Hi, my name is Layla and I am a third year textile student at ECA.

I originally choose this course because it seemed like the better option out of two. We weren’t given many options this year for this part of the course, especially when there were so many exciting courses that we could have chosen from.

Nevertheless, I am here and actually enjoying the beginning sections of this course.

This course appealed to me because of the business element. Lots of textile designers and artists are taking to sites like Etsy to sell their work, and I wanted to see if I could do that too.

In first year, I set up my Etsy shop, with not much success. It was always something that I could never really dedicate my time to due to university and the many summer jobs I had that year. Alongside this, I am very much of the philosophy of putting my all into projects, so when I didn’t know what I was really trying to sell, it was definitely a bit of a wake up call.

I have never really thought about the inner workings of a company before. Things like values or the hierarchy of employees never really appealed to me. However, now I realise that it is these values and structures within a company, are what makes it unique.

Companies and organisations have turned something quite boring into a USP of their company. This appeals more to today’s society as everyone is becoming more aware about issues such as sustainability and fair and equal pay.

It was these structures that were missing in my own Etsy shop. I had the product, but just didn’t know how to get the customer to buy from me and not another crafter.

I am hoping that through analysing a company or organisation through a case study, that I will be able to understand the inner workings of a company. I also hope to learn new research and visualisation methods along the way, that will prepare me for my dissertation year.