Alumni – Page 22 – Goldsmiths Design Blog

Goldsmiths Design career talks: Nick Marsh, Lost My Name

Early this year, the Design Department at Goldsmiths welcomed back a few of its graduates for a series of talks on career paths post-graduation; one of them was Nick Marsh, currently Vice President Product Designer at Lost My Name, a company which sells personalised children’s books.

Lost My Name is a very fast-growing business: it went from 12 to 100 employees since Nick joined, and currently publishes Britain’s best-selling children’s book. Nick’s role is mostly a managing one, and involves answering questions that are vital to the development of the company: “What products should we make? How do we define what market we’re in? What’s the relationship between the story worlds that we have? Should we design all our products ourselves or should we work with outside design companies or outside design teams?” Their model is an unusual one for publishing, as only books which are bought are printed, so the product is constantly improved, much like software.

Screen Shot 2016-04-08 at 16.21.59 — The Lost My Name website

Continue reading “Goldsmiths Design career talks: Nick Marsh, Lost My Name”

Goldsmiths Design career talks: Kirsty Minns, The Future Laboratory

In January, the Design Department at Goldsmiths welcomed back a few of its graduates for a series of talks on career paths post-graduation. One of the speakers was Kirsty Minns, currently a Creative Director for The Future Laboratory.

Kirsty, who first came to Goldsmiths ten years ago, did not have in mind a clear trajectory from the beginning: “The third year on the course was a reality check: I need to earn money from being a designer, how am I actually going to do this?” She reminisced about learning to make ceramics for her graduation project: “I spent a lot of time in a small hut at the back of the Lockwood Building, trying to learn a process that normally takes years to learn.

And I think that was what really exciting about Goldsmiths, it gives you these opportunities where you have to be quite proactive in learning new skills, and the support of the tutors was phenomenal.” Continue reading “Goldsmiths Design career talks: Kirsty Minns, The Future Laboratory”

MA Fashion Alumna Ruth Jacob Talks about Life After Goldsmiths

The MA in Fashion is the youngest of our Design MAs: its first students came to Goldsmiths in 2013. Ruth Jacob was part of this inaugural group of Fashion students, and now she’s sent word to us on what her studies at Goldsmiths meant to her, and what she’s been up to since graduation:

“Since graduating from Goldsmiths in 2014, I have endeavoured to keep myself linked with fashion as much as I can. The MA Fashion was quite different to what I expected, as it took on a more contextual and theoretical viewpoint. However, this provided me with a great opportunity to learn about fashion from different viewpoints and to broaden my awareness of the industry. Being a student in the first ever year of the MA Fashion course was truly exciting and it also revived and reasserted my enthusiasm and curiosity in the subject.

While on the course, I was able to build on ideas and develop techniques that I am using today for personal projects; some of which I am working into professional ones. One of these is a fashion and lifestyle label called BIGGER BOY, which aims to combine culture and adages from Africa with contemporary fashion and style. The research and development for the label began while I was studying for a module called Social Paradigms. The course involved exploring how fashion and society interrelate. I looked at how aspects of race and ethnicity correlate with fashion. The MA Fashion degree has definitely enhanced my entrepreneurial drive.

But this is by no means my only area of interest. Others include media publications, textiles and accessories and amongst others. In addition to this, I am also completing a PGCE qualification to become a Fashion Lecturer in FE education. Having the opportunity to teach future generations about the industry, practice and subject of fashion is something that I will relish.”

We’re always interested in knowing how our graduates are evolving after leaving Goldsmiths, so if you, too, want to share your story, get in touch at n.barbu[@]gold.ac.uk.

Critical Fashion Workshop encourages collaboration between MA programmes

Last week, Hannah Korsmeyer (2015 graduate of the MA in Design: Critical Practice) and Cyrielle Andre (MA Fashion, 2015) led a Critical Fashion Workshop, a day of collaboration across programs within the Goldsmiths MA Design Department. The event has been announced here, and now Hannah & Cyrielle are sharing with us the highlights of the day: