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This week I have been on a road trip to Canterbury. This is actually the first time I ventured out of Nottingham in 2013 – which just shows how concentrated I have been working on my final collection. At the University of Kent I met Prof. Julia Twigg, who had been so kind to invite me to discuss my work with her. Even though she is a Professor of Sociology we had plenty to talk about as part of her research project deals with Clothing and Dementia – find some info on her research and publications here.

Walking through this foreign campus, I felt quite starstruck when meeting her, as her work has shaped my project considerably. When reading an article in an academic journal – especially when its well written – it is quite easy to forget that someone has actually brooded over it to make it happen. Having made my first steps into this direction I fully appreciate all the effort that goes into writing!

I had a sketchbook with me that will form part of the exhibtion with which I will present my collection end of this month and during the long train journey back I spend some time reading and sketchbooking, thinking how much design work differs from other academic work – and to what extend it doesn’t.

Apart from the odd one out, design students work very hard, I believe often more than other students. This has partly to do with motivation – for us, most of what we do is not work, but it is just part of our life – something we feel we have to do. But when there is a deadline coming up and the nights get shorter and shorter even drawing, sketching, knitting and crochet becomes more work and less self-expression…

But it is also due to the fact that designers need to present their work in a different way than others. We do a fair amount of research for each project, which does not become less important, even though most of it is visual. If it is true that an image says more than 1000 words, it might even be more complicated as we need to find the one image that says it all – and there is a lot of images, that say nearly  what you want, but not the right thing…

When the research is done, we do our thing, but then we need to express and explain, making portfolio pages and filling sketchbooks – which do not only have to communicate what we have been looking at and how we responded to it, but also have to look artistic and interesting. When I have been in the train I thought that this process is quite like writing. You need to find a layout, that gets people in the right mood – just like writing an introduction. Once this is done, you need to illustrate everything clear and concise – shuffling around key words and drawings until they are exactly where they need to be – just like sweating over a sentence over and over until every word is perfect. In the end everything needs to be polished over, until everything fits together, sits at the right place – just like editing a text, paragraph by paragraph.

I think often this part of design is overlooked as the consumer only sees the finished piece and not all the work that might be done around it. I think only few products, garments or ideas come into being by a genius spark, most are generated by research and development.

I think what I really want to say here is: Design work is academic – research, development and evaluation – even though it looks good. And like a well-written article you know its right, when you cannot see all the hard work behind it…