reflection

Posted on by Sarah Fox

This project has allowed me to take on a role that I usually would not have access to. Having the opportunity to take on the role as a designer has been very interesting and eye opening for me as it allowed me to further develop my skills in textiles and designing. I have not yet performed in a designer role academically and since I have only ever done textiles as a hobby, I was unsure on whether or not I was following the correct steps particularly when researching. I started by looking at brands that have similar values of being eco-friendly and how they introduced this to their own designs. For example, I took particular interest in Kapital and don’t shop swap since I found that their brand was similar in ways of being eco-friendly.

From here I looked at the different types of techniques they used and then attempted some of them myself as this allowed me to develop more textile techniques that went into some of my designs. I wanted to keep in mind that we could have materials sent to us that are either damaged or ripped so I wanted to be prepared for that in these designs. I looked at techniques such as sashiko stitching, weaving fabrics back together as well as quilting techniques for smaller scraps of materials we might have. These techniques showed me a variety of ways to reuse and repurpose materials or clothes. I looked into lots of different garments and eventually our group decided to focus on skirts, tops, and dresses.

I think our group struggled at first with communicating our ideas and because of this it led to some mistakes. However, I still feel that we have created a positive brand that can offer great alternatives to the standard upcycling of clothes and materials in an eco-friendly way. For me I found that the most difficult part was making the garment which challenged my textiles skills. I wanted to keep my ideas simple as I do not have as much experience in this role and wanted to avoid making mistakes. This was the very first time I had attempted at making my own pattern and fitting the garment because of this I felt slightly anxious with how the final garment could have turned out.

I want to further improve and develop my sewing skills and techniques; however I am also proud of the new techniques I have learnt throughout completing this role. After making my garment I was mainly excited to start experimenting with the styling of my top. The material I found was floral and I wanted to create a photoshoot around this, therefore I used flowers in the photoshoot to go match the pattern of the material. I had a lot of fun experimenting with vibrant colours and textures whilst even adding props and finding a location for the photoshoot.

Throughout making my garment I kept all the small scrap materials and the thread clippings, I used these to make our garments labels and with the bigger scraps I made scrunchies. For me I thought this was a creative way to add to our brands authenticity as our customers could see how determined we are to use every piece of fabric they supply us with as I wanted to find ways our brand could say they use 100% of our materials.

Overall, I have found this project overwhelming at times but a way for me to learn so much more about textiles in fashion design. I have loved being able to combine my skills in fashion comms to create all the small details in my final design. From this experience I would take on a role as a designer again. I feel by doing this role I have been able to gain confidence within my textiles and design.

Evaluation

Posted on by Lily Holm Coussy

This project for me personally has felt really challenging, one of the reasons being the fact that the project is so long and as an individual I am not very good at doing things over a long period of time, and I tend to work better when I see the deadline coming up, so I definitely lacked a lot of motivation to complete my work throughout this project. Overall, even after reading the handbook many times, I really struggled to understand what the final outcome was for this project as I found the concept of the whole project quite confusing. I feel as if for most of the project I was very much in a state of confusion and panic. As a group we tweaked and changed the concept of our brand quite a few times, and I really struggled personally to wrap my head around the changes. Another thing I found quite challenging was because my role was creating the social media pages, I found that I had to wait for a lot of the things to be done before I could get started on my own work, for example the shoot hadn’t been done because the pieces hadn’t been made yet, and at this point I felt quite anxious about the project as I didn’t know if I would have enough time to finish it all, however everything worked out. With group projects it can be quite hard to all communicate, which I think I definitely did struggle with especially over the easter holidays, as I found it really challenging trying to fit in spending time with my family, working and doing uni work.

My role in this project was visual promotion, which is something we had obviously done in first year and I have always found quite interesting, but I wanted to develop my skills further, so I was quite excited that this project allowed me to do that. In most of my uni work previously I had focused on more styling and photography, for this was a nice chance to do something different to build up skills for my portfolio. Throughout this role I did face some challenges, as I’m not the smartest when it comes to computer work and photoshop so when creating the instagram I did struggle to create a cool design or any of my own graphics, and I ended up keeping it quite simple, however I think this worked really well for our brand. One aspect I really enjoyed was creating the tiktok page, as this is something I spend a lot of my free time doing, and it was great to incorporate this into my work. However, as I was not able to be at the shoot, due to being in Brighton and the shoot was in London, I had asked other members of the group to take some behind the scenes footage of the shoot, but unfortunately there wasn’t much they had managed to film, which was a bit of a struggle when creating the tiktoks for the page.

Overall, it was a great experience getting to collaborate with the design and textiles students, however due to how long the project is and the confusion on what the project was about and final outcome, it definitely wasn’t my favourite project and it caused a lot more stress than what was needed.

Reflection

Posted on by Jason Juarez Curtis

With this project I faced lots of challenges, firstly since we were given so much time, it was hard to create a sense of urgency, which is something I feel like you need in group projects at university. Without a sense of urgency, a lot of the work or research for projects doesn’t get done in time. Another challenge I faced is that as Art Director it’s hard knowing when to ask piers for work or how to ask them, because you don’t want to seem rude or feel like you are overstepping with someone’s work. When working with a larger group of people, it’s also very hard to coordinate when things can be done etc. This is a challenge we faced as it took a while for the garments to be ready, shoots to be setup etc.
We had a lot of switches of ideas, rolls, concepts, mock-ups etc. All apart of the creative process. It was quite fun thinking up of new ideas and new ways we could change around our projects based off the feedback from our tutors. But it did eventually become quite hectic when people started confusing ideas, communication wasn’t the best since a lot of work was done during easter holidays, whilst everyone is out seeing their families.
In terms of sustainability, the project helped me think of different ways I can use Fashion Comms as a tool for positive change. Our team focused on creating a sustainable and environmentally conscious brand. This made me appreciate, understand, and think about approaches businesses can take in the near future that will shape and change the world around us. I plan on continuing to explore ways we can create and design a more sustainable future.
My role was initially Photographer, then when we found out we could all cross disciplines and try something new, I wanted to try the role of Art Director and Keisha who at the time was Art Director wanted to be Photographer. She ended up helping me quite a lot and carrying out the role of Assistant Art Director. Unfortunately, when doing the final shoot, with the timing of garments being ready, group coordination etc she wasn’t available, so I did the photography for it which was a lot of fun.
As Art Director it was quite hard to try and coordinate and make sure everything clicks together well. Thanks to the Assist AD I managed to do so, she was in charge of overseeing some aspects of the projects and I looked at others. Overall, it was a fun project to work with Fashion Design & Textiles but a lot of what had to be done and how it had to be done was quite vague and confusing, creating even more miscommunications within each group.

MARKET RESEARCH

Posted on by Abi Knight

To enable me to carry out my business analysis on our brand, I carried out competitor research on 6 different brands. the brands are all street wear aesthetic and use headstock fabrics within their companies. all 6 brands are highly sustainable and believe them to be our competitor

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QUESTIONAIRE

Posted on by Abi Knight

Also as a part of my business analysis, I decided to carry out a questionnaire asking 24 people in total about where they shop, how they shop, and what they do with their clothing when they are finished with them.

  

BUSINESS WORK

Posted on by Abi Knight

My role within the group was to carry out the business analysis for our brand. Doing this I carried out research by completing a positioning map, SWOT, PESTEL and 7Ps. This helped us as a group to see what our challenges will be and to see more in depth about our competitors.

   

EVALUATION

Posted on by Kiesha Harris

This project defiantly went a lot longer than expected and with a couple concept changes that happened closer to the end date of this module I felt very on edge for the most part. From the beginning stages of this module I knew that research would be my best friend and would stir me to the right direction of what need to be done for the final outcome. Our first presentation is where everything had to be turned around and a complete regroup since the whole group was confused on what was being asked for the final outcome. With role changes and new concept pitches we slowly moved closer to a better concept and something that was looking a lot more like a brand. A sustainable brand that sells up-cycled clothes but works through a point system to bring back existing customers. We wanted to reach the demographic that is very social media based as this is where a good as we want to push the younger audience to make the change and shop sustainably. With more convince and a wide arrange of products we hope to bring in not only our demographic but those who care about the planet and aim for a zero waste future. My role stood to be the photographer/ Stylist so I made sure to make a styling board and photography board that go along with the photoshoots that I had planned. I wanted to work with with brander and make sure that the colour story and all of that but there was a bit of a miss communication and there was no answer. I ended up making a brand board for the visual promotion side of it all. I stuck with the colours from the garments that were made to make sure I was staying true to the brand identity. After all work sadly didn’t come to use much for me but close to the end of the project that had to change. The designers hadn’t produce garments for the time that I wanted to shoot some content. That role was quickly passed over to the Art director and thankfully it ended up as a great outcome. I ended up taking on the role as Assistant Art Director as I helped oversea a lot of different aspects in this project. I over looked the blog/website to make sure all the work was being put in the right place and to see what was missing. Talking with the person doing social media I wanted to help out and noticed that there was no visual promotion done. I had already had an event space sent up on my sketchbook so I thought to make some posters and some brand signage to advertise our brand. I Mainly used the images from the shoot that was photographed and edited by the Art Director as the models were wearing the product so it would make sense to showcase that in the posters so that our consumers can see some of the pieces that we sell/make. My main focus when it came to creating these was brand representation and if they are able to contact us back so that they can follow our socials or even become a new customer.