exhibit unite . Publication . Photography . trend forecasting business . pr journalism . work experience
EXHIBIT UNITE
Concept: To create a website that promotes exhibitions across the UK along with promotional material. Exhibit Unite is a website that I have created for my third year project. Exhibit Unite represents museums and galleries across the UK, to be a service where with just a click users can discover what exhibitions are currently on. Due to having a number of websites only offering information on a small selection of museums and galleries, there is a gap in the market to have one central site with all information in one place. This especially would make it easier for any tourist to access information about what the country’s museums and galleries have to offer. Jessica Pomfret Concept, Images, Layout, Words, & Website Design
Show and share art for the enjoyment of all
the ultimate guide to seeing and experiencing exhibitions across the UK
Brief: To compose a magazine and for the content to support the concept and illustrate the themes you are exploring. Neophyte is a publication that aims to be a platform to share, showcase and support emerging creative talent from various disciplines. We want to give not only graduates, but also current students a chance to showcase some of their finest work. Our aim is to travel across the country visiting a number of cities to discover the next new thing. Every three months Neophyte will be bringing you the very best of new and upcoming talent. Jessica Pomfret Photography, Styling, Words & Layout
Brief: To create a story led editorial fashion photo shoot, for a magazine of your choosing which you must style, shoot and produce and layout into magazine spreads. For this project I re-created ASOS magazine. The magazine consisted of a photoshoot in the stlye of a typical ASOS photoshoot and an article on the two women behind Who What Wear a website where users can find the latest and greatest celebrity style and runway trends. Jessica Pomfret Photography, Words & Layout
Brief: The photographic styling elements will speak of the over – arching thematic content of the magazine.
This photoshoot had to be in keeping with my publication - to showcase emerging creative talent from various diciplines. For this specific photoshoot I chose to photograph a jacket from a final year fashion student. The creation of the jacket was inspired by the mining industry by which ores such as metals can be recovered. It was from the designer’s concept that I chose a local scrap yard filled with diggers and scrap metal - continuing the theme of a very nitty gritty environment, not only focusing on the garment itself, but also all the different textures found at this site. Jessica Pomfret Photography & Styling
All in keeping with my publication Neophyte, to promote emerging creative talent, I wanted to display my own creative skills. Therefore I produced a scenic photoshoot from my visit to a local wood. Jessica Pomfret Photography
Jessica Pomfret Photography
Brief: To create a story led editorial fashion photoshoot. I chose Asos magazine to recreate, so I wanted the photoshoot to be on trend but also have a playful theme. The photoshoot here follows a girl around the town who is ready for a night out. To really emphasize a sense of playfullness I wanted to use colourful and interesting backgrounds instead of doing the photoshoot in the studio. Jessica Pomfret Photography & Styling
Brief: Create an online identity for a trend information provider forecasting trends that will be important for 2014 and develop your web based trend portal. This display is to include a live blog and a variety of other trend related materials.
Due to the remake of the film, Arabian Nights a trend to look out for in 2014 will be influences from the Middle East. The trend is to be full of rich textures and colours; this will be introduced to the fashion trend through the colours and fabrics used to create the garments. Taking inspiration from traditional Persian rugs known for using intricate patterns derived from historic monuments and Islamic buildings, and also interconnected, striped and vase patterns. There is a wide range of colours that can be used, inspired from a dry and sandy desert to the full exuberance of traditional Middle Eastern clothing, using only the brightest colours and beautiful beading and embroidery.
I’LL TAKE YOUR BRAIN TO ANOTHER DIMENSION This trend is very diverse, it can also encompass an alien-esque theme, taking inspiration from the film ‘Alien’, 1979 and TV programmes such as ‘Star Trek’ with the skin-tight space suits and bizarre headdresses. Modernist fabrics are essential for this look; fabrics include ink encased plastics and silver latex, whilst the look is further galvanised by the sharp tailored silhouette and flashes of metallic; creating a futuristic feel but also relating it to technology, the cold, hard feel of metal and industrialisation. It will be a very tough looking tend and even some cases, androgynous. Sci-fi modernism is about making a bold statement, being very dramatic and expressive, with the art of layering combined with digital prints.
WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF THESE TWO WORLDS COLLIDE?
There will be a clash of textures; reptile scales making up futuristic forms contrasted against the traditional Arabic patterns. Creating a brand new trend that has never been approached before a new futuristic twist on the modest Middle Eastern way of dressing. Their traditional dress will be modernised with clean and sharp, exaggerated silhouettes like pointed shoulders and cocoon shapes. The jewellery will have the robotic look elements combined with the luxurious and intricate designs of the classical Arabian adornment. Due to global warming people will be covering up more, protecting themselves against the sun’s rays, similar to how the Arabs dress when travelling through the desert. The key is to be bold and embrace things a little strange and alien, playing them down by pairing futuristic pieces with more classic ones. Jessica Pomfret Photoshop Images
Brief: To create your own business in a team of 6 other students. Our business venture was to create and set up a handmade accessories company, called Bells & Whistles. Adorable friendship bracelets and eye-catching rings is what we’re all about. We believe inproducts that are both beautiful & affordable. Our brand was based in Newcastle upon Tyne city centre. My role throughout this process was Personnel Director; I kept the team motivated, scheduled meetings, making sure all deadlines were met and corresponding with the External Mentor. It has been a very rewarding experience, I learnt the process of writing a business plan and the organisation needed to run your own business.
Brief: To establish your own P.R. agency. “Prescient PR is an international professional public relations company focused on fashion and accessories. We aim to design abd help its members become more effective in their careers and strengthening their customer connection.”The name Prescient was inspired by the name Jessica, which means to look into the future. When researching synonyms for the meaning of future I came across the word prescient - which means to be foresighted. The name Prescient reflects the agency’s aims, to be a platform for new and up-coming designers and to launch them into the industry. Jessica Pomfret Logo & Words
“Step into a world of lace like you’ve never seen before.” Lost in Lace is the name of new exhibition at the Gas Hall, Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery. The Crafts Council and Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery have worked together to deliver a spectacular craft exhibition. On the 31st January I visited the Lost In Lace exhibition. Lace is one trend that will never leave the catwalk or the streets. It is continuously evolving; as a material, how we think about it and how we use it. It was once reserved for blushing brides, jam jar toppers and curtains, but Lost in Lace sees Birmingham Gas Hall filled with everything from intricate to large-scale pieces, all inspired by lace. This exhibition brings 20 leading international artists showcasing new and radical approaches to lacework - creating installations and playing with ideas around the holes, spaces, boundaries and structures that lace creates. Lost In Lace gives you the chance to walk freely through, and between lace installations. With no barriers surrounding the work, you can get incredibly close to the pieces and see the intricacies of each beautifully constructed installation. When you walk into the exhibition, you are immediately hit with the inverted Crystal Cathedral, which contains a quarter of a tonne of Swarovski crystal. It is easily the most impressive exhibit with over 1,000 strands of crystals. But before your eyes have time to soak in the chandelier, you start to gaze at the other exhibits such as Annie Bascoul’s Moucharabieh Jardin de Lit. A lovely piece that you can walk through and since part of the piece is suspended virtually invisibly from the ceiling – looking like a big fluffy cloud you want to fluff up even more, or even flop onto. As you walk around, you are greeted with little tables that hold the description of each installation. They also have a very child friendly feature: next to the table, set on a lower edge (perfect height for children) is an example of the artwork- you are able to touch the material/textile without having to touch the actual exhibition. Other striking works within the exhibition include Nils Völker‘s installation One Hundred and Eight. Initially, his work may appear seemingly unrelated to the core theme of lace. The viewer stands in front of forty-eight inflating and deflating bags that mimic the respiratory motion of the lungs. However, the complexity of this work lies beneath what the viewer can see, in the form of a circuit board. This circuit board is an interwoven web of wires that mimic the intricacy of lace. It is a fairly small exhibition but perfectly formed and a must see! I found this exhibition refreshingly eye opening, showing that lace has a timeless quality. There is much more to lace than meets the eye.
Jessica Pomfret Photography & Words
neophyte
YOUR FUTURE, WHAT COMES NEXT? We’ve created Neophyte to be a platform to share, showcase and support emerging creative talent from various disciplines. We want to give not only graduates, but also current \students a chance to showcase some of their finest work. By Jessica Pomfret
In the undergraduate fashion world, the most important event in the calendar has to be Graduate Fashion Week (GFW). Zoolike, the four-day experience sees over 1,000 students, from over 40 universities, standing in their ‘enclosures’ ready to greet passers by and generate an interest in their portfolios; all competing against each other to attract attention. As Christopher Bailey, Burberry Chief Creative Officer says, GFW shows that “we have the most exceptional design talent coming out of our Colleges.” Not surprisingly, this dexterous event sees leading industry members coming to discover graduates to recruit. But we think there is a serious lack of promotion of new designers. The award winners get reviewed & highlighted but anyone else tends to falls along the way side, unnoticed - a crying shame as there is some outstanding talent out there. The official literature of the GFW tends to only highlight the sponsors & a small handful of award winners. To be nominated for an award, the graduates must be elected by their own course tutor. For a student to gain any professional development from exhibiting at GFW they need to have the funds to finance their own promotional leaflets, magazines and business cards. To meet the costs of having their work professionally printed and to gather money for this event, students turn to fundraising, also making contributions from their own all too meagre resources. To find out what makes someone stand out at GFW, Neophyte has decided to catch up with Lauren Briggs who graduated last year with a BA Hons in Fashion Communication, from Northumbria University. Although she may have not received an award at GFW 2012, we found that her final project really differentiated her from her peers, and we wanted to find out why, and just what it was that made her go that extra mile beyond her class? Lauren was nominated for the Barclays New Business Idea by her tutor Chris Hodge, but unfortunately she was not what the finalist judges were looking for. But this did not stop her! It’s a cold October evening, the nights are drawing in faster and the bitter, warming smell of coffee complements the sweet smell of cake in the air. It’s here in a small cafe in her hometown, Newcastle, that Neophyte meets up with recent Northumbria graduate Lauren Briggs. Other students are starting to wander in after their lectures but whilst they’re slurping on their cappuccinos, it’s Lauren that stands out, oozing confidence and wearing a big smile – the smile of a proud graduate!
neophyte
Lauren’s final project, The Internship Project was a way for Lauren to explore the way students were interning in the fashion industry. Generally, she found that students worked in excess of 12-hourshifts, with only half an hour break and no pay. Does this sound glamorous to you? Although the experience gained is crucial, there is now a growing movement that believes that there should be some financial remuneration and that industry regulations should be complied with. Hearing about the inspiration behind a student’s final project always makes for an intriguing conversation. Unlike the majority of her class, Lauren began her final year not knowing what she wanted to do and it wasn’t until further on in the term that she had a ‘light bulb’ moment. During the summer Lauren had a work placement at a well-known high-street company. It was here that she met a fellow intern who has been working for over a year unpaid. This intern was essential to the company: doing all the jobs that needed to be done! When Lauren asked why she was still working for the company the intern replied, “although I need the experience, I won’t be here for much longer - I’m looking for something else that will pay me!” Although Lauren had nothing iniquitous happen to her whilst on her own placements, she found that other students were not as fortunate and were more than willing to share their stories! This was the root of inspiration for The Internship Project. Lauren found that her research led naturally from one thing to another, first looking at the National Minimum Wage, the rights behind it and whether or not Interns really should be paid – and she discovered that it was in fact illegal not to pay Interns the National Minimum Wage. Lauren took on what became a huge project: the primary research alone being a mammoth task for one person! Was she really going to challenge the entire industry? Once having set up the Internship Project blog, she received emails from all over the world from people willing to share their stories and help her. The Internship Project put this Fashion Communication graduate into a world of her own. She says “The campaign went so much further and deeper than I ever imagined it would.” Terry Mansfield CBE, Consultant at The Hearst Corporation gave her resounding praise and one thing Lauren says she never forgot was the advice he gave her, and if you are going to choose to live your life by a rule,then surely this is as good as any; “From the minute when you wake up, you should do something mischievous and shocking to get a reaction from someone!”
Pages from Dover Street Magazine, article written on The Internship Project
AROUND
250,000
GRADUATES TAKE ON
UNPAID
INTERNSHIPS EVERY YEAR
“Her passion, hard work and dedication to the cause meant that she connected with her project on a different level from many of her peers.” When showcasing her work at GFW 2012, Lauren had her fair share of ups and downs – from having her work stolen to being introduced to some of the biggest names in the industry. GFW is the time when you are meant to feel the proudest of what you have achieved, with both the industry and the public coming to see your work - you may even get future employment from it! It is here where you look back on the three years of university and probably wish you had done more work, instead of enjoying the spoils of being a student in one of the best student cities in the North, (as voted three years in a row by MSN Travel)! At the event Lauren was instantly recognized for doing something outspokenand taking a risk – it takes a lot of fearlessness to create a campaign on the misuse of interns in an industry that is notorious for exploiting them! Neophyte also spoke to Gayle Cantrell, a tutor at Northumbria University to discover her thoughts on The Internship Project:“Lauren took quite a risk with the idea, as creating a campaign of this scale was not something she had prior experience in – ultimately her passion, hard work and dedication to the cause meant that she connected with her project on a different level from many of her peers.” Since graduating, Lauren hasn’t been sure as to what she wanted to do in her career, but she did know that she did not want to dive straight into the deep end and move to London like so many of her peers. So she stayed at home in Spennymoor and looked for jobs in and around Newcastle. For the last two months Lauren has been working as a Visual Merchandiser at Debenhams. Laurenwas competing against over 30 people for the position, but Debenhams thought that her experience in the industry outshone all other applicants and offered her the job the following morning! With only a couple of months working at the department store, the store manager has already approached her to say that what she has done so far has been amazing, even suggesting that all of the stores across the country should follow her example! “I don’t know if this is going to be my careerfor the rest of my life, but I’m absolutely loving it at the moment,” says Lauren. It seems that although Lauren is unsure as to what direction her career will ultimately take, her work will be continuously recognized and praised due to the sheer passion she has that keeps her constantly driving ahead to the upmost of her ability. So when asked what the plan was for her future Lauren replied, “I still don’t know because career wise - I’ve never known what I’ve wanted to do! But what I do know is that I want to be working for a company that is responsible towards its staff, and the environment in which it does business and have my own team!” What makes Lauren a cut above the rest and so exceptional is that she wants to push the boundaries of communication like when she took such a gamble in her final year. When discussing her work, the enthusiasm in Lauren’s voice is both captivating and endearing. Although still so young at the age of 22, she has already achieved a huge amount. Yet she remains eager to learn more. Her passionate eagerness, combined withimmense artistic talent, will mean that she will quickly gain the admiration and recognition that she deserves – in whatever field she chooses. Lauren is a fantastic example of what it takes to stand out at GFW: Passion, promotion and being prepared to take risks to stand out. Neophyte is looking forward to finding the stars of this year’s GFW - to see who can match up to, or maybe even surpass, Lauren’s achievements.
Jessica Pomfret Words
Being very keen to follow a career in PR and events, over the past year I have been invited back by FSI Events numerous times to fulfill a specific role. I have worked at both of their events, Fashion Scout and Graduate Fashion Week. I have now completed my third season at fashion week, with twice being given full management role. The main challenge that I faced whilst working with FSI was at Graduate Fashion Week 2012, being the Office Manager during the event I looked after all universities, sponsors, executive committee and VIPs. During this experience I excelled at being able to cope with a varied work load, even when under immense pressure.
During April 2013 I had the opportunity to work with Shine Communications on a two week internship. During my time with Shine I created powerpoint presentations on their clients’ coverage in the media, updating their media contacts using Gorkana and contacting media in regards of their attendance to the GHD event that was taking place the following week. But most importantly, creating a blog for Playstation.