Getting the hang of it

 Well here I am at the start of the third week of my internship. It is a short week because of the Memorial Day holiday, but that doesn’t mean there is less work to be done around the office. This week I’m working to put together two posts about some Sharpie marker artists. The two people that I am working with are almost complete opposites so it will be interesting to see how different the posts will be. The pictures in this post are some previews their work.

I have really gotten into the flow of what the work schedule is going to be like and I have to say I’m very pleased with it. There is a lot of opportunity for new and different tasks every day. I think I would be bored if I had a schedule that I had to follow every day. Other things on the plate for this week are updating some of the brands Wikipedia pages. It may seem like a silly task, but think about it. Every time you Google something the Wikipedia page comes up in the top five results. It is important to make sure that this information is accurate and up to date. Also on tap for this week is the start of a 4square initiative with one of our brands. I don’t want to spill yet what it is, but I promise more information to come.

I hope everyone has a great start to their week and their summer!

Bold Colors Match Bold Personality of Fashion Design Student

The artist herself

 

Everyone doodles in their notebooks while sitting through some note-taking sessions, but sometimes a few special people realize that their work is more than just doodling. It is a talent. What to do with the realization is the next question. Twenty-one-year-old Jackie Cottrel took her talents to Indiana University where she is pursuing a degree in arts administration and a certificate in fashion design.

Original sketches

 

Deciding to make the leap from designing purely as hobby to making it a career path was not easy.  It took Jackie a year of pursuing a journalism degree to realize that for her to be happy and successful her career needed to include her passion for design. This lifelong desire to create has led her to an internship with Chico’s and one step closer to a career.

  

Jackie is inspired by the spirit of the early 1900’s and uses fabric patterns from this era to create her brave designs; making them truly original and different. The rich and vibrant colors that Prismacolor colored pencils and markers are known for allow her to bring her designs to life.

“Fashion is another means of expressing one’s self and my insides are dripping with color. The colors I use need to be bold, rich, and set the tone for a design line. If you don’t have the right color, you might as well forget it.”

                                                                       

Jackie’s creative spirit doesn’t stop with design, as she dreams of one day not only having her own studio, but a design label as well.

If her do-it-all attitude, married with her penchant for a life filled with bold and bright colors, are any indication for her future success, then we haven’t even seen the beginning.

 

Now in Jackie’s own words:

Q:  Where do you get your design ideas?

A: I absolutely love old movies! Movies created in the early 20th century have some of the best uses of fabric patterns and interesting seaming. Besides the physical costuming, the mood and spirit of old movies, like “Singing in the Rain,” are truly inspiring. 

Q: What’s your favorite thing about prismacolor markers?

The colors! Fashion is another means of expressing ones self and my insides are dripping with color. The colors I use need to be bold, rich, and set the tone for a design line. If you don’t have the right color, you might as well forget it.

Q: When did you decide that fashion design was something you were good at or wanted to do?

Fashion design is something I’ve always wanted to do, even though I considered just about every other field before seriously pursuing it. It took a lack luster year and a half of pursuing a journalism degree for me to realize that if I have to work every day, for the rest of my life then I’m going to make a career out of my passion. I’ve been creating clothes and accessories since I was seven; I never thought it’d get me a college degree and a great internship. 

Q: What types of products do you use to make your pieces?

You can make just about anything into a garment. I’ve created a garment completely from refashioned garments. It wasn’t the most attractive thing I’ve created, but it got my creative wheels turning. For my semester wearable art piece, it inspired me to use an air duct vent tube in my design.

These are all Jackie's original designs

Q: How many of your sketches have you made into final products?

I’ve probably only transformed a handful of sketches and ideas into wearable garments, I’m still very young in my career. Give me a year or two and my own studio and that number will go up. 

Q: What’ are your goals, dreams, ambitions

I suffer from this incredible desire to do everything. At times this is great, because I’m a very motivated and organized person, and any opportunity that comes my way, I’m likely to take it and I will put my whole heart into it. As you can imagine, this makes relaxing difficult, I’d rather be doing something. I want to do it all; I would be sincerely happy working my way up in a great company or creating my own line. As long as I’m sewing and creating, I’ll be one of the happiest people alive.

INKtern Here!

Hello world and fellow office products fanatics!

Welcome to my blog for the Summer of 2011. I’m the one and only INKtern this year in the Social Media group, but I’m ready to take on the challenge. I get to work with some of the best (and most of my favorite) brands in office products this summer including Sharpie Markers, uni-ball, Paper Mate and Prismacolor. This blog will be about me, my work here, cool people doing cool things with our products and all the free pens that I get! I’ll keep you posted on some of the great things going on with all the products and maybe give you some inside scoop too. I’ll find pictures, videos and whatever else you could want. This summer there will always be a new pen around the corner for me!

Get Writing!

Caitlin

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress.com. After you read this, you should delete and write your own post, with a new title above. Or hit Add New on the left (of the admin dashboard) to start a fresh post.

Here are some suggestions for your first post.

1. You can find new ideas for what to blog about by reading the Daily Post.
2. Add PressThis to your browser. It creates a new blog post for you about any interesting  page you read on the web.
3. Make some changes to this page, and then hit preview on the right. You can alway preview any post or edit you before you share it to the world.