What are we grateful for?

Thanksgiving is a celebration that I really love! While I lived in the U.S. I adopted this celebration.
Because I was living overthere as an expat I had no family around to celebrate the day with; But I was never alone!  
I was very lucky to be surrounded by the love of my friends and their families who celebrated this day. 

I think the meaning of this celebration is just wonderful, having a day to celebrate with our beloved ones and to be thankful for everyone in our lives, all of what we have and what we are.

The definition of gratitude is just beautiful: "Readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness"

Here at home just recently adopted the practice to make each other the question of: What are you grateful for today?

This everyday, right before going to sleep and the answer can be as profound as I am grateful for my life, or I am grateful because my football team won today (words of my husband Vincent who is a big football fan).

And this practice is giving us a great sense of appreciation for big and little things. 

I personally think gratitude is the basis for happiness, simply because as the definition above says you are able to appreciate the moment you are living, the persons around you and the things that you have.

Lately I have been hearing a lot about the benefits of having a gratitude journal where you can everyday list the things that happen in your day and you are grateful for. There is different & meaningful practices, te express gratitude.
Do you have one? what are you grateful for today? 

If I attempt to make a list of  everything I am grateful for , 
I probably won't be able to finish writing in a couple of days and by then probably the list will grow more. So I will focus today in being grateful for  everyone that believes in me, in my work, in my studio and for all of you:
thanks for taking the the time to read this words.

Rosie

Invitation for Guest Designers !

Hello!! we are excited to announce an open invitation for guest designers to contribute with fabulous work to the Believe Creative Studio Collection we will present in Indigo-Premiere Vision on February 2014 in the beautiful city of Paris.
This will be our 3rd year exhibiting in Paris and our 2nd time opening our studio doors to guest designers. Founded in 2011 in a kitchen table and currently with customers in Japan, Netherlands, UK, France,Spain and Mexico.

Why?

• We understand the challenges that surface pattern designers face in order to participate in such an important trade show; it requires a lot of investment: resources, work and time, therefore we want to create opportunities.
• As studio we want to offer to our customers a richer collection with a unity on aesthetics & handwritting.

Who?

• We are looking for talented designers who loves designing  for  baby, children and teens products and in this case fashionable textiles and apparel.
• No matter where you are located we will welcome guest designers regardless their location.
• We are in search of positive, enthusiastic and fun designers to work with.

How?

• We will provide briefs, latest trend information (color , graphics and textures) and work together with our guest designers in customer oriented work.
• We will provide 1 to 1 reviews offering direction, guidance and support until the final step, which is putting a strong collection in front of top buyers from around the world.
• We provide equal opportunity to all our guest designers therefore we do not promote individuals in their designs, but we do promote everyone in the team trough interviews and diverse social media outlets.
• We want our guest designers to show own personality and style in their work and we will focus in each designer strengths all aligned to a visual unity.
• We will select a small team to work with, this will increase selling opportunities per designer.

About the Creative director:
Rosie Martinez-Dekker will be in charge of leading the design team.
With 19 years of a progressive career in the textiles & apparel industry, Rosie is the co-founder of Believe Creative Studio and currently lecturer of the prestigious Amsterdam Fashion Academy.
Rosie  has worked as Textile designer, Art director, Buyer, Merchandiser , Sr.product developer and Materials Manager, in Mexico, U.S. and The Netherlands in textile companies and brands such as Levi's, Nike and G-Star. If you want to learn more check her full profile here

Success histories:
(Names are not disclosed to protect our guest designers privacy & time)

• One of our guest designers work was part of the trend area of Indigo in 2012.
•  2 of our guest designers sold for the first time patterns trough Believe Creative Studio representation.
•  2 of our guest designers has been working with our studio for over a year and seasonally sell to our customers in Japan and The Netherlands.
• One of the guest designers who produced a collection with our briefs and colour direction went on to have a successful fabric licensing partnership.
  
  Important to consider:
  
  • In this as any other business there is no guarantee in sales, but we as a design studio commit to do everything in our power  to provide business & equal opportunities for all.
  • We expect a collection of 20 designs per designer as minimum, we aim on quality over quantity.
  • If you do not sell you will have your work returned to you, and you will be able to add them into your portfolio and to promote them.
  • We welcome designers who already works with another design studio, but please make sure they are on agreement with you, and that you do not violate contract terms with them.
  
  If you are interested in joining our team please get in touch at talent(at)believe-cs(dot)com and send 3-5 watermarked LOW resolution images with links to your website, blog before 25th of November.
  By November 29th successful candidates will be contacted to set up a Skype conversation and  then we will share directly contract terms.
  
  Do you want to read a recap of our previous experience working with guest designers?, here you find our blog post. Please be respectful and DO NOT contact guest designers directly, instead please direct your inquiries to us and we will make sure your questions are answered.
  
  
  

  

  ©Believe creative studio

  
  

Make Art That Sells Course- Review

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/8684745/?claim=kbxjj4yg45j">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>
One year ago I had the pleasure to see an interview to Lilla Rogers  in Monica's Lee Blog Smart Creative Woman, in that interview Lilla's reveled the news about a course called Make Art that sells that she will launch in partnership with Beth Kempton from Do what you love for life. At that moment I knew I wanted to be in, so I put on hold my exhibiting plans in Indigo Paris in September of this year to fully dedicate to the course.

In the part A of the group I was surprised with the intensity and all the information that Lilla and contributors were sharing with the students. I loved the community that was built around it, everyone was so nice, so supportive and so eager to learn and to became better artist. 

I blocked 5 weeks of my calendar which I spend mostly designing and creating, I was lucky to have the summer as company of this 5 weeks, therefore I went outdoors and sketch and got inspirations for my assignments.

In my first assignment bold fabric I got an artist block... I was so focus wanted to be good that I forgot of creating with fun,I struggled a lot then suddenly I realized I enrolled to this course just to learn and to have fun , so on the following assignments I did.  I explored with techniques and design styles. Since I love to paint I did 3 hand painted assignments, one digital and one collage.

Below is the result of 5 weeks of work in different markets, so far my 2 big favorites were wall art and children's books, because of the freedom I put in the assignments.

Right after the class I started the designs for the Global Talent search contest, which was an intense yet full of reward time.

After few more weeks I was ready to start part B of the course, but at the same time I started to teach as well at Amsterdam Fashion Academy and I had to focus in that aspect of my career therefore I skipped the first 2 assignments but I came back for the last 3 weeks of the course.

My favorite part this time was the last week of the course assignment : party paper.

I have to say I love every part of this course, it was intense full of valuable information, full of experiences and good energy from everyone involved in the course. I believe any learning is a gain but in this case I learned more about my self, how important is to go out of the comfort zone , to stretch myself and try new things, but specially having fun with it. My biggest conclusion is that by doing this course I did things I never knew I could do.... believe me 3 years ago I didn't even knew to work in illustrator, so making a map on it.... would sound like a joke.

I definitely recommend this course to everyone who is interest in learning about different markets on where to commercialize your art, is a very good investment for your personal career and development but if you are going to do it this will be my tips:

1. Book enough time to focus on the course so you can take the best out of it.
2. Have a binder to organize your work, sketches and overall work and process, this will help you to track your own progress and record valuable learning's.
3. Have total fun with it, do only what you love on the way you enjoy the most.
4. Do not  enroll to the course with the full expectation of a direct review to your assignments from Lilla, learn to asses your own work, expecting one person approval to your work is not fair to you or to her.  Believe on your self and ask support to your class mates.
5. Be yourself do not imitate others style and work in the techniques you enjoy the most.

If you are a creative soul with willingness to be out of the shell, and you like challenges, this will be a great course for you! 
I loved it & I am sure you will do too!

Love
Rosie

On the way to Paris... we will be presenting in Indigo-PV in February 2014!

We are very excited to announce that we will be exhibiting at Indigo-Premiere Vision , this next February 18-20, 2014 in the magnificent city of Paris!
For 3rd time our studio will be presenting a  fabulous collection of Prints and Patterns for Spring/Summer  2015. 
Indigo is one of the most important surface and textile design shows in the world. With attendance of more than 14,000 visitors from all over the world and buyers from all type of markets, every season Indigo gathers over 150 tops design studios from all over the world to present their collections.

As every time we exhibit , we are super excited and  of course we are already working on the planning of the overall presentation, the creative direction, guest designers invitation  and business development.

Shortly we will open an invitation to consolidate a group of guest designers as part of our studio collection. Is our aim and part of our company ethos to support talent around the world by opening  opportunities for those who dream in having their work in such and important show, putting their creations in front of top brands buyers, working in life briefs based on high end trend forecasting. 

Please stay tuned for more info! and if you want to read more about our previous experience working with fabulous guest designers, see my post from the A/W 13-14 season in September 2012 here  and if you browse on previous post you will see the fabulous interviews with our guest designers back then.

Lots of love!
Rosie