REFLECTIONS AND STRUGGLES
(AD139: VISUAL PROMOTION)
Understanding the term ‘Cultural Capital’ was my first struggle with this project as it seemed like a very academic theoretical term. But once I researched further and read more about it, I began to make my own definition of it to understand. I came to understand there are different types of Cultural Capital, but my modern day understanding of it made me find it a really interesting subject, especially because I have realised its value when thinking about businesses/brands. The added value a high cultural capital gives, means that customers and audiences can relate more easily to aspire more to want to be a part of the brand community. In reflection, I found this project and my work would not have been as deep or meaningful, had I never learnt about the importance of Cultural Capital.
My next struggle that i overcame with this project was tackling and understanding full what ‘Trend Forecasting’ meant. After reading ‘The Trend Forecaster’s Handbook’ and reading through the macro trend forecasts by WGSN, I realised it wasn’t an as daunting subject as I first realised. Before this project, I actually had always said that I never really wanted to ever be involved with Trend Forecasting, however, not only did I come to realise how important it is, but I also realised that it is actually really interesting and good fun. Although the Macro Trend Boards I created were not as detailed as the WGSN articles that display the macro trends for each year, I did think that had this project been longer and I had had the opportunity, I would have loved to really go deeper and further into my macro trends.
Brand Analysis was something that also seemed very ‘businessy’ and academic, so I was worried whether I would do well when doing this. However, a benefit of me choosing Gucci quite quickly was that I really had the opportunity to delve deeper into the external and internal factors of running and having a business in the modern day, especially since I was looking at starting it in 2020. Doing this brand analysis was also a lot of fun when looking at the visual sides that really represented Gucci’s heritage as this helped me discover more about Cultural Capital. Looking at Gucci’s Corporate Sustainability and Responsibility was also very important for me considering I knew I wanted to create a subbrand that is environmentally aware and friendly. This helped me see what was missing from Gucci to make my subbrand different and unique.
I really enjoyed practising my fashion illustrations and studying Gucci’s past fashion. I especially wanted to focus on Alessandro’s first collection as this was the beginning of what we know now to be the eclectic fashion of Gucci. I found it hard to go back to illustrating after such a long break from the last project, however this did teach me that I need to be doing it all the time to keep it up and improve. Something else I found was that I approached each drawing with a new style and doing this, really helped me realise which style I like the best and which I find more fun to do.
When I did some research into Sustainability, I did a response to my findings straight away and this really helped me secure my thoughts and what I wanted to do with mom project straight away, as opposed to forgetting my initial first impressions. I did the same when I studied the different Generations that would be affected by my subbrand and these both helped me develop some of my macro trends that I wanted to create.
Making a point of Defining my Subbrand also really helped me lock in my thoughts on what i wanted to create, and this helped me move forward with creating my marketing faster as I knew exactly which method of marketing would be most effective. I also created three potential User Journeys to make sure these methods of marketing would be suitable for my target market and also others to reach a larger audience. These also all had to be in keeping with my macro trends so that Gucci Kind was following these trends to be likeable to a large audience. I also did a Social Media Audit that helped me define where I wanted my subbrand to be within a year.
After having done this, I went to brainstorming and defining what types of print, social media and my chosen style of marketing would be.
I based these on the macro trends and they had to be in accordance with the ethos of the business, such as low waste, supporting young creative talent and being ecofriendly. It was a long process to carrying out each form of marketing as I had to teach myself new techniques.
Print: Carrying out illustrations in three different ways, but portraying the same clothing was really difficult for me as I have a style of illustration that I prefer to do. However, doing this made me get out of my comfort zone, and I actually tried a style that was very time consuming and I ended up preferring this style to what I was initially comfortable with. Furthermore, because I didn’t want my form of Print to be wasteful, such as a billboard that could be just short term, or a feature in a monthly magazine, I really had to brainstorm a way of marketing my brand through print in an eco friendly way. I came to the decision that I wanted to do something different and this took me out my comfort zone again, as I attempted to create a window design. This was mainly because I really enjoyed the lecture with Sue Wen at the beginning of the term so this method of marketing and art direction was really only mind. Obviously I am not skilled with 3D window display design, so I came up with my own method that I found was really effective.
Social Media: Because I was very conscious that my marketing campaign would not be as succinct as I would have wanted it to be, had I had the time to do every type of marketing such as every social media and website, I decided that it was fitting for my subbrand to promote the young creatives through social media and turn them into gifs/animations. I wanted to challenge myself and teach myself how to do these. Although they took a lot of time, I did feel it was necessary to teach myself this skill and I find it a really cool method of creativity.
My chosen type: I decided to design a runway layout, set design and create fashion film to play at the beginning of the show to tell the narrative of the collection. I had a lot fo fun doing all this and it was quite a large task to do for my chosen one as I wanted to do more than just a website or something only to do with social media.