job I'll be taking that and putting uni on hold for a while. I don't think I'd be able to turn down the job of a lifetime!

The last couple of days I've finally been able to breathe again, I spent the last few weeks as an exhausted bag of nerves, constantly working on my portfolio and getting more and more worried about my interviews. It's great to finally get back to spending lots of cuddle time with the dogs & Tofu again (and Ash, of course).