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CV and Cover letters

This interactive webinar was packed full of information on how to write a perfect CV and Cover Letter, There were so many tips and tricks that I had no idea needed to be included in a CV or Cover Letter.

Below is a list of all the notes that i felt were important

what should you include in you CV

  • Personal Profile
  • Work Experience
  • Key Skills
  • Contact Details
  • It should only be 2 sides of an A4 piece of paper
  • Be concise and informative
  • Bullet points are good
  • Font 11 or 12
  • Highlight important parts
  • Always write your CV aimed at the job you are applying for

I didn’t know that there are two types of CVs one is Chronological which is where to talk about your work history and the other on is Skills where you perhaps don’t have any work history and you are talking about the skills and education you have.

Layout

  • At the start should be your personal information
  • The middle should be your education, employment, skills
  • The end is about your interests and achievements

When talking about your education always start of with the most recent first and list your grades horizontally

Keep your achievements recent as well as interests. These are not essential parts to your CV.

List work experience in chronolgical order starting with the most recent.

Use power words such as conducting, communicating, liaising, evaluating, organised and managed

Tailor your CV to where you are applying for. Have a heading that is relevant experience and the additional experience. Also if you run out of spcae group jobs together and talk about skills they all shared

Cover Letters

Cover Letters are key to making a good impression if there is an option to attach one always do.

  • A cover letter should be one side of A4
  • Tailor it to the company
  • Always find out who you are addressing the letter to
  • Introduce yourself
  • Talk about 3/4 key skills you have
  • Talk about your unique selling point
  • check the spelling always
  • Summary
  • Always reseach the company you are applying for before hand so you know there values and mission.

Structure

  • First Para – why are you applying, be enthusiastic, research values and mission
  • Middle – How has your education helped, skills, Experience, Personal attributes
  • End – Reiterate your desire
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Week Three

Week Three has been exciting, I have been doing lots of researching on colour theory and how colour can change your mood. This is an idea that I would like to develop further and experiment with in my own work.

Warm colours are happy colours where as cool colours can make you feel calm or sad. When researching this I had the idea of experimenting with the designs I will make to have opposite colour palettes to see how moods are effected and see what works best in an interior space.

This week I also began putting everything into a new sketch book. I am trying really hard to keep it neat and in an order that makes sense as in the past my sketch books can be messy and jumbled.

My tutorial discussing my self set brief was successful and I feel that I am now happy with the direction I am going in and what I need to achieve. An area that I have been working on in my brief was my target market and client profile. I have been putting together a persona and a mood board to go with this. Here are my first thoughts on what i want my target market to be.

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Careers in the Charity Sector

This webinar was so good and I really enjoyed listening to all of the speaker talk about there experiences and how to get into the industry. After listening to this lecture I feel that this could be an area that would interest me after leaving university and is something I defiantly want to research and explore further.

Here are the note I took whilst listening

  • Volunteering is important and it can help you build up a good network of people
  • do-it.org is a really useful website
  • reachvolunteering.org.uk another website
  • Volunteering Wales another website
  • Young trustees movement is also something to look into
  • Charity Works organisation
  • “all experience is good experience”
  • Place 2 Be – children’s mental health charity
  • Passion is key to getting far and to getting the job you want
  • Networking is also very important
  • Yolk Recruitment is an organisation which is very helpful

After listening to Beth talk from Charity Works organisation I felt really inspired to look at the website and find out more about the 12 month placement scheme that they offer. This could be a really good opportunity to take forward when I finish university.

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Finding Work Experience Webinar

The Finding Work Experience and Volunteering Opportunities Webinar was so informative with loads of really good helpful tips and tricks with where to go and how to contact people about getting the work experience relevant to you.

Here are some of the notes that i made whilst listening to the speakers.

  • Visit the Go Wales website – they offer lots of placements
  • “there is no shame in asking anyone for work experience ”
  • Community Projects are a good way to meet people, help out and also network
  • LinkedIn is so important
  • ratemyplacement.com is a website full of opportunities
  • Do It organisation is also another really useful website to visit
  • Volunteering Wales website
  • Graduate Talent Pool
  • Prospect
  • Student Volunteering Cardiff
  • Santander Funded Placement Scheme
  • Naeem Amir is the contact in helping the art school students with find work experience

All of the points above are places to research and look into further to help find work experience and new opportunities.

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Week Two

This week has been such a busy week looking into the Modernist Movement and finalising my ideas for my brief. When research the topic area I discovered that Abstract Expressionism was really interesting and that I really liked where they took there inspiration from.

Many Expressionist Artists found inspiration from there spirituality, they were very connected with themselves and thought that art should just be art. It does not need to have subjects to have meaning and be beautiful.

Frank Stella famously said about his paintings ‘What you see is what you see’

This idea that that there work didnt need to be objects and that they could be experimental with colour, shape and form was something that interested me. I would like to explore these ideas further in my own work.

Music was also a big influence into how the artists created there work, Kandinsky believed that certain colours sounded like instruments and when they were paired together they could harmonise. Others such as Jackson Pollock used music to guided him in his process. The idea of combining sound, colour and emotions to mark make is something I would like to explore further.

My research has helped me decided on what direction I would like my brief to go in. Abstract Expressionism will be the starting point however there are so many other areas that I would like to consider and influence me on my journey. The values the artists hold around art is art and that they were mark making using there spirituality to guide them interests me greatly. With this as a starting point I feel that it is exciting and could lead me in a fun experimental journey.

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PDP – Dissertation Learning Journal

Learning Journal

The inspiration for writing and researching into my topic of sustainability within the textile industry and how much waste is produced and goes to landfill came from watching the documentary The Secret Life of Landfill. This documentary filmed by the BBC uncovered shocking truths about the vast amounts we throw away and how the fabrics were not decomposing in the landfill sites. The documentary was so insightful into lots of topics surrounding what we waste and the greenhouse gases that were being created in landfill. It also highlighted what is currently being done to try and turn the harmful gases and waste into other products. Being part of the textile industry and knowing this I felt that I needed to research it in detail to then ensure that within my practice I could make changes allowing me to not contribute as much waste to landfill.  Whilst researching into different areas it allowed me to understand where each individual could make change to stop what would end up in landfill. This inspired me to think about how I could make small changes within my own lifestyle and in my textile practice.

Whist conducting my research I found that there were certain challenges that I needed to overcome, I learnt that I would need to change my own fashion habits to then be able to feel that I was not adding to the ongoing climate problems surrounding the textile industry. These challenges included not buying from high street stores as often and perhaps not wanting to follow new trends as closely, allowing me to not contribute to fast fashion. At first, I thought that this would result in me not being stylish and able to keep up with new trends and styles but after continuing my research and learning about the second hand market I realised that not contributing to the fast fashion market was easier than I thought as the second hand market is just as stylish and better for the planet.

I also discovered that it is not just the vast amount we throw away, but it is also how we create the textiles through the plants that are grown to make fabrics and how we dye them is so damaging. Changing what fabric’s I use in my practice would allow me to be more sustainable however, the types of fabrics available may have limitations being style or texture resulting in me having to factor in the end result being different to perhaps desired. This is an area that I researched but did not go into detail as I was focusing on waste that ended up in landfill. However, this is a huge factor in making my own practice more sustainable and ethical.

There was so much information on my topic area I felt that I needed to be selective with what I decided to use as it was very easy to go off piece. I wanted to outline the issues with the textile industry as whole but also not losing site of my research question. I found this difficult at times as there was so many important factors that I felt needed to be included.

When it came to the actual writing of the dissertation, I felt that I was completely in the dark, I had no idea where to start or what the structure needed to be. This left me doubting myself as I was not sure if what I had written was correct. After searching on moodle and reading example dissertations I felt more confident about my study and that I had structured it in a way that made sense to my topic. I feel that what could have aided me with my study would have been to have more lectures explaining the structure and the different types of dissertations.

Originally, I wanted to form a dissertation that would have been based on my own primary research through doing surveys. However, I came across the challenges of needing ethical approval. I did not understand what I needed to do or how to go about getting it. In the future maybe this could be made easier to understand or lectures could be given on the topic allowing everyone to have a better knowledge of how to go about getting ethical approval. This was definitely a challenge that I faced as I was set on what I wanted to do however after changing my ideas I feel that I have still learnt so much and achieved what I set out to do, which was to understand the issues surrounding the textile industry and how much waste products we throw out.

The artefact that I created was so enjoyable to do, I had been researching into different upcycling methods and there were so many easy quick tips and tricks that meant you did not need to throw your clothes away. The idea to create a rag rug came from a conversation I had with my parents as my grandma used to make them. This felt like my dissertation was becoming more personal to me. The making of the rug was simple, and I felt proud after I had created it. The idea of having an artefact and piece of writing paired together for me made my research easier as I always had the rug as a reference to why I was looking into this area and the importance of expanding my knowledge of the waste culture that is within the textile industry.

In conclusion to my thoughts on writing my dissertation and creating my artefact I feel that I have learnt a lot about how to research a topic in depth and relate that to my own practice. There were different struggles along the way such as not being able to browse books in the library and understanding ethical approval however I feel that this process has been a learning journey that I will take forward into the future.  Not only have I expanded my knowledge on how to write a formal piece I have taken away information that will stick with me forever within my practice and influence how I work and conduct my practice of textiles. This research study has changed my opinion and actions for the better.

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MoodBoards

Here are my first initial Mood boards created on the theme of Modernism and the Abstract Expressionist Movement. I am particularly inspired by shape, colour and form and I want to be including lots of different textures in my work to add layering and depth.

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Week One

Week One was the beginning of our new project. I was excited about hearing the new brief but also nervous to start the last uni project. It was lovely to see everyone on the welcome back teams meeting and to catch up with what everyone has been doing.

The new brief is exciting as we get to write it ourselves. This is also daunting as i have so many ideas i just dont know where to being. My firsy ideas were that i wanted to do an abstract project on fruit but after looking at trends on WGSN and having a group tutorial i decided that this might be limiting and i wouldnt be able to create enough motifs and ideation from it.

After researching different trends I noticed that I was interested in abstract marks and textures which could be linked to the modernist movements. Below I have linked some of the trends that have interested me. I think I can take lots of inspiration from these trends as they are very expressive.

Aims for week two are to keep researching into the modernist movement to gain more knowledge. This hopefully will help me write my new brief and decide where my interests lie.

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Reflective Statement

Overall, the project was challenging not just because of the collaboration but also due to doing a lot of work from home and finding motivation when things were tough. However, it has been a huge eye opener and learning curve for me as I have found new ways of working, techniques that I really enjoy and want to take further, and I have made many mistakes digitally and, in the workshops, where I have had to problem solve to come up with solutions. I found getting started on this project a bit slow but then time seemed to fly by, and deadlines crept up on you quickly. If I had more time some parts of my project I would change as since looking back at all my mark making and development work, I feel that I lost some of my techniques and ideas when transitioning my work into repeating patterns digitally. Also, in my book I spoke about a few different experiments and ideas that I didn’t get chance to explore due to being pressed for time and changing my ideas which I would have liked to have looked at. This project has tested my time management and organisation skills, due to wanting to handprint I need to have final designs ready early on to allow me time to get into the workshops and experiment before doing the real one. This is something I will bear in mind for the next project as booking spaces aren’t going to be as available.

The collaboration was a test and at times I felt lost and behind on work due to communication between what I was supposed to be doing and what my partners role was, was confused. I learnt new skills in photoshop and Illustrator from doing the collaboration. I also learnt that if I want to change something when working in a group I should be fully prepared with other options and compromises as it looks more professional and easier to get an outcome you want that way. I feel that that is a valued lesson I will take forward.

I enjoyed seeing my work transition from stationary to fashion and how some designs work better in either or both fields. I became obsessed with trying my prints on different flat mock-up and creating outfits through doing this. I put my designs into loads pf different colourways in this project due to putting them on to flat mock-ups, this made realise that I should experiment more with colour when creating the patterns. I believe that I need to have more confidence in what I am doing as the collaboration made me feel really nervous as I didn’t think they would like what I had designed. I think I compare myself to other to much and should feel more proud of what I produce. Sometimes I feel I should take more risks in my work and maybe if I had more time in the future I would go back and follow the suggestions I made in my book to do different experiments and ideas. I really have loved being more abstract with keeping my work texture and shape based I think this is something I would love to pursue more in the future and to see where it can take me.

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