Who am I? My name is Amber Whitaker and I am Fashion Communication graduate from the University of Brighton. After four years of intense studying, I am ready to begin my journey into the challenging and fast paced creative industry. Over the past four years I have gained a wide range of skills and knowledge that has prepared me to enter the industry within my chosen specialisms of PR, Communications and Events. Graduating from a degree that has covered a vast range of fields within the fashion industry has allowed me to experiment and learn about all the different specialist areas of a fashion brand or company. Throughout university I have been able to take part in diverse projects; ranging from creating lookbooks, organising and planning photoshoots, implementing marketing strategies into business proposals, drafting magazine features and even planning and hosting my own collaborative event. I feel that my portfolio illustrates my growing skill set, versatility and creative and practical ability that can be applied when beginning my professional career.
Final Major Project Casa Creativa is an initiative that I launched during my final major project at university. I have always had a keen interest in events with my strengths lying in organisation and time management; therefore I wanted to design a concept that best showcased my skills as well as creating something that would bring a creative community together. When researching into ideas for my project, I thought up the idea of creating an event that celebrated a diverse range of creative and design disciplines in one space, showcasing the importance of creativity and innovation on our everyday lives. Casa Creativa selected an array of design students and graduates, bringing their work together in a space that showcased design integrity as well as presenting their work to the public and industry professionals.
The Lifestyle Hub Illustrations
Collaborating with local businesses Casa Creativa’s debut event The Lifestyle Hub gave me the opportunity to reach out to local businesses. I wanted The Lifestyle Hub to promote the importance of collaboration as a community, therefore I got in contact with local Brighton businesses asking for support. I was extremely fortunate to have such incredibly successful and generous companies offer support and sponsorship including Bills Restaurant, Blue Thorn Gin, Bird and Blend Tea, Dowse Design, Heal’s Furtniture and Hunter Florist.
Casa Creativa’s Zine
Casa Creativa’s Zine
The Lifestyle Hub event photos Images by Pranil Raja
Images by Pranil Raja
Images by Pranil Raja
Business Proposal The Creative Intern was part of a business proposal designed during my final year at university. The Creative Intern is an online platform that was created to offer methods of communication between amateurs and professionals within the creative industries. It would allow members to create a specialised portfolio, upload their cv, read reviews from other members about previous internships and receive top tips on how to be the ideal candidate. As a creative about to venture into the working world, I wanted to design a simple yet effective way to guide students and graduates into the next steps of their professional careers.
The Creative Intern business proposal taught me alot about creative business platforms and how they run. To guarantee that a business will be successful within its sector, a lot of research needs to be undertaken as to whether the business is finding a solution to a gap in the market or modernishing something similar that already exists. The above images are just a few areas that the business project covered, including SWOT analysis, marketing mix, target market research, positioning maps and also unique selling points.
Fashion Scout Events work placement As part of my university course, we had the opportunuty to choose a year in industry which allowed us to do a placement within our chosen specialisms. I was lucky enough to gain a placement with Fashion Scout Events who run shows for emerging designers during London Fashion Week as well as being the organisers behind Graduate Fashion Week. At Fashion Scout I was able to try out various roles from PR and communications which included contacting press, buyers and bloggers in regards to the shows we were hosting, writing press releases and being in charge of seating at the event. I was also able to do some work for the digital team which allowed me to write articles for their website, create GIF’s and animations and help run Fashion Scout and GFW’s social media platforms.
O N E S T O W AT C H P R E S E N TAT I O N
Fashion Scout, the international showcase for fashion pioneers, is delighted to announce Estonia knitwear designer Kristel Kuslapuu as one of one AW18 ‘Ones To Watch’ winners. Selected from a long list of emerging designers, the Ones To Watch winners receive the opportunity to showcase during London Fashion Week. Fashion Scout’s Ones To Watch provides a unique platform for the brightest new designers, with many going on to become established labels in the international fashion industry. The judging panel consisted of six industry experts including Martyn Roberts - Fashion Scout’s Founder and Director, Hattie Crisell - Acting Fashion Editor at The Times, Ida Petersson – Womenswear Buying Director at Browns, Emma Firth – Online Fashion Editor at Hunger, Kendall Robbins – Fashion Programme Manager at The British Council and Fabio Piras – MA Course Leader at Central St Martins. Created in 2014, the award is now in its 10th Season and continues to be one of the most anticipated shows during LFW. Ones to Watch is instrumental in raising the profile of emerging design on a global scale. Previous winners include; Eudon Choi, Georgia Harding, Phoebe English, Joanna Berling, Helen Lawrence, EDDA and Typical Freaks, alongside SS18 winners; Neo Design, Starsica, Ji Won Choi and Triinu Pungits. Kristel Kuslapuu’s eponymous label joins the Fashion Scout schedule, having caught the eye of the judging panel after showcasing at Talinn Fashion Week. Following graduation in 2017, Kristel continues to develop her award-winning label, which has scooped the prizes of 2008 and 2009 SuperNoova in Estonia, Lithuania Fashion Injection and ERKI Fashion Show, alongside being showcased for Estonia at London Fashion Week in the International Fashion Showcase 2014. The AW18 collection is inspired by dark secrets, phobias, social anxieties and traumas. The pieces themselves, talk about serious and inconvenient subjects through highest levels of self-irony. Most of the bold, colourful designs in the collection are hand knit as a protest against fast fashion. A twist is added by portraying serious topics with cute and fuzzy materials, such as yarns from alpaca, camel, goat and sheep. Flirting with sculptural forms, bold colours, unique patterns, the collection shares provocative messages and symbols, transcending traditional gender conformity. Kristel Kuslapuu said upon winning a Ones To Watch award, “For me winning was a reassurance that I am at the right place doing the right thing. The excitement of fulfilling one of your dreams is indescribable. I really do feel like I have found something that I am meant to do. Whilst years are passing I feel more and more obliged to give back to mother earth and having this opportunity to share my art with the world is as given from above. I feel very grateful.” Fashion Scout Founder and Director Martyn Roberts commented: “This season’s Ones to Watch truly demonstrates what the award was created to showcase and we are excited to have expanded the award to the presentation studio to fit with our winner’s creative views. We have a bold and colourful eclectic mix of designers from diverse cultures, making Ones To Watch the highlight of the A/W 18 schedule.”
Kristel Kuslapuu press release written by Amber Whitaker
Promotional posters designed for Fashion Forward Dubai’s partnership with Graduate Fashion Week Image Content: Graduate Fashion Week
Graduate Fashion Week website screenshot Article written by Amber Whitaker Link: http://www.graduatefashionweek.com/news/5-ways-to-practice-self-care-during-deadline-season
Graduate Fashion Week website screenshot Article written by Amber Whitaker Link: http://www.graduatefashionweek.com/news/international-womens-day
Group magazine project Nine Magazine was the outcome of a group project brief completed during university. We had five members within our group; one photographer, two art directors and two PR and campaigns. I was assigned as one of the PR and campaign members and it was our role to write press releases, help plan photoshoots, write articles, plan the launch event and finalise the media pack. The name ‘Nine’ came from the idea of being on ‘cloud 9’ and escaping all realities. Nine Magazine covered themes of escapism, mindfulness, wellbeing and health.
Nine Magazine: A magazine based around the themes of escapism Photography by Irene Yages
Live project collaboration with Trekstock As part of a university project, Fashion Communication students took part in a live project, collaborating with the charity Trekstock. Our brief was to create a 360 fundraising concept to be launched in the month of June. We were given a budget of £10,000 and had to present a pitch to our university tutors and members of the Trekstock team. Trekstock is a charity that supports young adults going through Cancer. As Trekstock is a charity that focuses on young adults, I wanted to make my proposal appropriate to a similar age group therefore for this brief, I came up with the idea of a ‘Fund Fest’ which allowed the public to host their own festival. The £10,000 budget would be mainly spent on a launch event to promote the concept and to encourage the public to take part.
So what is #MyJuneFundFest all about? Trekstocks Fund Fest event is a fundraiser launching in June 2018. #MyJuneFundFest's debut in May 2018 will be a unique, one off event held in London promoting Trekstocks charity and making the public aware of the amazing things they do. #MyFundFest will be a national event allowing everyone of any age or interest to get involved. The Launch event in London will promote the fundraising scheme and inform others about how they can host their own fund fest at home!
#MyJuneFundFest Launch
trekstocks fund fest launch will be during may of 2018, hosted at a secret location in london. there will only be 400 tickets available to the public, and because we only ask for a small donation of ÂŁ5.00, they will go quickly! The Launch event will include meet and greet with our Ambassadors including harry styles, mark ronson and henry holland, lots of freebies, a chance to watch performances of our favourite well known stars, trekstock stalls filled with information and lots of competition's in collaboration with some of our sponsors.