Industry Insider

 When I first started blogging a few years ago one of the first things I aimed to do was scour the internet for fellow bloggers to take inspiration/learn from. Sometimes this process can be a hit or a miss but every now and again you find a blogger who blows you away with their design, creativity and content. 

Jemma from Dorkface is one of those bloggers. 

When I decided to reboot the Industry Insider section of this blog and cater it more towards the blogging community as well as those out there in the creative industry Jemma was number one on my list of people to interview. 

Below Jemma gives us an insight into her day-to-day life in terms of her blog as well as some sound advice about what it takes to progress your blog and ensure you provide a quality experience to your reader. 

1. First of all what inspired you to get into blogging? 

I've always loved writing, it's my passion. And after Uni I really wanted a new way to be creative everyday :)

2. Did you take any particular classes or courses growing up that lead to your choice to start blogging? 

I studied Fine Art for years at college and then university; and always wanted to share my creativity. 

3. Can you tell us a little bit about a typical day blogging for you?

I wake up each day and make a to do list for the day. Usually I have a couple of illustration clients, and I try to get them done in the first few hours of the day. Then I'll take a bunch of photographs for upcoming blog posts for a few hours. Then the evenings will be when I write up all my blog posts and finish up any illustration work for the day. My days are busy, but I love them :)

4. How do you manage your time to run your blog efficiently and consistently? 

I stick to a rigid schedule, and I always plan ahead! 

5. Where do you look for inspiration when the writers block hits? 

I usually find painting really helps me, and ideas come to me naturally if I take time to relax. Music and reading really help too.

6. What inspired you to start the #girlgang and the subsequent podcast for your followers? 

The girl gang began because I loved the idea of spreading positivity in the bloggosphere, and reminding people that it's good to spread a little love. The podcast is simply a fun project my boyfriend and I had wanted to try for the longest time, and I'm so glad we did.

7. As I'm a reader of your blog, what do you hope I take away when I read your posts?

I hope you feel inspired and motivated more than anything!

8. Are there certain topics/genres you stick to when you write your blog posts or do you like to write whatever comes naturally at the time? 

Oh no way, my blog is my happy place to share anything I'm inspired by! :) I'm always happy to write about new things.

9. Has having your blog opened any doors or provided you with any opportunities that you wouldn't have had otherwise?

Oh definitely! I now work for myself because of the opportunities I'm so lucky to get now. Writing and illustration have always been a dream of mine and now I get to do each every day :) I also have a whole range of wonderful new friends thanks to blogging.

10. What direction do you see your blog going in now that you've expanded into podcasts and gained quite a large following? 

I've no idea! Haha. I'd love people to feel like they can get to know me more, and so through podcasting I feel like thats a little more possible. I just hope to keep enjoying it like I am now and hopefully it'll grow. As for my blog and everything else though? Who knows! I like to go with the flow :)

11. What advice would you give to someone starting their own blog? 

Try to do the best you can with everything. You'll improve naturally over time, but the most important thing is to let your personality shine through! :) Be yourself and write about what interests you most. 

12. What in your opinion makes a successful blog? 

Something that inspires you, and others.

13. Are there any bloggers you admire or try to emulate?

A good one that comes to mind is Mandy from A Girl Obsessed. She's a great inspiration.

14. As a fan I personally love your blogs layout and especially its bright colour scheme, it gives me the idea that you have this really fun, bubbly personality. Do you feel it best represents your personality and is this something you take into consideration when you look at other peoples blogs? 

Thank you!! Thats EXACTLY what I was going for :) I love a nice clean layout, but IRL I am quite a colourful, loud and bubbly person. I'm obsessed with bright colours and cute prints, so I try to inject that into my blog as much as possible. No matter what Im taking photographs of, I'll always try to get a pop of colour in there :) I do think this is an important thing for bloggers to do. It makes you, your blog and your photos build up a recognisable brand.

15. What apps/purchases really helped you with your blog? Do you have any programmes or items that you use that really help step up the quality of your blogs appearence/content? 

My photography lights FOR SURE. Such a great improvement. I can now take my photos at night even, yay! I got them from Ebay for about £40 and they are amazing. I also love my blog layout, which I bought for a great price on Etsy.

16. How do you balance blogging with the other aspects of your life such as family/work etc? I'm always in awe of people who spend hours replying to people on twitter and wonder how they balance staying in such close contact with followers with everything else thats going on in their lives.

Honestly, it's HARD. It really is. But its a case of planning :) I plan everything as far ahead of time as possible, and it really helps. Plus I'm just pretty much obsessed with social media haha.

17. Finally, if you had one piece of golden advice to give someone with a struggling blog following, what would it be? 

Be as active as possible, and share your personality as much as possible. Your blog, promotions, posts, etc - will only get you so far. People want to see your life, your work, what you do in your spare time, and just you being your true self.

 I would like to end this post by thanking Jemma for taking the time to do this interview and I would also like to say that you can find Jemmas Dorkface blog by visiting

www.dorkface.co.uk

Visual Merchandising - Model Store

I'm finally back with another post focusing in a bit more detail about the job of a visual merchandiser, it's been a while since I posted any photos of our displays and hard work in store so this is the perfect opportunity to share with you what I've been up to!

So my job these last few weeks has become increasingly hectic due to Model Store judging. 

Model Store for me and my job is when we as a visual team work tirelessly to make our store look the best it possibly can for customers, staff and the like and after many weeks of prep someone from high up within the company comes out and judges us on several criteria.

My job as a visual merchandiser involves presenting well thought out mannequins that were pinned well, dressed appropriately to the stock on the mat, create various hotspots throughout the store at key sightlines to promote stock within the store and change over our windows to designer stock which would encourage customers to come into store. We were also doing general maintenance such as cleaning, painting and touching up mannequins to make them look pristine in condition. 

Aspects such as colour flow, power of three, trends and layout were all key in the process to ensure the customer journey was carried out consistently through the store and looked chic. 

Last year one of our big criticisms was that we went over the top with our displays and as a result they were too busy and detracted more from the stock within the store rather than enhance it. 

Below I have a whole bunch of photos to share with you all, showing you the standard we set this year and I'll describe underneath what we were trying to achieve to explain to you all in better detail because it can sound a little confusing. 

So here you go! My stores model store displays for S/S15! If we've done our job properly you should look at these and immediately think "oooh wheres that stock?!"

Our main Safari tend catwalk 

Priority One window, the blues and stripes trend 

70s hotspot 

Swimwear mannis, note that the blue and red colours flow up to the handbags at the far end of the walkway (colour flow) 

Our Wedding Gifts hotspot. Lots of power of three 

A home hotspot, again lots of power of three and repetition, good colour flow between the products 

A hotspot at out luggage department to promote sales 

One of our bed displays 

Another bed display 

Collection formal first catwalk 

Collection formal second catwalk 

One of the lingerie hotspots 

Ted Baker 

Lingerie pillar with a display on the top 

Another angle of the Safari trend catwalk (notice how the floral print is continued throughout the mannis) 

Rocha manni display, good colour flow through mannis to match back wall merchandising and the height difference creates interest 

A shoe hotspot 

BDL mannis

Blues and stripes hotspot at the top of the escalator (this continues the story from our front window into the store) 

Jasper hotspot (notice all the blue?)

Behind the hotspot at the top of the escalator (rails have been added to the clothes can be shopped immediately after seeing the mannis) 

Toddler boy hotspot

Girls hotspot at height to draw attention 

Swimwear hotspot, good symmetry here 

Young fashion, mannis placed beside each fixture wearing the clothes to promote sales 

Same again 

Same principle but beside a graphic rather than a fixture 

Tropical hotspot 

Henry mannis, situated at various heights to create interest, good colour flow 

Mother day hotspot in the lift area, lots of power of 3 

Hotspot at the bottom of the escalator with shoppable rails 

Side view of the hospot, notice the detail on the catwalk continues up the wall 

Mens catwalk, maroon and blue colour flow 

Mens suits catwalk using staggered height to create interest 

Purple catwalk 

Pale blue young fashion mens display at height 

Mens shoppable hotspot at the back of the escalator for our mac trend 

So you may have realised that a lot of blue was projected around our store this year, Dark blues in womenswear, teals in home and the brighter blues in our young fashion areas. This helps carry a shopper through the store and is pleasing to look at. There was a lot of good merchandising in the store using these colours to enhance the journey as well but I have no photos of them.

If there's a certain display you like or want to comment on leave your thoughts down below!! 

Debenhams Press Show - Day 2

DAY 2- MORNING SET UP 

I can't remember the last time I slept so well. After all the commotion and hard work yesterday brought I made sure I had an early night and was well-rested for the chaos of finishing the set up for the press show. 

I was of the impression that the second day would be all hands on deck and a little bit manic but because of how much work we done the day before the day had a more relaxed vibe. By this point everyone had spent some time together and was feeling a lot more comfortable about the situation in hand so we were all working around each other and making plans for the evening ahead which was great and created such a chilled out atmosphere to work in.  

The morning was taken up mostly by mannequin dressing and minor alterations to the clothes and luckily the bags me and Kayleigh needed for our two accessories shelves arrived so we set about making them our priority in the morning, photos of the two shelves appear below. 

 Things really started to come together when the catwalk seating went in simply because of all the space it filled. You got a really good idea after that of how the evening was going to go and where everything was etc. 

 As the morning gave way into the afternoon we had photographers arrive, interviews being conducted and the lighting was finalised. Stylists also arrived along with their interns to sort out models outfits etc so as the day wore on the hall got more and more crowded and we became more aware of how little time we had left. The negative side to there being so many extra bodies as well was that the visual team got less time with the event organisers and therefore had to to rely a lot more on our gut feeling when making decisions. Turns out everything we done was bang on though which was great to hear. 

Below are the two accessories walls me and Kayleigh done. The first is of our sports luxe trend and the second is our tutti-fruiti trend.

I'll admit that these walls gave me such anxiety because they were literally on either side of the entrance and I was very aware of everyone watching us doing them so you really start to doubt yourself.

In those situations though you just have to try and convince yourself to trust in what you know and in the end we were both really happy with how things turnout out for us. We got a lot of really good compliments in the end and we were happy with the layout and the amount of products used so all in all we done the right thing by just trusting in what we know. 

 The sports luxe trend was by far my favourite, I love simplicity and so the black and white with the iridescent/monochrome colour scheme was right up my street. 

Tutti Fruti on the other hand was all pops of colour, eye catching tropical prints and shoes and really stood out from the rest of the room. From what I've seen on twitter and blogs from the evening this trend in particular was something people really gravitated towards and enjoyed looking at. Personally I was just thrilled none of the stock we velcro'd to the walls fell off as the day progressed! 

The two photos below are of the entrance to the hall and the catwalk area of the hall as a whole so you can see the progress from the photos of the previous day.

It looks sooo premium when you take in the two photos, hard to believe it was a totally empty hall before we were let loose on it! 

 We actually got away at 2pm in the afternoon which was great because me and some of the girls went out for lunch and cocktails (Which were really deserved) before going to the Glasgow store to get changed and glammed up for the evening event. 

THE EVENING EVENT

In true excitable employee fashion we arrived at the press show...super early and immediately regretted how keen we were to get involved in kicking back and enjoying our hard work. 

After awkwardly standing about still wearing our jackets we were thrilled to be handed champagne (which was filled up by waitresses when they got a tad low) and told to stash coats and bags under seats at the catwalk so we were sorted for the fashion show later on. Result!

We then set about searching through the rails and looking at the clothes whilst Scottish bloggers, Debenhams store managers and employees all filtered in the venue with some straggling models bringing up the rear. 

As the hall filled up with all these influential bloggers and employees from our work there was a real buzz of excitement. From what we could hear and were told people loved how the hall looked and all of the work we had put into the layout etc and being able to speak to people we would never usually have the opportunity to speak to was great! 

 Throughout the evening me and the girls got interviewed for some magazine which was one of the most awkward situations of my life having to tell someone who I was wearing (John Rocha leggings and a River Island blouse) and we also had a few situations where the camera man who was filming the event for Debenhams had turned around and was filming us which was also the most bizarre thing ever.

We actually got fantastic lighting for a group selfie since he decided it was something he wanted to film us doing. High-pressure selfies! 

 Some shots of everyone enjoying the event.

 And finally it was time for the fashion show! We took out seats and waited eagerly to see the clothes (which were already in stores but my store is quite small and doesn't receive all the lines) and we were not disappointed with what we saw! 

I tried to take photos of everything but sadly my phone just couldn't hack photographing models without blurring so I've had to make do with the few of mine that did work out. 

 I'm holding Kayleighs glass, I swear I'm not an alcoholic!! 

 See!

 My god the atmosphere in the room changed when the men hit the catwalk in swimwear 

Some of our safari inspired clothing, anchored by Star by Julien Macdonald.

Some Debut and Jenny Packham formal wear

Some of our new swimwear ranges.

 And to round up the successful 2 days and evening, some selfies to remind us of the fun we had! 

To give you a round up of how I felt after the two days I would say that any opportunity where I get a chance to take part in events that are above and beyond my usual position are extremely motivating and rewarding. It's also great to meet all the other visual members across parts of Scotland and spend some time getting to know them. After this and the training I was sent on I'm seeing a few of them quite often now! 

For me personally, getting to do things like this gives me a massive boost and a new injection of life into my job and if anything else it's just great to get out of Livingston for a few days and see a different city. 

Oh and did I mention there was free unlimited champagne?