For the third year running QE’s Art Foundation students have been working with founder of UGD Apparel, Sam Stanislaus, to work on live project briefs with the Art Foundation students.
This year Sam asked students to design a concept for an upcoming take over tour where he joins various sports facilities and gyms and holds pop up shops with his products. Students came up with a range of ideas but it was Tilly Murphy who won the competition and was offered an internship with the brand. Tilly designed a fun, contemporary concept that explores the idea of ‘Happy Space’ where the garments were designed to be worn for comfort, leisure or on top of sportswear to and from the gym. As part of the internship Tilly has discussed layout, colour and product selection with Sam, she has also directed and planned the photoshoot for the first look of the products, as well as being a model for one of the full sets. She also created designs for a tote bag, socks and thankyou cards as part of the whole concept range. Her products are going on sale on a soft launch on Friday 8th March at a pop-up shop at CrossFit Darlington, and then the full release will be online at ugdapparel.com from the 29th March. Tilly will be working at the pop-up shop to meet clients and discuss her work. We would like to extend our thanks to Hash Bar and Kitchen, Darlington for giving us access to their top floor café bar for the photoshoot, providing Tilly’s products with a cool and contemporary backdrop.
Assistant Head of Art and Design, Rachel Barras says that ‘working with Sam is an incredible opportunity that provides students with real life, industry experience where they are working to short timescales, a specific brief and receiving critical and constructive feedback. We are always impressed with the work students produced, but this year Sam commented on how professional Tilly’s work was and that he was blown away with her maturity, ideas and work ethic on this project. I am so proud of Tilly and how far her work has developed since A levels. Tilly is going on to study Textiles and Surface Pattern Design and The Northern School of Art and her final work will be on display alongside her course mates at our Art Foundation Show on the 13th June’.