Biography
Jonathan Baker
BA (Hons) Interior Design
PGCE Art and Design Education
MA Art in Architecture
MA Design studies
My students from the London College of Fashion took part in WorldSkills UK in 2010 winning the Silver medal.
Everyone who ever gave me an opportunity which has enabled me to achieve something worthwhile within an industry that I am passionate about.
I am particularly interested in supporting the wider communication of the importance of Visual Merchandising to the commercial industries and being able to support those competitors who would like to develop their skills and enable them to progress into a tough but rewarding and exciting creative industry.
This is an excellent platform with which to showcase our UK talent around the world, highlighting the many areas where Visual Merchandising skills can be applied to all areas of Visual Communication. WorldSkills also enables wider participation through encouraging potentially untapped talent who may otherwise not have the opportunity access to this life changing opportunity.
This has been an opportunity for me to be able to work with so many interesting people who are very passionate about their specific areas of expertise and wish to pass on the baton to their teams with competitors who clearly wish to learn. The benevolence of other Training Managers is quite remarkable and it is very refreshing to be part of such a wonderful group of clearly talented people.
This is my first opportunity to be a TM / WS Expert.
Being part of an exciting organisation has opened up even more opportunities to work at a global level while applying academic processes but without the constraints of the academic system. This has led to a far more creative and exciting output with which to share with colleges and industry in order to encourage participation from the next generation.
With such an exciting opportunity provided by WorldSkills, it opens up the whole world to young people who may not have had the opportunity otherwise to have access to a personal mentor who is willing to give their time and pass on their knowledge and skills. This really is quite a phenomenal and potentially a life changing experience for anyone who participates.
Any young person who becomes a WorldSkills competitor has already made a serious and considered decision about their future. They naturally have a clear direction of where they want to be and what they want their future to look like and can use this experience in order to help them get there.
With Visual Merchandising gradually becoming more and more recognised as a serious career and being taken more seriously by the commercial industries, this is an opportunity for us to shout about the young talent we have who are serious about their learning and passionate about their area of interest .
Becoming a freelance industry consultant, University Academic and writer for www.retailstorewindows.com with over 0.3 million readers have been significant milestones in my career.
Having previously spent many years working within the retail and visual merchandising industry across 18 high street brands before I accepted a post of Course Director of Visual Merchandising and Retail Design at the University of the Arts, London, which I taught for 10 years. I have also taught Visual Merchandising at Vaxjo University in Sweden and Art Nouveau School of Art, Kazakstan as well as given numerous talks in New York, Moscow, London, Dubai, Rome and Lisbon. Currently I am working as a freelance retail industry advisor and visual researcher for global retail brands and I’m also a senior lecturer in Visual Merchandising at the London College of Fashion, the Instituto Marangoni and a short course leader at Central St. Martin’s College of Art and Design. I also work as an External Examiner at Southampton Solent University and KLC School of Design in London. Over the years I have contributed to numerous publications including Retail Design Diva (USA), Retail Focus Magazine (UK) and Section D’s publication ‘Janet and John go shopping’
I have just recently completed a 10 year project recording New York store window schemes and retail interiors tracking the trends of schemes of the first decade of the millennium.