Holden Decor Portfolio Visit

Holden Décor are based in Darwin, they specialise in wall-coverings. I arranged a meeting with Natasha Perry who is the founder of the company unfortunately she was busy in a meeting. However I showed my work to Nicola, Tracey and Liz who all worked in the studio. I was introducing myself to Nicola and telling her which university I was from, she actually went to Stockport College to do her degree however left in the second year because she got a job at Crown, and the job was too good to wait till after the end of the degree.

Regarding my work Nicola liked the different sizes of holes that were punched into a photograph, then how I had taken the work into designs was impressive and reminded her of a Chinese collection they had at the moment. It was good to show the visualisations which they called "white rooms", it shows the skill that I can put them together, and understand the importance of seeing the design in a room set. One comment was that it would have been better to have my sketchbook with me rather than the digital copies, of pages. I also showed my hand painted designs that I was working on at the moment; the tips they gave me were to concentrate on the scale and content, if someone was to buy the design they would have to have a lot going on. They also said that my portfolio puts there collage work to shame, which was really nice of them.

This experience was really helpful because they had been in my situation quite recently so they remembered what it was like. They suggested that work experience is one of the best recommendations for myself and to contact Natasha at the end of August to see if I can get experience at Holden. This would be another fantastic opportunity!

After visiting Holden I sent an e-mail to Natasha to thank her for letting me show my work. I am going back to show Natasha my FMP work. I asked about the work placement and she has offered me a work placement for a week to see if I like it and then to review it and might take it further.

I am very much looking forward to this opportunity!