I am Kate Flynn, a Visual Merchandising graduate with an interest in fashion and design. Throughout my time on the course, I have learned a variety of skills, from hands on experience building props to digital modelling in SketchUp and using the Adobe Creative Suite to communicate my ideas and designs. In addition to college learning I had the opportunity to carry out my industry placement in Arnotts, this has been an amazing experience working within a talented VM team and developing my skills in a real-life working environment. I look forward to the opportunities following on from this course and am excited to continue learning new skills in the working world.
Major Project
This is my major project, a visual merchandising installation in my industry placement. I designed my display to match with the overall theme in-store of Arnotts at the time, which featured telephone props and bright colours. For my project I was inspired by WGSN’s macro theme Playful Paradox. The theme is built on contrasts, something serious yet fun, retro yet modern and childlike yet grown up. I decided to reimagine the telephone box into something to be used for display in a retail setting, bringing together my own trend research from WGSN and the creative brief given to me by the store I used simple shapes with bold colours in my design. This project was great experience in applying creative ideas to a commercial setting, I enjoyed all aspects of the installation, from the research and design process to selecting the right products to be displayed in the windows.
Lighting Window
This is one of my personal favourite displays from my time on the course. Working on this display showed me how to take an idea from a sketch into a 3D piece. The graphic style of this display is something that I found myself going back to over the years, I find bold colours and strong shapes to be effective in window displays. I think this display shows the foundations of my style in design, and looking at this window compared to my major project I can see the growth and development from my learning over the past three years while also noting some similarities in the style, use of colour and shapes.
