Creating and selling collections successfully - for makers and creative practitioners 14 to 28 May 2025 with Patricia Van den Akker

Professional Practice Skills Multi-Disciplinary Art Heritage Crafts

Ref: D2P36334

Location: London

£130

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About this course

If you want to thrive as a professional creative in 2025, then you will need to create and promote collections at the right time. This strategic approach can be one of the best creative ways to present your work professionally and coherently, stand out, and sell your work, both online, at events and to galleries.

Course Description

This course takes place over two evening sessions. You will learn how to develop work more strategically in collections (rather than posting them whenever you are ready) and how to launch them professionally. It is suitable for BA students and new graduates and creatives who may not have learnt how to do professional product development and to market themselves at the right time of the year (especially to be ready for autumn and Christmas).

Aims: To learn how to create and present your work professionally, at the right time, to the right audience(s), so that you get more sales and end up with less unsold stock. With specific jobs throughout the year, you will manage your time, money and energy better. You will also learn how to position yourself, stand out better in the market, cost and price your work, and what to do to launch professionally to get more sales and end up with less unsold stock.

Workshop 1 (14 May) will focus on why and what the strategic product development cycle is, and its first few steps:

What is strategic product development, and why is it so important?
Why create collections (rather than just individual items)? Why launch? And when is the best time to launch?
What are the 6 stages of the strategic product development process from idea to launch? And when is the right time for each for you?

We will start with the first few steps of the strategic product development process:

Firstly, you will review your current situation, followed by what you want to create and launch later this year
Through various creative and market research exercises, you will get clear on what you want to create and launch
Where do you want to position yourself in the market, i.e. how are you different from competitors?
And then the fun part designing new products or services! We will look at ideation and how to get new ideas for new products or services (to complement your existing products or services). You will start to sketch out 2-3 collections with up to 40 product or service ideas before the 2nd session (so make sure you have time for this), and you will get some more practical and creative exercises to do

Workshop 2 (28 May) will focus on deciding what to create and launch, planning and launching in autumn: After all the excitement of developing all these new product and collection ideas, you will need to start making some decisions! We will have a reality check, including costing and pricing to decide the right collection and products or services to launch.
Patricia will then show you how to create your own design/production plan for summer and launch/marketing plan for autumn. We will finish this course by looking at how to make time to design and market your work.

Patricia will share very practical exercises. You will be working on your product and collection ideas, and create plans to produce, price and promote your work for the autumn.

Please note: this course runs across two evenings 14 and 28 May from 6pm-9pm

Course Materials

Included

On this course the tutor will supply all of the presentations, action sheets, plans and additional resources to plan, promote and launch your new or updated products or services.

What students need to bring

Pen and paper (or a laptop) to take notes. Loads of Post It notes. There will be significant creative homework required between the two sessions (to do internal and external market research and sketch out 2-3 collections with up to 40 product / services ideas), which will probably require around 2-3 days’ work.

Additional information

Please wear appropriate clothing/aprons for the workshop or studio, this includes stout covered footwear (no sandals or open toes).

Timetable

Evening Timetable

Students arrive between - 5.30pm-6pm
Course teaching - 6-9pm
Teaching finishes - 9pm

General Information

Short courses are open to anyone aged 18 and over. The course fee covers tuition and materials where stated. You will need to bring all other items listed under the Materials to bring section.

Refreshments

Coffee and tea are included in the course fee, but you will need to bring lunch with you to eat in the refreshments room. There are also plenty of other local venues to purchase food.

Access

If you have any specific access needs, we will need to know about your access requirements in advance. Please tell us about your needs in confidence by emailing: [email protected] This venue has steps to the front reception, with limited access via a side gate to the ground floor. There is a small lift to higher floors or stairs.

Safety

Short course students are required to sign a safety compliance form as part of West Dean Health and Safety regulations.

Refunds and cancellations

Please refer to our terms & conditions below.

Disclaimer

The information given is accurate at the time of publication. However, West Dean College reserves the right to cancel or amend courses if circumstances require.