Design and the City - Pre-Cource Assignment: CV

I am attending a summer course "Design and the City" (http://www.helsinkisummerschool.fi/home/courses/design_and_the_city) in Helsinki Summer School this August. The first pre-assignment of the course was to write a short CV / Portfolio describing one's educational background, scholarly interests, and geographical history: where I lived and traveled? In which city am I studying right now?

My Curriculum Vitae

I am a 29-year old Finnish woman from Helsinki. I have always lived in Finland, but I have travelled in Europe and Asia, e.g. France, Italy, Great Britain and India. My hobbies are riding my dearly beloved Harley-Davidson motorcycle, photography and going to the gym.

After Matriculation Examination I studied Visual Merchandising in a one year course (1999-2000). I was also working as a salesperson in three different fashion stores at that time.

Right after the VM course was over I applied to Helsinki Polytechnic and was accepted to study fashion on fall 2000. The school lasted for four years, during which time I learned about fashion design, materials and fabric structures used in clothing, sewing, pattern making, grading and fashion marketing.

An excample of a fashion design assignment:  Sports wear collection I've designed for snowboarding

I also made various projects to different companies. For example I made fashion photo shootings and marketing for a Finnish childrens wear brand Kinderit.

Marketing campaign materials for Kinderit

I was also an intern in two companys during my studies. Anne Linnonmaa Ltd, which is an ecological fashion company, hired me to help with their marketing on summer 2001. The company had their 10th anniversary year back then, and my job was to photograph and make a presentation on their production process for Helsinki Fashion Fair and for their internet pages. In addition to that, I also made a Concept Book based on the material I had gathered for the presentation. The Concept Book was ment to presentate the whole concept of the company to the retailers and to help them sell the products to their customers.

Concet Book for Anne Linnonmaa Ltd

In addition to that, I made displays in Anne Linnonmaa Shop in Aleksi 13 department store in Helsinki, and made instrucyions on yhe display of the brand for all retailers.

A few examples of desplays i made for Aleksi 13 department stores in Helsinki

An example of a display instruction I made

The following summer 2003 I was hired as an intern to Sokos department store in Helsinki city center. There I worked as a Visual Merchandiser in all the departments, including window dressing for three months. Soon after the intern was over they hired me back there to work as a part-time Visual Merchandiser. I was still at school back then, so I studied and worked at the same time for the last school year.

An example of a display I made in Sokos

An example of a vetrine decoration for Sokos

I also did my graduation study for the Sokos department store. I studied the laws of Visual Merchandising from a perceptual psychology's view. I studied under which psychological laws do the customers percept in the department stores. I also studied about Sokos department stores' womens' wear private label profiles by interviewing various professionals who worked with the products in different parts of the value chain. As a result I made a display instructon for all the private labels in the womens department based on both perceptual psychology and the brand profiles. The aim was that each display instruction would communicate to the customer by visual means on the values of each brand (Aventura, Icon and House Collection).

I gratuated on spring 2004, and worked as Visual Merchandiser in Sokos untill the next fall when I got to work in SOK's purchasing company, Intrade Partners Ltd. There I worked as an purchasing assistant in school aged schildren's purchasing group for one year. My responsibilities were to handle the communication to our suppliers through our merhandisers in Southern Europe and Far East. I also handled the buying samples for marketing and our designers for commenting, and based the products to our database. For the last two months I was a caretaking buyer, which meant that in addition for all my other tasks I was also responsible for asking offers from our suppliers, pricing the products, making purhasing decisions and taking both visual and economical responsibility on the collection.

Year 2005 I got my current position in Sokos Chain Management's department of displays and space management. I began as a Space Management assistant, but after working for just half a year I got promoted as Visual Merchandising Designer. I designed retail consepts to our departments together with our shop designers, I made display instructions in general and accurate levels and designed the display methods for our renovating departments stores all over Finland. I have also teached Visual Merchandising and marketing in my ex-school, Helsinki Polytechnic Stadia (Nowadays Metropolia Polytechnic) and in Salpaus education center in Lahti.

Here are some examples of retail concepts I've been designing and displays iI've made for Sokos:

Health products retail concept for Sokos, 2006. Picture by Aprocos

Young Women's retail concept for Sokos, 2008. Photos 2008 - 2009.

Women's Fashionable Business Wear retail concept for Sokos, 2009.

Women's Fashionable Casual Wear concept for Sokos, 2009.

Aventura Private Label concept for Sokos 2007, Photo 2009.

Women's Classic Business Wear retail concept for Sokos, 2009.

Women's Classic Wear retail concept for Sokos, 2009. Photos: 2008-2009.

Women's Jackets and Coats retail concept for Sokos, 2009.

Women's hosiery displays for Sokos, 2009.

This August I was left on a studying leave to finish my studies in the University of Helsinki. I study History of Art as my main subject. My plan is to study visual culture, design, trend forecasting and marketing. My dream is to go for student exchange in Italy next year, and to work with art and design in the future.