A WEEK’S WORK EXPERIENCE AT PRICE & BUCKLAND!
Sep 4, 2023 | Blog
In July, Price and Buckland (P&B) based in Nottingham were delighted to welcome Jasmine, a local Year 9 student, to join us for a week’s Work Experience placement. Jasmine is very creative and has a keen interest in fashion and textiles, so our print and embroidery team seemed the perfect place for her to learn more about the industry.
We have a wonderful, talented team at P&B, doing all different kinds of work, and so as the week progressed, we uncovered some hidden talents and Jasmine discovered new areas of interest that she can explore when she leaves school…
JASMINE:
“My week at P&B has consisted of doing many things across the warehouses, office and embroidery and print departments. I am interested in following a fashion career, that’s why I chose to do this placement as it teaches me about the textiles industry, along with the photography and the design side of the fashion industry. P&B has ensured that I do more than just one activity throughout this week, which has opened my mind to a new career path that I hadn’t considered before…
MARKETING WITH VICTORIA
“A new consideration from my work experience here is social media marketing. On Wednesday I worked with Victoria in the marketing team.
Victoria let me shadow her whilst she showed me what she does as her job, including social media and photography. She takes photographs in their studio, edits them, and also manages several different social media accounts.
When helping Victoria to complete her to-do list, she gave me several things to help her with. Firstly, creating content for an Instagram story on the P&B account. To do this I took photos and videos of workers doing their jobs in different locations and then used the footage to create an Instagram story using Capcut. She let me have creative reign, so I edited it to my best abilities. After I adjusted the video and we were both satisfied with the finished product we posted it!"
I also worked with Victoria to create an Instagram and Facebook post showing a recent event where one of the Account Managers went along to a school to answer questions from parents and children about their uniform.
After learning and developing my skills in social media, we went to the photography studio to see how photos were taken of the garments. Victoria used a white top to demonstrate how the P&B marketing team take images with their equipment and use particular techniques. I got to practice taking photos with the different equipment whilst Victoria directed me to get the perfect shot.
Victoria showing me this really helps with my schoolwork as I take photography as a GCSE. This is one of the experiences that P&B has helped me with in my schoolwork, whilst helping me to discover what I would possibly like to pursue in the future.
MARKETING WITH JAMES
On Thursday, I spent some time with James who does design work for the marketing team. I used Illustrator to help mock up some designs for a reel that was featuring in a summer campaign. James helped me plan the design, before bringing it to life on Illustrator. I learned to use the artboard, the shape tool, the clipping mask and the stroke tool!
My work experience with James has opened my mind to more ideas for my photography GCSE. Now I can use Illustrator along with Photoshop, as they are quite similar.
WAREOUSE WITH SHARON & TONI
Later on in the day, I met Sharron (Warehouse Supervisor) and Toni (Operations Manager) who direct and organise the warehouse. So when customers orders are being processed, workers who pick the garments know where everything is.
Firstly, I learnt how to bag and scan orders. I picked an order that would be sent to a school and collected by a parent. I followed the A-Z mapping in the warehouse to walk around and pick the items out of each box. On each item there was a code which told me which box to look in for the item. I could then pass it to Jenna who was working there for the summer, as she did last year. P&B has temporary workers every summer to help with all the extra orders over the summer period. Jenna is a university student and helps out in her summer break.
From doing all the jobs in the warehouse that Sharron taught me I have learnt how to do several different roles in one day! This has opened the door for a potential summer job here as I have learned the basics of picking and bagging.
DESIGN WITH EMMA
Earlier in the week, on Monday, I met Rachel (HR Manager) who was my main supervisor whilst doing my work experience at P&B. On my first day she gave me a tour around the business where I was introduced to Emma and Dawn who are Embroidery Digitisers & Artworkers. Emma showed me how to print on garments using the printing programs and the machine. She gave me a tutorial on how to process a print: the machine firstly did a test strip to see how its ink would perform, and afterwards, it would start printing the images, such as a school’s logo. After the machine finished printing the logo, it would have powdered glue layered over the top of it to make it an adhesive, like a sticker. The logos we looked at had been designed to look like they had been embroidered, with a stitching effect. Lots of schools like embroidery, but it can be heavy on PE clothes, so printing is a better option.
Later in the day, Emma let me have a go at Illustrator which was my first time using it. She let me have creative freedom! I choose to create a fairytale scene, so I tried to create an atmosphere full of colour and story. I used a number of generic fairytale designs such as mushrooms, fairies and colourful flowers which I drew with the paintbrush tool.
On the Tuesday, I was working with Emma again and this time she asked me to do a Halloween or Christmas design. I decided to do a Halloween nature scene but in an autumnal style and with a Tim Burton feel to it. Since I finished this Halloween design and still had some time left, I also created a Christmas design using a variation of tools. For this Christmas design, I incorporated a traditional Christmas feel by drawing different bauble designs with snowflakes or spotted designs, consisting of gold, pastel and muted colours.
Lastly, to finish off the printing side of my work experience, Emma helped me to print my finished designs onto a t-shirt. As the two themes were opposites in a way, I chose a black t-shirt as well as the white t-shirt. My designs were fed out of the printer onto specialised paper and printed onto the t-shirts with a hot presser. I was familiar with the hot presser as I’ve used it in school before when printing in my GCSE textiles lessons!
As well as achieving my own goals of learning new things and opening new doors for my future, I ended up with two t-shirts with both of my designs printed onto them with Emma’s help and directions.
In conclusion, I am very pleased with my work experience here and all that I have gained this week at P&B. I have also learnt a lot of new skills which I can easily develop in the future of my work career.”