Mirjam Rouden Print Design Studio Internship June 2013

Straight after I finished my last week at uni, I went to London for two weeks to complete a short internship at Mirjam Rouden in the arches in Bethnal Green. Mirjam has two arches/studios next to each other - one focused more on digital, the other on handmade, drawing, painting etc. Whilst I was there, there were trips to Spain and Brazil and preperations for the US trip, so at times there was a lot of stress and lots to do in a short space of time, compared to other days that were much more relaxed to just draw all day. 

My first day was very tiring. After Mirjam had looked at my portfolio she sent me and another new intern to the practical studio to wash all of the samples that had been done the week before. This involved lots of arm exercise lifting the fabrics in and out of hot water and cold water multiple times, softener, putting them in the spinner, hanging them out to dry, ironing them, then they are scanned in and a header put on them ready to go - I had to stay to get them all done before I went on my lunch so that they were ready for the Italy trip which I was more than happy to do. After this there was 2 hours left of the day. Everyone was very busy and struggled to find me something to do, so I joined some other new interns and began drawing Geometric patterns. I wasn't given much direction on this, but on the second morning we were all briefed in much more detail so we produced much better work. 

These are some examples of the geometric drawings I had done. I did these until Thursday morning - they took a long time to finish because I took my time to make sure the pattern was all the same. These were scanned in, edited on photoshop and sent to Italy to be digitally printed ready for the Brazil trip. 

Whilst doing the geometrics, Mirjam asked us if we wanted to try something new so we went upstairs to start tie dyeing. To start, we pleated existing samples to improve them and add more depth to them. By the next day, Mirjam had gone on holiday so left us a task to make lots of different samples and this time dye them ourselves, something that she had done before. 

There were 6-8 of us doing this task and we produced a lot of samples between us. These are a few examples of mine, which I was very pleased with! Some were left just being dyed once, then others need more work so they were re - pleated or just re - tied to improve them. We did this until the start of the second week, with other tasks inbetween. 

We then started on stripes - which was something I really enjoyed. We had white satin fabric which stuck to the table. We then used masking tape in lots of different thicknesses to stick across the fabric to block out areas. Then we used various different colours to dye the fabric - used rollers and paintbrushes to apply this. Some of the colours bled through the masking tape, so we figured out which were better than others. You also couldn't take the masking tape off until it was completely dry, so the last coat we would leave overnight. We did this for a few days.

Our next task for a day and a half was the dots project - We basically had to make delicate, pretty patterns out of very small dots. They had to fill the page and be very small scale. One drawing took me over a day, but the others were much smaller pieces so didn't take me as long. 

Half way through this project, the digitally printed samples had arrived so it was a mad rush to cut them all out with pinking shears and put headers on them all. This carried over to my last day to get them all ready just in time for the Brazil trip. All of the designers were very appreciative of our help!

Below are some of my own digital prints that had arrived with the batch which was very exciting!!!

My experience at Mirjam Rouden was very valuable. I only spent 2 weeks at the studio because I had to stay in student accomodation whilst down there and it was all I could afford, however if I could have  stayed longer I definitely would. I learned alot about the industry and how quickly things are actually done - the process is so fast. I also learned alot about different dyeing and printing processes and how to prepare samples. Although I do Fashion Design and this is more textiles based, it was still very useful and completely appropriate - on my course we can experiment with making our own prints and dyeing techniques. I had done a few things before but I had learned new things that I will definitely practice in the future. On this internship there is no coffee making - as it said on the advert, it is very exhausting and takes lots of energy out of you! 

Advice if you are doing an internship at the studio - don't give up after the first day or the first couple of days as a few people did. It may feel like it starts out as not as you expected, but it does get much better the longer you stay and by the end of it you won't want to leave. It will suck the energy out of you, but you work very hard and not only will you feel a sense of achievement after, but you will have gained invaluable experiences that you can only get from actually being in the industry. If you can't give an internship a go then you probably aren't cut out for the industry in the first place! Also - the studios are messy, so expect to get messy yourselves - don't wear any nice clothes that you don't want to ruin, and it is quite cold in the studios too. 

The only negativities of the internship was perhaps the organisation. It took a while for the designers to warm to us and sometimes there wasn't much to do when everyone was so busy getting things sorted for the trips. A plan or a project we could do independently that could run the whole time we were there to do inbetween other projects to keep us occupied might be a good idea. Also - there are dogs! So it would be a good idea to notify people before, so that people who are scared are aware of this. One of the other girls was actually very scared of dogs so had to work in the practical studio at all times.