Design Made Trade recap!!!

Phew! It's now relax-time as Design Made Trade is officially over. DMT was my first trade show, and sharing a stall as part of the Craft Victoria booth space was a great way to enter into trade shows in a really good, manageable, non-crazy way.

My booth was shared with Lab 3 o 5 and Morgan Wills - I did a little post about all the Craft Vic participants on Oh My Green, take a look over here! Craft Vic selected 12 craftspeople/artists/designers (or design teams!) to exhibit. Four booths were shared amongst us.

This year the booths were quite different to previous years. They were more open, rather than square 3 walled booths the walls were a lot more open, and there were windows between booths.

Photographed from left to right - And O Design at the back on the left, Harvest Textiles you can see through my window, Shelley Panton on the other side of my window, Pocket Carnival (that's me!) and Lab 3 o 5 with their amazing box display - cheers for laser cut awesomeness.

The windows in the stalls, while possibly a great idea on paper, were a wee bit of an issue. When sharing a stall, wall space is extremely valuable, and taking out a big chunk of that space was painful! Also, the walls were all different whacky colours, so hopefully the DMT organisers take whacky-colour-objections on board for next year. I'm just lucky that salmon pink and lime green are part of my colour palette!!!

Me. I am so not photogenic, excuse me. Look at that pained expression. Oh well. I tried.

New things! Business cards + brochures were snapped up very quickly by the design students who came to have a look! I actually had a lot of conversations with design students who were interested in digital textile printing. I think the Frankie & Swiss ladies ears must have been burning from all the times I mentioned them. In case you've forgotten, take a peek at their site here! I also spoke to so many people about my passion for using organic fabric, recycled/vintage textiles and post-consumer recycled card - lots of interest in Oh My Green!

The card wall - I decided the easiest way to display the cards would be to paste them up on the wall. Like a gallery display.

Lots of people have asked me if the even was successful/if I would do it again. I've got to say yes, but it's very hard to judge the results immediately! So much of these shows is about putting yourself or your business out there, and then waiting to see what opportunities come of it. Having said that, it was so amazing, especially for someone like me who works from home, to be surrounded by so many like-minded designers, interested public and supportive people. It was great to meet store owners and get feedback, and it was wonderful to have chit-chats with crafty types too!

I also saw so so so many amazing designers and stalls at DMT... the Craft Vic Open Studio spaces were awesome (see some pics on The Design Files!) I also love New Model Beauty Queen, who are launching a new website rather soon!

Also, massive thanks to Craft Vic, but especially Milly! for being super awesome & calm in the face of adversity/salmon pink walls. She was calm on the outside anyway. Yay!

xx Penny


All photos copyright Pocket Carnival 2011. Thanks!!