The Range Plan pt. 1

The SDS tasks for business, let’s just say, hit me like a truck this week. At the beginning of the week I felt very overwhelmed and frankly quite anxious as to how I was going to manage my time and get all of this work done by the time my tutorial came around! However, the next day after I’d calmed down and organised my thoughts a bit more, I made a game plan. A little bit of work everyday over the week would go a long way in this case. So I began with my customer profile…

Customer Profile:

To start off this process and get my ideas flowing, I made some quick notes on who I wanted my customer segment to be and listed basic information on them like their age, fashion needs, hobbies, lifestyle and job field. I will say my customer base is quite broad, but when thinking of these traits, I did try and focus on who would shop my range at my brand and what kind of interests they would have that would align with my commercial collection. Unlike Toolbox, this customer profile didn’t focus on a specific person and instead targeted a range of customers that would share these combined traits.

For the profile itself, I used Photoshop to put my layout together. Unlike my previous attempts at customer profiles, I used a portrait layout, as I wanted to make sure I was was diligent about what information I included on my page as to not overcrowd it.

For the background, I used watercolour paint splotches as a nod to my artistic consumer base (in my notes I had written an enthusiasm of art/ painting as a hobby). I also added a film camera on the top right corner of the page as a nod to the media industry career this consumer would have, aimed at the model in my profile, hinting at the need for presentability at their job. I also created a figure running across a London skyline silhouette at the bottom to suggest my consumer would live in central London, furthered by the main image being a woman in London itself. This also meant I didn’t have to use text to express this in my profile. The central image also aids as a nod to my brand, as the subject is wearing a Gucci belt, (although admittedly this was more accidental than intentional).

Overall, I’m unsure if the page is too overcrowded still or if the images I’ve used convey the right tone as I’ve described here. I like the paint effect of the background and I think the colourfulness of it hints at my artist really nicely and the direction I plan on taking my commercial range in, with the subject in the main image wearing a more sophisticated outfit to both juxtapose and combine the two styles.

Brand Research Page:

At first, part of me was quite confused as to what this task entailed. I wasn’t quite sure if it was meant to be a reflection of our brand heritage report, or simply visual imagery to link our artist and brand together. After emailing Sarah about it, I came to a vague idea of what I was supposed to create and cracked on with it.

I used Photoshop to create my layout and brainstormed beforehand different aspects of my artist and brand separately, before looking at what linked them together. The main ones I found were colour and texture, although proportion definitely played an element in both their works too.

I created a bespoke figure of Ruscha’s black and white portrait with the Gucci logo over the top of his face to create a visual imagery of their collaboration, also including other images of both his works and Gucci catwalk outfits that reflected colour, texture, and proportion. I also took information from my artist notes and brand heritage report, as well as extra images online. I then transferred my page onto a drawing app on my tablet, in order to create some handwritten notes over the top of the page. I primarily wanted to do this to make my page seem a little rougher and have a handwritten element to it.

My page overall is quite busy with all the colours and images overlayed on top of each other, which poses as a possible doubt/ weakness in the presentation of my ideas and whether they come through successfully. After making this, however, I had a clear vision of how my artist and brand could collaborate. As a side note, I actually ended up with two pages, as the first time I went to complete this task, I realised part of the brief was to have 10 images, which I didn’t so I redid the page in a slightly different format with some extra images.

In this respect, I’m glad I make notes of my SDS tasks in a notebook and then check them off as I go to see if I’ve met all the criteria for them. I’m definitely discovering throughout this unit and term, that my time management and organisation are improving rapidly, due to the pace of this course and the load of coursework we receive weekly. This is a great thing, however, as I’ve been able to keep up to date with work, am able to fix errors in my work without feeling like I have no time and don’t feel like I’m behind with anything, even blog posts, due to the schedule I keep myself on with university work.

This brings me to the end of my business SDS tasks… for part one anyway. Part two coming soon…