Portfolio Dreams

After being made redundant at the end of 2020 and relocating back to London from Italy, I decided to embrace the great resignation. I’d only ever had 1 other full time job and I’d been made redundant from that too. Freelance has always been the safer bet in my book.

Let’s be real though, it’s been daunting at times. But, there’s learning in everything. Each setback has given me pause to rethink, recalibrate and move forward. No doubt there’ll be more bumps along the way. Failing fast and forward, and all that…

And oddly, or perhaps not at all, by striking out on my own and pushing myself to sign up for communities, networking events and industry meet-ups I’ve wound up feeling more part of something than I ever did as a corporate employee on a global product creation team.

Who knew?!

These guys, that’s who! The Portfolio Collective If you’re thinking about breaking up with full-time employment I can’t recommend this community enough for friendly, open resource sharing and support.

Anyway, slightly rambling introduction to me aside, I’ve jumped on here to write my first ever blog post. Eek. And to do a bit of a shoutout for my new workshop 🥳

As part of my portfolio career I’ve created a design workshop for fashion and industrial design students who are curious about a career in footwear. Last week I ran the second iteration of ‘Designing for Brands: Balancing Brand Identity, Trend, Consumer Profile and Brief’ with the amazing 2nd year Bachelor of Science Product and Technical Design students at the University of Limerick, Ireland.

It was a hybrid delivery with me in London on Zoom, and 49 students and 1 lecturer in Limerick and a very large Miro board for the teams to gather their work and present back to the group - and it was amazing! I gave the students a brief intro to myself and my career in footwear, and an overview of a corporate product creation team, and the product creation process. Then I challenged them to dive into some of the best known footwear brands on the planet and reinvent them.

Thanks so much to Muireann Mc Mahon, for letting me task her students with redesigning some of the most iconic shoes out there and an even bigger thank you to the students themselves for embracing the day and coming up with some fantastic solutions, so much talent and so many great ideas!!

The future is bright 💥💥💥

If you’re a student or graduate designer that’s curious about footwear, or if you’re in education and you’d like to learn more about the workshop, send me a DM, I’m always happy to talk.

Thanks for reading :)

Caoimhe