Sarah Swindell, Managing Director at Watermelon Creative

Watermelon Creative offers bespoke trend and product solutions for companies, across apparel and accessories, home & decor, and consumer products. They work with a wide range of well known brands such as Disney+, Wildbrain, Netflix and the BBC. They create products, graphics, store layouts and merchandise to fit the client's brief.

During the lecture Sarah showed us some portfolio examples from her team, what struck me was the immaculate professional layout, they are so dynamic and fun to look at, I will definitely be using these as visual layout reference when I come to put my portfolio together.

Sarah’s lecture and seminar left us with plenty of food to thought. Some fascinating points were made about a wide range of topics; here were some of the meatiest;

“With all the new technology available, the process isn’t moving any faster, products aren’t getting from design to shelf any faster… AI has elevated design in more sophisticated ways.. but AI still needs an operator” I was surprised to hear her talk about how the industry’s pace of design to product hasn’t changed with the huge amount of new tech that is available, especially in the creative realm. Sarah said that the main change technology has brought to designers work is a wider range of options, and a new higher level of sophistication. AI can do many things but as of yet, it is not entirely autonomous and does still need an operator, it still does largely what we tell it to do, it reminds me of a point brought up at a previous seminar saying if people are losing jobs to AI, they’re losing jobs to people that are using AI. I find this perspective really encouraging; it reminds me of “work smarter not harder” memes. AI is only a threat to those that refuse to use it.

“It is a huge time for change right now, with the after effects of the pandemic, the cost of living crisis, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, but change is good, change brings new ideas and evolution”

I couldn’t agree with this more, I think it’s entirely undeniable that we are on the precipice of huge change, we have no idea what is coming but no area of life will be untouched by the huge political issues and technological advancements that are reshaping the world around us.

“What is employment going to look like in the years to come? In 5 years, in 15? 50? It is an evolving new vision, not be afraid of change, embrace it, enjoy, and learn” The future is as ever, entirely unpredictable. Change in inevitable, evolution is essential; our best chance to not only survive but thrive particularly in the professional creative realm is to embrace what’s new and to keep up to date with new technologies.