kangan batman do vm

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to meet up with Ron Watkins, the Visual Merchandising Course Director at Kangan Batman Institute of TAFE.

I was skeptical of VM courses after hearing a few 'horror' stories that they perhaps didn't offer a 'real-life view' of what the VM industry involved, however after asking Ron a few questions I had almost decided to put on my mature-age cap, pull out the crayola's and apply for this course myself!

JT- What is the VM course you are offering?

RW- The VM course at Kangan is a Diploma of Visual Merchandising. There is as yet, no higher level of VM qualification in the country.

JT- How does your course differ to other VM courses out there?

RW- There are two major differences between the Kangan course and the others:

1. It is eighteen months long and the others are two years.
2. During this time the students will have at least ten weeks work experience, in store, working as a professional.

Its the "new kid on the block" as far as VM education goes in the country.

JT- What can the students expect over their 3 semesters?

RW- A life changing experience. Lots of creative hands-on work, exposure to the global scene of Art, Design and VM, sensible structures that enable one to manage life, work, creativity and money!
FUN, great colleagues and introductions to industry professionals.

JT- How does your course 'realistically' prepare the students for the real world of retail?

RW- Our aim from the very first day is to treat the students as if they were at work.
Every lesson, skill and body of knowledge targets professionalism at an international level.

With the largest component of VM work experience of any course internationally, our students soon see the realities of the profession.There are few delusions as to what they are getting themselves into after graduation.

JT- So, what's next for this VM course to help prepare aspiring VM's for a successful career?

RW- There are very exciting plans for the future. Kangan is a very supportive learning environment which readily embraces new ideas and approaches. The future should see a complete career path for those beginning in a VM life and higher qualifications for those already working as professionals.
The course is young, but the world is big, busy and shopping!
A course of this type will eventually have an international reputation and the opportunity to involve the students in colleges in the USA and London.

raindrops keep falling on my...

What better way to brighten up a rainy Winter's day with stitched up technicolour raindrops?

Sportsgirl, Bourke Street Mall have transformed their VM installation space into a Winter's delight, suspending scores of oversized, colourful rainddrops made from off-cuts of bright, energetic materials.

i love a good copy line, and Sportsgirl have found just that with 'Without rain there would be no rainbows'!

The rainbow reference is cute and works perfectly for the season, the weather and for the brand that has lasted throughout the ages with their nostalgic rainbow logo.

The metallic clouds and backdrop off-set the colourful raindrops perfectly and give an extra shine to this installation and add to the 'expensive' factor.

Without rain, we'd also have no umbrellas, water or wonderful Sportsgirl windows...I'm lifting this window to stage 5 water restrictions, because it's hot!

Tackling affordable creativity

For those of you who have been living under a rock (those whom are doing so due to financial crisis may be forgiven) you'll notice that the word is on the street that VM budgets are being cut, chopped up into little pieces of fine excel formula's and never to be reinstated again...

During the last 6 months of my previous position I found myself suffering from double-click anxiety disorder, caused from the emotional stress of shrinking excel columns due to dwindling budget numbers...As a VM not only was I suffering with stress of having to excel in excel, the challenge of creating cost-effective VM solutions had reared it's cheap and nasty head. Thankfully I was in a similar position to most of the VM world, so we would do what we had to do...take a shoe-string budget and get creative, now, more than ever.

With clever graphic design and a willing printer some of the most simple of ideas can translate into bravo display such as Hermes window on Collin's street where they've used the simple notion of black line illustration and silhouette's of regular peeps to recreate a library scene popped with hues of Hermes.

As effective as this window is, we need to remember it really only involves one thing and that is print and form. Who would've thought it could be this easy...and most importantly...cost effective.

As you cheaply wonder the streets like the VM hooker that you are have a think about the dollars spent on those windows that stand out- I guarantee they don't always cost what they're worth!

the envelope project

I love it when a window display involves some form of interactivity and the audience participation cue card is working overtime to cute-ify Meet Me At Mike's window in Brunswick Street, Fitzroy.

The idea is that you send MEAM an envelope with something small and 'cute'. All envelopes they receive will be photographed along with the little bits of magic inside the envelopes, they'll then go up on MEAM's blog and the envelope will form a part of they're ever-growing window display.

At the end of the project one lucky envelope sender will win ALL of the bits and pieces that MEAM have received- and by the looks of it the winner will have enough 'stuff' to fill a Spotlight store...let's hope Tonia Todman has her entry in, she'd be mad for the crafty bits that they've received thus far!

I love that this idea fits in with the hand-crafted elements of the MEAM store and I'm sure it will be sending all MEAM's friends into a cute and crafty craze!

the doggy biscuit sale

Sass & Bide have gone barking mad with their latest sale window...

Bones seem to be on trend for Sass & Bide's VM this season with past windows featuring the skeleton's of all things dead bling'd up to tie in with their dazzling range of threads in store.



I've tried to find bones in my past VM adventures and have found it quite a tricky feat, however I have never gone quite as far as using animal treats to suffice...however, can I just say...LOVE IT!

I'm 99% sure the bones featured in Sass & Bide's Mid Season Sale window are those you'd feed your pet pooch, but the shaping of 'SALE' with masking tape and doggy bones works well to reveal a vintage, handcrafted sale window that stands out from the crowd of 'Up To...' off messages in all shades of red as you venture down Chapel Street and throughout retail centers.

I love a brand that puts thought into a sale window, in this tough market, sale is no excuse to blend in.

If walking your pooch past a Sass & Bide window is anything to go by on how effective this sale window is, Sass deserve a big thumbs up! Woof!

the kooks campaign

Kookai's AW10 campaign was shot at Cockatoo Island in Sydney by Simon Upton...now this is a place that I've been meaning to visit, but it seems like the industrial backdrop has been done to death so I may be one photoshoot too late...

Simon Upton shot this campaign and has done a fabulous job making the good old Kooks stand out from the crowd, it's just a shame that their stores don't evoke the same emotions as their A grade campaigns.

I'm yet to meet Mr Upton himself, but his work is fab, making trash...terrific, shooting campaigns for Valleygirl, Just Jeans and Charlie Brown...and for the record, my middle name is trash.

I'm secretly in love with the 'messy dressy' hair-do, call it hair envy perhaps but the messy dressy gets my goat every time...ladies it's time to release the teasing comb!

One thing I do want to do is give Valerjia from Chic a Nurofen Plus because I'm somewhat over the 'headache' pose. It's time to let those fingers do the walking away from the temples and to the fierce machine.

the shoes on a wire

Now I'm not sure if it's true that shoes over a wire outside a house means that they'll have more than icing sugar and sherbet bombs stocked in their home pantry...however if this is the case, Topman must be going off and every one's invited with their Liverpool store's opening shoe window!

The folks at SFD design have used their in-house creative team to create and install this tongue-in-cheek display incorporating vinyl and 3d power lines with Topman shoes flung over the top as a sign. It reminds me of the backstreets of Collingwood only with more furness and colour!

Is it a coincidence that everybody is asking the store manager if his name is Jason?