Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hi. I'm Tessie Fay. I'm an artist and surface pattern designer with a passion for helping women create beautiful and joyful homes. I recently took my big dream of becoming a fabric designer and turned it into a reality, as I launched my first fabric line, Pink Lemonade with Windham Fabrics. In today's class, I will teach you the step-by-step process I took to land my first big licensing deal in the fabric industry. I will take you behind the scenes as I attended cloth market, as I met with art directors, and exactly how I talked about and promoted my portfolio. Even though I'll be sharing my specific experience of attending cloth market, the tips and tricks I will share will be helpful for anyone who is wanting to show their portfolio to an art director face to face. I had a big dream and it became a reality, and I know that you can do it too. Let's talk about how I became a fabric designer. Let's gets started.
2. Class Project: For your class project, I want you to create a simple document with three parts. You can do this very easily just by typing straight into the class project section, or you can get a little more fancy doing it handmade and taking a photo, or creating it in Photoshop or Illustrator. It's completely up to you, but I want you to keep it simple. These are the three things I want you to include. First, what is your big dream? I want you to declare it. I know it can be scary to talk about, but I want you to say what your big dream is. My big dream was to get my patterns licensed on fabric. I wanted to become a fabric designer. That was my big dream. The second thing I want you to include is five companies that you would love to work with, five dream companies that you want to reach out to to show your portfolio to. The last part of the project is to write a timeline. Give yourself a deadline of when you will be ready to reach out to these companies, when your portfolio will be ready and complete, and you are ready to reach out to these companies and make your dream a reality. That's it, one simple document with three parts. Your big dream, your five companies you want to reach out to, and a timeline of when your going to do it. Go ahead and start that right now in the class project. I can't wait to read what your big dream is.
3. What is Quilt Market and Why Should I Go?: Okay. Let's talk a little bit about Quilt Market. What is Quilt Market? Why should I go to Quilt Market? Quilt Market is a trade show for the fabric industry. It's held in a big convention center and it happens two times a year. In the fall, it always happens in Houston and in the spring it changes location. This past spring in 2019, it was held in Kansas City. The spring before that in 2018, it was held in Portland, Oregon. All the different fabric companies from around the nation come together at Quilt Market, and they have booths where they are showing their new, latest and greatest fabric. The most incredible thing about Quilt Market is all of the people from all of these different fabric companies, and all of the art directors, and many of the presidents and the higher-ups in the company are all together under one roof. It's an opportunity where you can go right up to them and talk to them. It's an incredible opportunity to be able to talk with many, many companies out one time since they're all together under one roof. The great advantage of going to Quilt Market, instead of just sending your portfolio online to these art directors, is when they receive your artwork online it is among hundreds and hundreds of other submissions. It's really hard to stand out. But when you're actually there and able to meet with them face to face and they're able to get to know you and your personality, and give you the opportunity to talk about your portfolio. I feel like it's a lot easier to make a good impression. That is why I wanted to go to Quilt Market. Also, it was the way that two of my mentors, Bonnie Christine, and Dylan M, that's how they got their first fabric contract. I decided that I wanted to follow in their footsteps and try it for myself. Most of the people who attend Quilt Market are shop owners looking to buy fabric for their shops. But there's also other industry professionals and a few people like me and maybe like you, that are looking to get licensed and want to meet with these fabric companies. The one thing that is tricky is that it's not open to the public. Quilt Market is a closed trade show. You have to be credentialed. You have to prove that you are part of industry in order to go to Quilt Market. This is something that keeps a lot of designers away because that just seems intimidating, they have no idea how they can actually get into Quilt Market and get credentialed. But it was actually not as hard as I thought. It was actually pretty easy to get credentialed if you have an actual business that you are taking seriously. Let's go ahead and talk through the two different badges and what it takes to get credentialed to be able to attend, Quilt Market.
4. Getting Credentialed for Quilt Market: Let's talk a little bit about how to get credentialed and how to get a badge to be able to attend Quilt Market. There are two different types of badges, one is a buyer's badge and one is an industry professionals badge. Since I wasn't buying, I wanted to prove that I was an industry professional. In order to do that, there is a list of requirement at Quilt Market website, which is quilts.com. You can find all of this information there. But these are the five different things that they said would help you become credentialed and you have to have at least two of the five. They have an active company website with a unique domain name, have a tax certificate, or business license, have a letter of authorization from a current quote market exhibitor, work contract for services or have a licensing agreement, or have proof of two industry-related published designs. For me, the two easiest things were the top two. I already had a website, tessiefay.com, so I was able to just show them that I had an actual website. The second thing, to have a tax certificate or a business license. I decided to just go ahead and set up my business. Legally, I was really nervous on how to do this, but it actually ended up being very easy to set up my business as an LLC. I just googled my home state, Minnesota and setting up an LLC and I figured out how to do that. It was a very simple form to fill out and with a small fee, and that was able to give me my tax certificate. That's what I did. That's how I was able to get credentialed. They'll have information on the website of where to send those things, and it doesn't take too long to get approved, but make sure you do it a good amount of time ahead of time.
5. Preparing Your Portfolio: Obviously, the most important part of preparing to go to Quilt Market was for me to prepare my portfolio. My portfolio was the thing that was going to show off my design abilities, show off my artwork, show off my signature style, and ultimately that is the thing that is going to help a company decide if they want to partner with you or not. I cannot stress enough the importance of having a portfolio that you are so proud of and so excited to share. It took me about two years to put together my portfolio. I started from scratch knowing that this was what I wanted to do, but I didn't have a lot of the technical skills. I just worked and worked made patterns. It took me about two years to have three pattern collections that I was very proud of and very excited to share. Now there's no specific one way that you need to use to create a portfolio. It can be a hardcover book, it can be on the iPad, it can be digitally. It could even be a stack of drawings or paintings. There's lots of different ways and there's no one right way to do it. I would suggest to do something that really represents you. I'll go ahead and show you my portfolio and what I did just for reference but please do what's right for you and what sinks to your heart and in whatever way that best portrays your artwork and your style. Here is the actual portfolio that I took to Quilt Market when I went. I got this hardcover book printed from a company called Artifact Uprising, was very happy with the quality and how everything turned out. It has this nice dust jacket on it, underneath, it has a nice linen cover. When I was showing it, I actually left the dust jacket off. I'll go ahead and show you what it looked like. This is just what I did just for reference to give you some ideas. Definitely remember to just do your own thing. I started out just introducing myself. Have a little picture of me and what I'm about, this is a photograph of an illustration that I made about why I wanted to become a fabric designer. Then these were just some fun pictures that I felt like set the tone for who I am as a designer, some of my silliness. Then I go ahead and get into the collections. I did three different collections. It's really important to have more than one collection I feel like so that they can see the breadth of your designability. My first collection was called Springtime melody. I have the title, a little blurb about what the collection is about. Then some photographs of the paintings that I used to create the collection. There's my first collection. I did seven different patterns. This is the first colorway. Then I did a second colorway. Then I did each of the prints just on a larger scale, like you could easily see those. I loved the quality of these pages from Artifact Uprising. I was really happy with how they turned out. I did this one in three colorways just because I felt like it. Here are the blender print, it's smaller, not quite as important. This is just a spread of all of the prints in the collection. It would be great to do some mockups but instead of mockups, I did these little quilt blocks. I got that idea from Dylan M. She is amazing. I think it turned out really well. Then it goes into my second collection. It was entitled Walking on Sunshine. Same setup as the previous collection. I have the title what the collection's about, some photographs that I used for the designs. There's that first, the seven different patterns and the same patterns but in the second colorway, the larger. This print actually ended up becoming the jumping off point for my new collection, pink lemonade that just came out with Windham fabrics. That's fun and exciting. The blender prints all the patterns lined up in a row with both colorways, and then the little quilt blocks. My third collection, which was a Christmas collection, called Peppermint Wonderland. I don't think this was necessarily the best thing to do for quilting fabric just because Christmas is such a short time. This is my collection called Peppermint Wonderland. [MUSIC] This trend digested in four different colorways just for the fun of it. The Peppermints, the blender prints, the whole collection and the quilt blocks. Then I ended it with my logo. That was it, that was my portfolio.
6. Preparing Marketing Materials: Besides preparing your portfolio, you also need to prepare some marketing materials. For me, I did a hardcover portfolio book, so I wasn't going to leave that with the art directors that I met with. I wanted to have something that I could leave that with them that they could remember me by. This could be business cards, mini booklets, postcards. I will go ahead and show you the things that I prepared. Then I brought to quote market to help with those marketing materials. I created these little mini booklets. This one was printed from Uprinting. It has my logo, one of the patterns and then it just has the three collections. It has Springtime Melody, a combination of the color waves into the one. Walking on Sunshine, and Peppermint Wonderland, and then it just had my little bio and picture on the back. This was a really great thing to be able to leave with the art directors after I met with them and talked with them. That was a really wonderful thing to have. I would highly recommend doing some mini booklet if you're like me and have a hardcover portfolio. I also created business cards. This one just has my logo on it and my information. This was the one that I brought. This was printed from Moo. These postcards were also printed from Moo. It's fun because you can do different patterns on them. This was fine. They did some of the different patterns on the back of the postcards. It just had my little blurb, my contact information and my logo. I actually didn't end up using these as much because I really loved the way the business card turned out, so I mostly gave away the business card with the mini booklet. Also, something I did was I had made digital portfolio online, my full portfolio on my website with a password protected site and I just would write that password on the card as I give it to the art director. Those are the marketing materials.
7. Preparing Your Website: Another important aspect of getting ready to meet with art directors and reaching out to your dream companies is preparing your website. You know that these companies are going to do some research on you, so they will be visiting your website, your social media, so it's important to just make sure everything is consistent, and looking the way you want it to look. Before I went to quote market, I just spruced up my about page, and just made sure everything was looking exactly how I wanted it to look on my website. Really important thing that I did that I almost didn't do, and I ended up doing this at the last minute and I was so thankful that I did it, was I added a portfolio section on my website with a password protected page for my portfolio. I took the exact version of my hardbound book, and I put that on my website digitally using the website issue. It's a great way to have an online book form like a look book type form on your website. You can do at password protected or not, I decided to keep mine password protected, and then when I finished up meeting with each of the art directors, I gave them my business card and told them about my digital portfolio and wrote the password on there. The reason this is so great is because a lot of these larger companies, they have teams that they're working with, and they want to pass around your info to other people, so it's great to have it in a digital format.
8. Contacting Companies Ahead of Time: If you attend quote market, it is very important that you come prepared. The best way to ensure that you are going to get to meet with your dream companies and the companies you want to meet with, is by making appointments ahead of time. I'll tell you a little bit about how I went about making appointments so that I could make the most of my time when I was at quote market. I started this about one and a half to two months before quote market, I started contacting companies. You want to try and get a hold of an art director, which can be very tricky. Sometimes you can find information on the websites, start researching the companies, looking at their website, sometimes in the frequently asked questions section, they'll have something about submissions and have an email of where you can send things too. But oftentimes it's really hard to find this information. What I've heard many other designers do is pick up the phone and call the company. This is hard because a lot of companies, they have no idea where to send you. Sometimes you're going from person to person until you can finally figure out who you're actually supposed to talk to. What I did to make this a little easier because this was very nerve-racking, was I made myself a little script on the computer, and as I was on the phone, I just read my little script. This is what my script said, "Hi, my name is Tessie and I'm a surface pattern designer. I'll be attending Quilt Market next month and I'm looking to set up an appointment to go over my portfolio and see if my designs would be a good fit for filling the blank fabric company.". I would say my little spiel, who knows? Sometimes they would say, "Oh, you need to talk to so and so, let me give you their email." That would be the best case scenario. Sometimes they wouldn't know and transfer you. You have to do a little bit of digging to figure out who to send a request to, to make an appointment to be at Quilt Market. Then once I got an email, I sent an e-mail that looked like this. "Hello, my name is Tessie Snow and I'm a surface pattern designer. I'll be attending Quilt Market next month and I would love to meet with you. I'm looking to set up an appointment to go over my portfolio and see if my designs would be a good fit for blank fabric company. I've attached a few samples of my work. To see more you can visit me on Instagram. I'm looking forward to hearing from you, Tessie." If you want to attach samples to your email, make sure you attach them in line, so that they don't have to click on anything to see it, so that it just goes ahead and pops up. Some companies that I contacted I never heard from and I would follow up every week or so for a couple of weeks. Other companies I heard back right away, and said, "Sure, we'd love to make an appointment. with you." Some companies I heard back and they said, "We're not looking for new designers right now", or, "we don't meet with artists at Quilt Market because it's too busy." Just do your best. This took a few weeks to get all of these emails back and forth and get appointments setup. But I ended up having four appointments set up with some good solid companies before I even went to Quilt Market. It's very worthwhile to get those appointments set up so that they have set aside time to meet with you and talk with you, and to give you an opportunity to show your portfolio.
9. Self Promotion Tips and Talking Through Your Portfolio: Let's talk a little bit about a hard topic which is self-promotion and talking about yourself and what it's actually going to be like when you sit down and meet with an art director face to face. I want to start out by telling you a story. This happened one year before I decided to go to quote market. I had this dream of becoming a designer. I was still learning everything. I had just created my first portfolio, and I wanted to reach out to a company. I happen to be traveling to this place where one of my dream companies have their headquarters, and I contacted them and set up an appointment to show them my portfolio. I go in and I sit down with this art director and the president of the company, and I bring my little handmade portfolio, and before I went in, I had spent so much time preparing them portfolio and getting everything ready that I had no plan for how the actual meeting was going to go. I didn't know what I was going to say, I thought that what would happen was, I would come, I would sit down, they would see my portfolio, and then the angels would just start singing, and they would see my immense talent and they would just hire me on the spot and say, I can tell you have a great future and we would love for you to design for us. As you can imagine, it did not go that way. It went completely opposite of that. What actually ended up happening was, I sat down and they started opening up my portfolio and looking through it and it was just completely silent and I just sat there really awkwardly as they look to things. I went, "Yeah." It was so awkward. Obviously, it didn't go very well, and they were so kind. Even though I knew my designs weren't ready, they were so kind, but it was a "Thanks, but no thanks." A year later, as I had read on my portfolio, thought more about my branding and done a lot more, and I felt like I was ready to go to quote market, I have this haunting of this company leaving with this company and how poorly it went in my mind. This time when I went to quote market, I wanted to make sure that I was more prepared. I did a few things that really helped me be more prepared as I was sitting down and meeting with the art directors. I just did this right before. The day before, but you could start doing this months in advance if you wanted to. I started visualizing. I just close my eyes and I visualized how I wanted the meeting to go. I thought about myself walking in there with confidence and spreading joy, and I thought about the feelings that I wanted to have when I was talking, and I thought about how they would receive me. I visualized them being excited about my work. I just spent some time thinking through how I would want it to go off. It was just the perfect scenario. Then after I did that, I spent a good long while probably about an hour to the night before in my hotel room, and I talked through my portfolio. I took my portfolio and I just flipped through it page by page and all that myself in my hotel room. I talked out loud and talked about my portfolio. At first, it was so awkward. But the more and more I talked to nobody, the more comfortable I became, the more the word started flowing more easily, and so I just talked through my different collections, why I wanted to be a designer? I just talked through everything that I would want them to know. One thing I gathered from all of my meetings with art directors is, they are not going to read anything. If you have little blurbs about your collection or a bio about yourself, they're not going to read it. The only thing they're going to get is, what's visually there and the things that you tell them? If there's something you really want them to know about yourself, you need to make sure you're telling them as they're flipping through the pages. Usually, how it happened at quote market was, I sat at a table with the art director on the other side and me on this side, and I let them flip through the pages. You could flip through them yourself, but I let them slip through, and that guided how long I talked about certain themes or if they would ask questions. But I was so thankful that I spent that time talking it through so that I had the vocabulary and then I was ready and comfortable talking about my work. I feel like that made a huge difference. Definitely, take some time talking through your portfolio and just visualizing your meetings going well, and you being confident, calm, and brave.
10. The Big Day: After months and months of preparing your portfolio, getting your marketing materials ready, contacting companies, talking through your portfolio, visualizing your meetings, you have done all that you can. Now it is time for the big day. Once you're there at quote market, I would hope that you can just relax and enjoy it. You've done all that you can and no matter what happens, you have won. Either your big dream will become a reality and you'll get a fabric contract or you will be able to have all of these different meetings with art directors and get invaluable feedback on what you can work on and how you can improve your designs for the next time. Either way, even if you don't end up getting a contract, you have won just by going and being there. I hope that on the day of quote market, you can just be confident and happy and step into that brave place in yourself. Even though before quote market, I had four different appointments set up, I ended up meeting with 12 companies. At quote market, you can just walk up to companies and talk to them. If I found a company that I loved their designs and then I felt like my designs would really fit in well with them, then I would just go right up to them and talk to them and say, "Hi, my name is Tessie. I'm a surface pattern designer and I'm here at quote market looking to get a fabric contract. Would you be interested in seeing my portfolio?" Oftentimes, they would say, "Sure, let's see what you've got, let's sit down right here." Or they would say, "Can you come back later?" Or "Let's make an appointment." It's a great way. Don't feel like you only need to meet with people you had appointments with because you can still go out and meet with other people and network and talk to people and be curious about people and you're there to learn. One thing I want to say about the art directors is, they are so kind. They are not going to yell at you. They're not going to make you feel bad. You can definitely ask for feedback because they have the expertise and that is invaluable feedback to have. Don't be scared of the art directors because they are kind and it is their job to find new talent and to see what is out there. They want to meet with you. Don't be worried and nervous about that. One last thing, when you are finished meeting with the art directors, make sure you leave your marketing materials with them, let them know about your website and if you have an online portfolio there. Also, make sure that you get their contact information because you want to make sure that you have a way to e-mail them and follow up with them. That's really important, making sure you get the contact information of each person that you meet with. Its going to be a great day. It'll be emotionally stressful, scary, you'll probably have every emotion in the roller coaster, but it's going to be worth it. Quote market is a three-day event. You can choose to go to as many days as you want. I ended up going to all three days. I didn't stay the whole time, but just networking and talking to people and it was wonderful. You can do it. Be brave, be confident, and step into your best self.
11. Network Your Brains Out: Another piece of advice I have for you going to quote market is I want you to network your brains out. Just talk talk talk to everyone, because everyone on quote market has opinions, ideas, and insights and I talked to people that said, "Oh, you should talk to such and such company or got contacts who just start talking to people." There was a welcome breakfast for all of the newcomers who had never been to quote market before and this was their first time, and they went to that welcome breakfast and I was able to actually make some really good friends that I'm still friends with to this day. It was neat to be able to see them later on in market and say hello. It was like meeting an old friend. When I would go and sit down at lunch, I wouldn't go sit by myself, I would go pick a table and be by someone and I would introduce myself and start talking to them. It is amazing all of the insight you will gather talking to people about different companies and about what they do. Another thing I did was I would talk to other designers that have their own fabric collections in their booths. I would go and talk to them and ask them about the companies that they work for and if they enjoy working for the company and it was neat because a lot of designers have worked for several companies. So sometimes they would give me a little dish on a previous company that they didn't like so much. But it was really neat to be able to just talk and network with people. I know that is very awkward and not natural to go up and just start talking to someone, but the people at quote market are so kind and my biggest tip if you're feeling awkward, is to just get really curious about the other person. So think about just getting to know them. Just get curious about them, "Oh, what do you do? Tell me more about that." If you can get curious about them, then you personally will feel a lot less awkward. So I just kept trying to remind myself that as I felt really awkward, I just thought, I'm going to focus on this other person and get to know them and it was wonderful because I got to meet so many different people. I mean, you're there, you've spent the money, the time to get there, you might as well take advantage of your time there and get to know as many people as possible. Also, every time I talked with someone, I would ask if they had a business card and we would exchange cards and then I would write on their card some little tips or things that would help me remember who they were, I'd write that right on their business card and then I have that contact for future. I would just encourage you to take full advantage of being there and network, network, network.
12. Following Up With Companies: After you've got a quote market and you meet with all of these different companies and art directors, it's important to continue by following up via e-mail. I decided to wait a few days because I know it's stressful getting home from market for these big companies. I waited three or four days. Then, I sent a follow-up e-mail saying hello, asking them if they needed anything else for me, reminding them of my online portfolio, and asking if they knew when they would be making decisions about new designers. My contract came in one of these follow-up e-mails afterward. Actually, ended up getting a few different offers which was crazy, amazing because I did not expect that. I ended up going with Windham Fabrics, who is a wonderful company and I've been so happy to be there. Make sure you follow up with companies.
13. Final Tips: I wanted to just share some final tips and a few little things that I did that made Quilt Market a little more enjoyable. One thing is I knew that this was going to be a very stressful time for me that I would probably have high anxiety and I was going to be kind of drained by the end of the day and depending on your personality, you might just want to be by yourself, in your hotel room, go to sleep, just be on your own after talking to so many people. For me, I knew that I would want someone like a support person that could talk with. My husband couldn't come, so I ended up inviting my best friend to come and be with me in Portland and it was wonderful because she has nothing to do with the design industry. She didn't know anything but she did her own thing during the day while I was at Quilt Market doing my thing. But then at night I had someone to come home to, to go out to dinner with, to be out on the town with at night and that was really nice for me. I think just think about what you're going to need because it's going to be a stressful time. Another tip is that it's going to be uncomfortable and just to expect that. It's going to be stressful but you can do it. You can do hard things and just remember to get curious about the other people and talking to people and just step into your confident, brave self. Remember that you are prepared and that you can do this and no matter what happens, it's going to be a win for you. Another thing that I did was I looked for ways to help people. I knew I was going to be at Quilt Market a day ahead of time and I would have nothing to do that day. My best friend actually wasn't coming until the next day and so I reached out to one of my design heroes and said, "Hey, I'm going to be at Quilt Market. Would do you need any help setting up your booth?" She said, "No, I don't need any help," and so I thought, "That's fine." But then at the last minute, they had a bit of a crisis and needed help so I ended up going and helping her set up her booth and that was really neat, especially because I learned the ins and outs of how the booths get set up and it was just neat to meet one of my design heroes. That was a really neat thing to do. You could offer to help someone if you want. Then the last thing is to plan your outfits. You want to make sure you feel confident and comfortable. I think it's important for your outfit to reflect to your brand and who you are. Obviously, this is not the most important thing and don't stress too much about this but the one tip that I would say is wear comfy shoes. Okay. Do not try to go walking around all day in heels. Wear flats, wear comfortable shoes. Believe me, you will thank me. Always wear comfy shoes.
14. Full Circle Moment: I would love to tell you about the full-circle moment that I recently had. All of this time that I've been talking to you about going to quote market. I did all of this in the spring of 2018. It was one of the scariest things I had ever done, but also one of the things that I am most proud of and it paid off, so I was very excited about that. A year later, this past spring in 2019 in May, I was able to go to quote market again but this time I had my own booth. I had my own designer booth with Windham fabrics and I was showing my new line, Pink Lemonade and it was so real. It was just a dream come true. Designing is such a solitary endeavor. I sit at my desk painting by myself. I design on the computer. I create these things and I know that I enjoy them and I love them. But you put them out into the world and you just have no idea how they will resonate with other people. It was so wonderful to be back at quote market this last time with my own fabric line and to be able to hear people come and see my fabric and let me know that it resonated with them and then they loved it. It was just a real full circle moment that I was so proud of. I hope that when you are feeling anxious and nervous and when all of those doubts are creeping in, that you can't do it. I hope you can remember to just try and your full circle moment is coming. That we will never know if we don't try and be brave and just put ourselves out there. I also want to encourage you to please do your project. In the project section, it is so simple, it could take you 10 minutes just to type in what your big dream is, your dream companies and a timeline for when you want to accomplish it. There is power in writing down our goals and declaring them and putting them out into the world. Please put that in the project area so that we can all support you and love you and help you cheer you on as you go to reach your big goal. I have so enjoyed teaching this class. I would love to connect with you on Instagram. I am Tessy fay design over there. I would love for you to send me a note, let me know if you're one of my students, I would love to learn more about you and what you're doing and I would love to connect more, bye for now.
Tessie Fay Snow, @tessiefaydesign
