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Sunday, December 23, 2012

Merry Christmas and Happy 2013!

Believe creative studio staff, want to wish you all a lovely Christams and a Happy 2013. We hope your wishes come true and that you and your beloved ones have lots of blessings, health, love, joy and prosperity. 

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Featured today in Business Boom collective


 I am very honored and grateful with James  Aspinall at Business Boom Collective UK for the fantastic feature today in the amazing Business boom collective site
"Business Boom Collective is the ideal place to see features of up-and-coming and freelance creatives from the UK and beyond."
Visit them they have tons of inspiration from creatives  from de UK and around the world, They cover different areas such a fashion design,photograohy, music, arts& crafts and much more.
 

Logo from Business boom collective

Thursday, December 13, 2012

The agent hat

After few weeks I enrolled for the second time to exhibit in Indigo in September 2012 ,I realized there was an opportunity to support the enthusiastic and talented designers who I meet during the course my ABSPD course as well as other talented designers that have approached me.

When I open up the invitation to everyone from the course who wanted to contribuite to the collection ,I didn't receive a high or quick response, I was a bit surprised because during the course, the designers were really eager to start selling, contacting agents and to start doing business with their work, but  suddenly more girls started to get interested and we ended up working with a really nice  group of  designers with different styles and lots of enthusiasm.


I made sure  I answered all the doubts or questions they had and  I also created a contract to protect both parties; 

I think in this situation formality is a key for a succesful relationship.
Being a designer my self I am very sensitive on all the matters that are important to start commercializing creative work, like confidentiality, respect for the work and  privacy.


Establishing the commission %  was a difficult thing to do; being a designer my self I only wished I can promote their work for free, but from the business perspective that is just impossible. So I set the same commission my agent and the other agents in The Netherlands charge.

I worked with the principle that I wanted to keep the studio concept, promoting Believe creative studio  rather than promoting the individual designers.
I was in charge of providing mood boards with specific themes, color direction and guidance about the general aspects that are important for my brand, as well thinking ahead on the needs of the market. Is key
to have designs with the right balance : beautiful and commercial.


I love mentoring and inspiring, is in my nature to motivate others and I love being incharge; the most important thing I try to communicate to the designers is to have fun and to enjoy creating. Quality is more important to me than quantity, and to me a quality design for childrens is achieved through creating with joy.

This experience was amazing to me, mainly because I really wanted to give other talented designers  the opportunity of exhibit their work in the most important textile design show in the world and to start commercializing designs and work in bulding a real collection.
I had the opportunity to collaborate and witness the amazing work of each of them.
I was so happy when I sold some of the designers work, for some of them was their very first time they sold a pattern so that was a huge joy for me.

Of course the hard part is when you have to tell a designer that has worked so hard and that has a great set of designs that none of their designs were sold.
As an agent or seller you want them to do fantastic, selling other designer work with in the studio collection can be a benefit not only for them, but also for the studio:
The collection is bigger than a single person collection, the collection is more diverse and you can also support the talent and even make a profit that help to relieve some of the expenses involved with exhibiting.


During my almost 2 years since  Believe creative studio started; collaborating with other designers   has been one of the most rewarding experiences.
I have the chance to work directly with amazing and talented group of designers and  to guide them into a unified  yet diverse style for the collection ; but the best part of all that I  had the opportunity to meet supporting, caring  and positive people;  to discover fantastic persons: Big believers!
I loved meeting all of them personally during the show; is like we knew each other for ages and now I feel them as friends , I hope they feel the same way.



Fantastic group of Believe Creative studio guest designers and friends in Paris.
From left to right Virginia Kamau, Bethania Lima ,Annette Plummer,Eva Seyffarth,Miranda Mol,Aide Dorantes ,Rosie Martinez-Dekker & Veronica Galbraith



Here is the complete list of Believe creative studio guest designers and friends that contribuited to the collection and into the Believe creative studio stand during Indigo Paris in September 2012

Aide Dorantes (Mexico) 
Anna Berger (Sweden)
Becky Holmes (UK)
Bethan Janine Westran (UK)
Bethania Lima  (Chile) 
Eva Marion Seyffarth (Germany)
Leslie Daughty (USA)
Jacqueline van Roosmalen (Netherlands)
Justine Aldersey-Williams (UK)
Laura Palacios (Canada)
Miranda Mol  (Netherlands)
Phyllida Coroneo (UK)
Silvia Micalizo (Italy)
Sue Cashman (UK)
Veronica Galbraith (UK)
Virginia Kamau (Sweden)