First Year Reflection

First year has been over for almost two months now - it's crazy how quick time goes when your busy, and so I thought it was about time I did another blog post, looking back on my first year as an FCP student and how I can learn from the experience. After the first module, I looked at what I needed to STOP. START. and CONTINUE. doing during this second module, and looking back at these has really showed me how I have developed as a person and student this year.

During the first module, I used to spend too much of my time look at other students work, looking at ways in which I could match theirs, rather than focusing on my own work. This tended to restrict my imaginative thinking and did not allow me to get really creative and try new and exciting ideas that others had not yet experimented with. However, during the second half of the year, I think I was much more self focused, trying to find my own personal writing and creative style, and have been particularly successful in this during the product design section of the fragrance brief, where after an unsuccessful collaboration with 2nd year graphic design students, I took it upon myself to create the packaging for our fragrance, which involved lots of experimentation and thinking outside the box. I also used to get really stressed about the briefs, not being completely sure about what they were asking me to do, but this is all in the past now! Making a group of friends on the course, I now have a bunch of people I can ask if I get stuck, and find that making lists and looking deeper into what the brief is asking to do, has really helped gain some clarity!

I also found that I needed to start making contacts in the industry, and although the work load has been really hard, this summer I have tried to do that more. Speaking to up and coming businesses has allowed me opportunities to hopefully get some work experience before I return after the summer, and fingers crossed this all goes to plan and I can add some exciting work opportunities to my portfolio. However, I have found it particularly difficult to visit new cities or exhibitions due to busy work and cheerleading schedules and lack of money. This something I am definitely re-adding to my list of thing to START doing, as this will really open up my eyes to new forms of art, working as inspiration for future projects.

During my first module I found that I was able to keep up with my blog quite well whilst still completing the work and being social, but after this second module I have realised although I am quite good at writing blogs regularly during term time, they are all quite bland, and therefore I would like to make them more interesting, this would be easier to do with visiting new cities and exhibitions as previously mentioned, and this is something that could really help me in the course as a whole, as enjoying what your writing about is much easier.

Addressing these issues should really help me reach my future goals and help me enjoy my work even more than I do already. I am still finding the creative visual aspects of the course quite difficult, and therefore I would love to use Pinterest more to my advantage, in order to gain this creative inspiration I need to make my work feel more representative of the brand or project I am working on at that time. I would also like to use my work book more as an inspiration tool to help this, not just using it as a final showcase book, but more on how I got to that stage. However, I am much more confident with Harvard referencing now (finally!), and this is such a relief, something which will make me feel much more comfortable as I enter second year.

The Vivus Incensum Promotional Plan

So that's it! All finished! The first year of university and FCP is complete, and so is the Vivus Incensum brand. Here is the final promotional plan (WARNING- it's very long), including promotional tools and techniques we plan to use over the 6 month inital launch.

Brand Visuals

The struggle is real! I'm in the middle of my promotional plan that will complete my first year as an FCP student, so thought I would take a break and do a bit of blogging. I've been creative sooooo many visuals over the past few days to go with the Vivus Incensum brand, and though for might want a sneak peak...

I can't give too much away as the promotional plan is still in progress, but the Vivus Incensum brand and promotional tools are well and truly coming to life!

Vivus Incensum Promotional Video

After deciding we wanted to focus on contrast as a main message throughout our creative concept, we also wanted to include this in the video promotional tool. When creating, we thought about Vivus Incensum's tag line - Life in Contrast, and what this might mean to our consumer. With an on-the-go businessman in mind, we thought that the contrast between their work and relaxing life is the biggest, whether this be night and day, work and play or the city and their home surrounding, this is the contrast they have to deal with everyday. Therefore, we decided that our video should include quick timelapses of contrasts, to upbeat music to reflect the constant rush and stress they are under. We also thought that this, having no link to fragrance, would add an exclusive factor to our brand name, making it seem of high status, therefore desirable, as it suggests the brand doesn't need to tell you what their benefits are, as the consumer's already know this brand and what they do well. 

With only a short 10 seconds in length, this video clip would be great for social media - on Instagram or even as a pre-video advert on Youtube channels.

Behind the Scenes Video

The Vivus Incensum brand is growing very quickly into something I had never imagined, and the photo shoot just added to this reality. I would never have thought that I would be able to take a sector of the fashion/cosmetics industry and create a complete brand from nothing, but I've really been enjoying it! With the contrast photo shoot complete, I thought I'd let the people who read my blog see a secret behind the scenes video, which will not be available on Vivus Incenusm websites. So here it is. The day of the shoot! Hope you enjoy.

Packaging Development

As previously mentioned, we were unhappy with the work the graphic designers who we collaborated with on our perfume bottle and packaging, therefore as the most confident with Photoshop in my group, we decided it would be best if I designed these. 

After creating logo ideas, I next moved onto the the packaging, which we wanted to be very unique and stand out from other perfume packaging. As our fragrance, Vivus Incensum, is aimed at the modern man, we have always wanted the packaging to reflect this, having a futuristic aspect and being clean cut, simplistic and metallic. Taking the business aspect into perspective along with this, we decided that a foil-like packaging would be a completely unique and effective packaging device, which our bottle would be sold inside; much like the packets you buy office printer cartridges inside. This completely opaque packing would also create a secretive and quite exclusive product, which would appeal to our design and quality focused consumer. 

Using Photoshop effects, I embossed the logo into an image of the packaging to make it look realistic. I am very pleased with the outcome, and as a first attempt at product/graphic design I am very proud. This is definitely something I would love to do again in the future!

WORLDS 2015

Hey guys. Really sorry I haven't been around the past couple of weeks. I've been super busy doing something you guys probably didn't even know I did. Whilst studying at NTU, I still travel home once a week (on a wednesday) to practice for four hours with my competitive cheerleading team, Coventry Dynamite. I love the sport as it's all about team work and communication, things I quite clearly love as you may have guessed from the course I do! We have been training extra hard this year as we qualified to compete at the Cheerleading World Championships 2015 in Florida - hence where I have been the past weeks. 

This was our third time that we qualified for the championships, and placing just outside the top ten last year (11th out of 70ish), we REALLY wanted to break top 10. Whilst there for 10 days, the competition is only 2 days long, however we trained atleast 4 hours each day to give ourselves the best chance possible. And it paid off! We ended up placing 10th place in the world, highest out of the other UK teams we were against and I'm so proud that we have finally accomplished it. As well as competing for Coventry, I also managed to make it onto the National team this year, and so competed at another section of the event as Team England. This was such an honour and something I will never forget, working with people from all across the country who I would normally be competing against. We managed to come 5th for England, a huge achievement for the country.

Some people may think that cheerleading is all about the pom poms, and although some aspects we do use them (Team England do, Coventry don't), they are only a small factor of it. The sport is quickly spreading across the UK, and is more advanced than ever, incorporating hard gymnastic skills and dance to create a packed 2 minute 30 routine. The uniforms have really began to reflect this, and although they are very glitzy, they are much more athletic now, with many using the same materials as gymnastic leotards. As this is a fashion blog, I thought I'd share the uniforms I wear for the sport, a little bit of extra insight into the cheerleading fashion world - enjoy!

Logo Development

Our group fragrance is beginning to take shape now, and although there is still so much to figure out, I am starting to get really excited about the final promotional plan! After meeting with graphic design students to try and get some graphics back to support our product, including our logo, packaging and bottle, we were very unimpressed with the results. With nothing but a few sketches, we could not go forward and so would have to complete this work ourselves - scary when graphic design is something I haven't done before!

I took it upon myself to redesign the logo, taking inspiration from the design briefing booklet we created for the students. I knew that we wanted something simplistic and clean, to represent our modern, male consumer. Previously we had spoken about Calvin Klein's logo, and something we really liked was the clarity of it, and so adapting this to our own fragrance, entitled Vivus Incensum, I began designing. 

Playing around it was clear that all of the fonts made the logo look very boring, and so I downloaded some alternative fonts from Dafont.com, and installed them onto my laptop (getting very used to following tutorials now!). This was actually much easier than it looked, and that way I can use my chosen font on future documents surrounding the fragrance. As we wanted something very simplistic using black, whites and greys, I decided to play around with the spacing and sizing of lettering rather than fancy fonts and colour, which was quite a struggle as I am used to creating quite quirky and kitsch visuals. But I enjoy a challenge, and am actually quite impressed with the results. Although VERY simplistic, the fonts and spacing chosen below really matches our brand identity well, showing clean lines and contrast between the black and white. 

I also looked at adding some visuals to the logo, and thought that a DNA strand would be fitting as the Latin translation of Vivus Incensum is 'living perfume'. We chose this as we want our perfume to be a solid male lifestyle fragrance that works around them, rather than them having to work around it. Life isn't always black and white so Vivus Incensum is convenient for the modern man to personalise as a unique part of their DNA, and so a DNA strand would express this. Below is an initial idea of how this could work, although I still need to develop this to look more natural - possibly by using a thinner DNA circle.

I'm excited to design more of the product, as although it is very challenging and something new, is an area I can really get stuck into and actually enjoyed! Next job - packaging and bottle!

Creative Concept

For the next stage of our fragrance brand development, we need to think about what sort of look we want our promotional images to have. I have always loved photography, as I studied it at A-level and found it a great way to get my creative side out, but when it's your own brand your wanting to portray, it's really difficult to know where to start. During seminars designed to create idea generation, we decided as a team that contrast was a key concept we wanted to portray in our promotional images.

Vivus Incensum is designed to adapt around the on-the-go consumer and all of their different CONTRASTING daily activities, particularly between their home and work life. The saying 'life isn't always black and white' really stood out as a key aspect which got the idea ball rolling, as it made us think about the monochrome colour scheme we used, but also the idea that life can be a suprise, and you have to take everything as it comes.  

With contrast as a main message to communicate, we began to look through Pinterest for visual ideas. We have always said we wanted Vivus Incensum to stand out on the shelf or as a promotion, and so a promotional image which is completely unique to other brands, which is not overtly connected to fragrance would express the exclusivity and desirability of or brand successfully. We came across three photographers who really stood out to as, and their creative concepts were all very different from each other and anything else we had seen; Susanna Vento, Miguel Domingos and Bence Bakonyi. These photographers used techniques such as studio camouflage and a picture inside a picture to create depth, texture and a narrative to their images which cannot always be exactly explained (it depends on the person who views them!) 

To get all our ideas down in one place, we created a moodboard which we will further use to decide what we want our artistic direction to be during our shoot time. 

Whilst it's still early days, I'm really enthusiastic about this part of the module, and really looking forward to combining these ideas to appeal to our business male consumer. I think the contrast idea will really contrast the competition (excuse the pun) and work well with our unique and futuristic fragrance product. 

Logos and their strengths

Successful logos can make all the difference to a brand, and it determines whether or not you buy/wear an item of clothing sometimes. Looking at brands who have these great logos, you can really tell their brand stories and values, just through the shapes and visuals of their logos. 

Calvin Klein 

Recognisable and influential.

Beautiful, simplistic, powerful, symbolic, iconic, unisex, cool and pure.

 

Jil Sander

Minimal and modern. 

Consistent, pure, secure, quality. Big letters = big security. 

Vivienne Westwood

English, eccentric and historical.

Heritage, royal, futuristic, playful, rebellious, personality, subversive. Orb represents tradition and the past while the ring of Saturn represents the future. 

It's all in the power of the logo - something we need to consider during our fragrance brand development.

Style Icon

Fashion is something that changes all the time, depending on the trends around the world. However, there is one person who I always thinks looks amazing - Kendall Jenner. 

I know it may be cliche, but I really think that Kendall Jenner can really rock anything, and never fails to look amazing! With such long legs, I think that trousers or longer midi skirts/dresses really suit her, and have really influenced me to wear longer skirts much more often (I never did before). Even when she's just in jeans and a t-shirt, she always looks on point, styling the outfit perfectly with a statement accessory shoe, bag or jewellery. Below are a few favourites of her outfits which i would LOVE to own myself!

Reworked Cover - Fragrance Trend Booklet

After receiving feedback from my peers on my fragrance trend booklet, one of things that stood out that could make my booklet more attractive would be to create a move interesting cover. In order to do this I thought I could use layers and shapes to create a more dynamic and visually appealing cover that would entice someone to open it up. 

Working with an image found on Pinterest, I decided to cut it up using geometric shapes to add more diversity and an extra creative aspect to the beautiful illustration which shows all of the ingredients which go into creating floral fragrances. I then decided that I would like to add larger text in a bright colour to create a visual contrast to this grey image, whilst also complimenting some of the floral accent colours in the illustration. This text would be used on an overlay sheet of acetate to add texture and layering to the booklet, also making the booklet interactive, creating further excitement to turn the pages. I'm really pleased with the new cover, and cannot wait to work on the rest of the booklet, really testing my new skills learnt on Photoshop and In Design, and pushing my creative processing to the limit to try and create something I would never have done beforehand. Here it is, hope you like it and think it is an improvement!  

Nottingham Indie Fashion Week

With all the buzz on the big fashion weeks across the globe biggest cities, New York, London, Paris; I was very pleased to see that Nottingham had jumped on the bandwagon and introduced its own fashion week - Nottingham Indie Fashion Week. With events across the whole week, I decided that I would attend the main event, the catwalk which took place on Tuesday in the Lace Market St. Mary's Church. 

The scene was beautiful, almost perfect for a magical fashion show. The tall, dark church really allowed for the lighting to create a dreamy and enchanting setting, which really made the designers collections and model's make up look fantastic and flawless. I would however say that some of the lights were placed irresponsibly as they shone right into the audience, but this was the only main fault of the whole evening, and well - without the spotlights we wouldn't have been able to see anything at all! 

The collections were amazing, with some focusing on scarfs, shoes or full outfits, the variety really was huge. I was particularly impressed with the designer 'One BC', who really livened up the night with their more modern fashion pieces, which I could even see hitting some of the big fashion nights such as Paris Fashion Week. I also loved the idea of a goodie bag on every seat, as it really made it inviting and seem very exclusive when we arrived, and the leaflets and discounts inside really were appealing.

Overall, I really enjoyed the whole night. With a few edits to music choice (as some seemed almost too depressing - would've been good to have been livened up and magical to match the rest of the decor and styling), the event would be a huge hit with many critics. I can't wait to see if they hold more fashion events in the Nottingham area, as they are very convenient and exciting for an FCP student, especially if they're free!

Fragrance Concept Presentation

Presentations are always scary for me, as I hate talking in front of big groups of people, but it is something I need to get much more comfortable doing, especially on a fashion communication course - and it makes it much better doing it in groups rather than solo! After weeks of preparation, from our individual trend booklets to macro trends discovered in groups during seminars, we were asked to communicate our research and context developments which would go towards creating a new big idea for a brand new and innovative fragrance product.  

Working with people I had never really spoken to before was quite difficult to start with, but after our ideas starting flowing we definitely got to know each other better, and now I even meet up with them outside of the required contact hours to socialise. I really like being put in different groups as means I get to interact with new people, and this is something which is really important for preparation in the fashion industry. 

Meeting quite a few times a week we all allocated ourselves separate tasks to do, and really enjoyed working together, creating what we think is the next big thing in the fragrance industry, a customisable scent. Although bespoke scents are available in the luxury fragrance market (we're talking thousands of pounds!), there was nothing which allowed you to customise and mix scents in a completely portable and sustainable product. Our concept is to create a fragrance which has four different scents in one container, all which are solid so are long lasting, and have the same base note so mix well with each other. The 'bottle' would be much like a multi-coloured biro pen (as shown here), whilst also being refillable as each solid was completed, allowing it to be sustainable and save the consumer money on packaging when re-buying. We got our inspiration from a 'The Simpson's' episode which shows Homer using a similar device which held all of his favourite sauces, which really emphasises an important aspect - that inspiration can come from ANYWHERE!   

After being confident in our new product, it was much easier to talk about, and we decided that the commuting business man would be most interested in this product as the modern man is much more immersed in looking good and grooming, but still needs to work to support his family, often travelling and working many hours to do this. Therefore, a portable fragrance product, which allows them to put their own macho stamp on, would be very appealing to them, whilst being in this discrete and convenient container would not emasculate them when applying.  

We converted our ideas to a powerpoint, and here I have included the slides from this presentation: 

After completing our presentation, we received some feedback from our lecturers which have really helped up consider what we might alter for our next presentation:

Positives: 

• Loved the mood boards
• Great layout and consistency throughout
• Used all aspects of course so far - 7ps, brand onion, market levels, macro+micro trends, FCP process, ect.
• Lots of visuals
• Shows great use of where inspiration came from, and the journey to big idea

Improvements: 

• Maybe try not to have big clumps of talking from lots of people, interchange to ensure is engaging for audience - may be matter of preference between lecturers as others have noted they really like this!
• Try to ensure all mood boards have same style aspects so that continues consistency 

#fcpreflection

Fragrance Trend Booklet

As part of our new fragrance module, our first task was to create a 12 page, A5 booklet, which forecasted the dominant and emerging trends of 2014/2015 within the fragrance industry. I have never looked into trend forecasting before, and so found this task to be quite challenging at first, but after researching on trend forecasting sites such as WGSN and Trend Hunter, I began to get the hang of it, and found it really enjoyable!  

Using Indesign has always been a favourite of mine! I am by no means an expert at the program, but I do feel comfortable using it to create pieces of work, and love how you can link Photoshop and Indesign together so easily. There are so many aspects I experimented with during this layout, for example using different layers and using tools which I didn't even know existed, like altering whether the text hyphenated or not (will save so much time and stress in the future!).  

This is my finalised trend booklet, and although I am happy with the outcome, there are some areas which I feel could be improved, especially after receiving feedback from a peer marking session. 

• Create more interest with front cover - could use more of the space to co-ordinate with the busy composition that is on the double page spreads.
• Check all images are of high quality to remove any pixelated images in booklet
• Reconsider the borders on the images - maybe too harsh? 
• Alter some composition to create more visual contrast, possible with front and back cover and maybe also with first double page spread, as these are most appropriate areas for this to happen.

I am going to consider these and alter my trend booklet in the future so that it has these improvements when I am ready to input this into my portfolio. I find these peer assessment tasks very useful and hope to have more of them, as they allow me to look at others similar work to gain inspiration, whilst also give a second opinion to my work before the final deadline. 

#fcpreflection