In this report I will discuss 2 very different designers who have visited our university in this academic year. One designer who came in to show us her work and discuss her role as a freelance designer was Helen Latimer. I will compare her to a very contrasting group of designers called Container Plus who are a collaborative design team. In this report I want to understand 2 very different designers viewpoints on the positives and negatives of both collaboration and designing as an individual. Helen has been a very strong contact this year for me, and I have learnt a lot of new information from her which I have used in my practise. Helen is a freelance designer who specializes in menswear design for sportswear. She used to work at Umbro for a design team where she learnt her trade and understood industry requirements. This allowed her to be a very strong designer when she moved into freelancing. I knew straight away that what Helen did at Umbro was exactly what I wanted to do, I wanted to work in a team designing for a sportswear brand. It was obvious that this is what I wanted to do but I found the Container Plus talk very interesting and learnt a lot about what life as a collaborative designer is like, and I took a lot of positive information away from the talk. Container Plus was started by 2 university friends, Louise Vormiteag and Nicola Carter. After collaborating in University for a project where they made a film, these 2 designers continued to work together and form a partnership. They were interested in the idea of being collaborative because they both had a very different style which they thought could provide them both with a large and varied portfolio, suitable for employers. This way of thinking inspired me and I was very interested at the time about how useful a collaborative project would be, or how difficult it would be to work in a team. I decided to ask Helen about collaboration, and underpin exactly why she wanted to design by herself, and also get an independent designers view on the positives and negatives of collaboration. Aswell as understanding Container Plus' views on collaboration and how you make a team work. I asked Helen whether or not she considered working in a partnership after university, or whether her plan was to promote herself as an individual. Helen responded by saying, " I Just promoted myself to get a job as I felt I needed experience in a firm before thinking about promoting /working for myself.". I continued to ask Helen about whether or not she believes collaboration to be successful. She believed that the positives are the idea of shared responsibility, the chance to discuss ideas, and the opportunity to take on more work. However, the things that put Helen off the idea of collaboration was the shared control of the team, the politics of splitting workload and money and that one person in the group may end up doing more work than the other people involved. I have began to learn that if I worked for a company It would involve working in a team and bouncing ideas of other designers, and this aspect of it is collaborative. As a freelancer the closest thing to collaboration would be speaking to other designers and recommending clients, but as for technical design questions, I would speak directly to the client or factory.
Container Plus' views on working successfully as a group are very useful to me, because if I worked in a design team I would need to take on board similar strategies. Container Plus said that it is important not to bring any personal issues to work, to have a good sense of humour, to be committed and reliable to the group, and most importantly lose your design ego if you have one. All this knowledge from such an established group of designers is very useful as I approach the end of my course and i begin searching for a design job.
I am confident that when Helen worked as a designer in Umbro, she shared this similar mentality as it is probably the only way to be successful as an individual in a design team.
Container Plus do have a very mixed portfolio, as both Louise and Nicola have varied styles. This is very useful for them as a company because they can approach a very wide client base and take on very different jobs that require different skills. Helen told me that from her experience, companies always seem to require that a men's collection and a women's collection is designed. This is Helen's way of being involved in seeing new styles and new ways of working because she is in touch with the designer who is producing the women's collection.
I believe that both these practitioners have been useful to me, I have learnt from Helen a lot more about the industry and what she does as an independent designer. Container Plus have taught me a lot of useful facts about working in a team which is very useful to me as I approach a job in a studio.
To see some work by these designers, click on their name below:
Helen Latimer
Container Plus
