Making Connections: Vanilla Ink

Representative of Vanilla Ink: Kate Pickering (founder)
Location of the meeting: Tartan Cafe, Perth Road, Dundee
Objective: To gain an understanding of the formation of ‘Vanilla Ink’ and to discuss the need of collaborative design space for DJCAD graduates

This morning I was fortunate enough to meet up with DJCAD jewellery graduate Kate Pickering to discuss the relevance of my personal project in the design/business world today.

The reason I decided to meet up with Kate is because of her current ‘collaborative’ based project/business ‘Vanilla Ink’ (website home page shown above). Kate’s plan for the business is as follows:

”Vanilla Ink will be a fully equipped workshop in Dundee for jewellery graduates. As well as providing much sought after work space, it will also supply tailor-made business training, mentoring, support and advice. The facility will offer the graduate the opportunity to develop their abilities, covering many areas of practical and theoretical skills as well as providing a supportive environment and network to work within. Vanilla Ink will allow the graduate to grow as a maker and provide a platform to launch their career within the industry. Vanilla Ink is embracing the world of the new designer. It is the missing link from graduation to industry all under one roof. Vanilla Ink will house the jewellery graduates for one year and will offer a platform to showcase and sell their work.”

As part of the meeting, I decided to ask Kate a few questions that would help shape the concept/idea for my personal project for PNC2.  I began by asking her how she initially became involved/intrigued in the idea of ‘collaborative working’.  Her response was rather interesting! - ”after graduating from DJCAD I could make jewellery, but I was not a jeweller.”  Kate went onto to explain that she felt that the DJCAD jewellery course lacked business insight -this of course has changed today, however while Kate was a student she felt that there was no one/no where to turn to for advice.  This I guess is the reason why ‘Vanilla Ink’ exists today.  Kate was able to recognize the need to network and the need to provide an experience for graduates -particularly jewellery graduates!

I asked Kate what she thinks the main benefit is of working collaboratively – she emphasized that it would be ‘not working alone’.  We discussed how no one wants to feel isolated when starting out in business.  People need to be confident that their talent/idea has potential and relevance in the world today -if not, their idea might as well not exist.  I understand that it can be hard to believe in a product/service right from the start..but without that ‘push’ an individual may lose the will to maintain their creativity.

I explained to Kate that I wanted to create a working/design space that evokes creativity within a number of different design disciplines to encourage them to collaborate and integrate with one another (like cross-pollination) to create a sense of community right from the out set of their ‘career in design’.  After, I asked her if she as a design graduate would even be interested in utilizing a space like the one I described.  I definitely got the vibe that she would be interested -either that or she was just being polite! (:

When discussing where a place like this should be located, Kate mentioned that perhaps it would need to be outside of the University Campus -taking the graduates out of the ‘safety net’ that is the ‘University of Dundee’.  In mentioning this I thought about the choice of locating it right on the periphery of the University..or perhaps within the city centre of the city- nearer to the V&A that is expected to ‘kick off’ in 2015.

In order to establish what my proposed space needs in order to succeed, I asked Kate what she thought would make a successful collaborative design space.  She explained the need to promote it in a way that emphasized the benefits.  Graduates need to be convinced that the space could act as the ‘starting block’ into their design/business future.  The space needs to be sought after so as to benefit the creative/business minded people on an individual basis.  When talking through my ideas for the proposed interior space, Kate seemed keen on the idea of ‘adaptable space’ -providing an individual with a choice in how they work.  She suggested however that the majority of the space could be open planned to allow for successful collaboration.  Kate also talked about ‘triggers’ -such as blackboards, discussion spaces..a place where individuals would want to talk, exchange ideas and most importantly -to create a network.  Triggers need to exist to maintain a ‘creative drive’.

All in all I feel that talking to Kate helped a great deal in terms of providing motivation for my project.  I appreciated her advice -and I’m glad DJCAD have some excellent graduates for us under-graduates to look up to!