Fit Sessions: No-No.

I emailed the creative director to see if I can sit in during this outerwear fit session, but was denied because how late in the season it is and how big/intense the meetings get.

Sad.

Well, on the other hand - I've got a meeting tomorrow to discuss 1st and 2nd prototypes for a couple outerwear garments. That should be exciting. Going to chop it up with accessories design lead to see what's good about creating some fitteds too.

Today, I just color blocked my own outerwear croquis in Illustrator. Talked a bit with my friend (Industrial Designer - Accessories and Equipment) about this Project Bluefoot design contest being judged by Jason Mayden and Dwayne Edwards of Jordan Brand.

Got a couple ideas I want to put to paper and render. Unfortunately our macs aren't equipped with freehand / pen x tablets. Might bring in my own wacom tablet. We'll see if I can do that.

Tomorrow should be interesting, going to prepare more boards, meetings, and probably some more designing my own outerwear garments. Hopefully someone will stop by and check them out, I think they are dope. Would show you, but all the documents are pretty confidential, even if they aren't coming out.

-Mark

There's A Word For That?

Alt-Tabbin': An act of quickly switching the current application to something work-appropriate when the boss walks in.

"My boss almost caught me looking at porn at work, good thing I was Alt-Tabbin'"

Caps Lock Voice: When a normally calm person has to raise their voice and use an authortative tone. It is the equivalent to using the caps lock key in the digital world.


Sara tried to get an attitude with me yesterday and I had to turn on my caps lock voice and put her in her place.


Cobra Yawn: The involuntary spraying of saliva while yawning. Much like the venom spray from a cobra. In most cases the yawner doesn't realized it has happened only finding the aftermath once the yawn is over.

I just cobra yawned all over my keyboard five minutes prior to writing this definition.

Involuntary "You Too": When out of habit you reply to a comment with "You too". This happens to the best of us.
Two common situations of the Involuntary "You Too"

Girl: Well happy birthday man. Have fun at Sea World tomorrow.
Guy: Thanks, you too.
**uncomfortable silence**

HAHA these are all great! I think because I experienced most of them.

The Patterns Are Directional.

Today, I had to prepare boards for an upcoming Sportswear presentation. After printing out CAD books, searching through our PDM (Product Data Management)system and finding out various style numbers for the various yarn dyed fabric used in the collection -- I began to put together the presentation boards. How many? A whole lot.

I had to cut out printed out yarn dye swatches and prepare fabric swatches to go with them. Seems easy, but very time consuming for every single different fabric print used in our outerwear and sportswear collections.

Monday, I have to tie a few loose ends before finally putting the boards together and finalizing them. Some files couldn't be found, and swatches weren't prepared. I'm waiting on some of the Product Developers to send me over the rest of the files/swatches. That pretty much took all day to do. Nothing super exciting, but very good to learn because I was able to practice working through our PDM system (which is very complex).

Now the weekend.

TGIF!

POTP?

POTP - Party on the patio!

Every Thursday we have a party on the patio in the Summer at work. This event includes liquor, mixed drinks, microbrews, food platters, music, ping pong, and believe it or not -- beach volleyball. How will we know it's goin down? The PA announcer tells us all at 4pm that it's time to party. LOL

Today, I worked on creating linesheets/CAD books for a number of specific lines being released in Europe for upcoming seasons. I was able to work in our PDM system and create BOMs (Bill of Materials) for various garments also, which was nice to learn.

Heads up for you potential interns in the Apparel Design industry... Learn Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign. Learn them, and learn them well. The first few days here, and we've jumped head first in all three programs. Remember to take notes, ask questions, and be self-motivated. Meaning, reach out and find stuff to do, don't just wait for projects to come to you. Go out and get them. Meet everyone, introduce yourself, and extend your help to everyone!

I'm looking forward to sitting in on some fit sessions in the future, shadowing some textile/materials testing techs, and Outerwear designers.

More tomorrow!

Adventures In Internland.

Now, I'm not here to disseminate information about who I work for -- merely a journal to reflect on my experiences as an intern in the very fast paced world of apparel design.

Today started out great, and I got to work immediately. At work, my first project was to redo some yarn dye plaid strikeoffs that I scanned and photoshopped the previous day. Today, instead of scanning the originals and editing them, I recreated the plaid colorways to get a more specific color match for the customers to view. The previous day's try was too far from the original to be acceptable.

Working on the final color palette boards for our upcoming seasonal line, was time consuming but fun to work on. I was able to work and see the entire library of colors available to us.

I recently finished taking a textile quality assurance class, so being able to work in the color lab was pretty sweet! I got to see the color lab techs doing color matches with the ASTM specific lighting conditions and experiments. What they look for? Differences in color under various lighting conditions, caused by a condition called metamerism.

Because of a deadline I was trying to meet with the plaid project, I had to skip lunch at 12pm and worked towards finishing it before the mail room closed.

We were busy today, so much so -- that I didn't even get to see the rest of my fellow interns at all. And we work on the same floor!

Enough for now. I've got to get some sleep and wake up early to do it all over again tomorrow!

-Mark