Session 6: Package it

This session really saw us take a deeper dive into creating a brand image for our business range and also coming up with our brand values and identity. I really enjoyed being able to use the class time to focus on our own branding work, as I feel like it saves us a lot of time with the SDS, as we already have the foundations built for our branding.

To start, we recapped doing a SWOT analysis, but this time focused on our own retailers and artist collaboration. As I already had a SWOT going from the post-formative SDS tasks, I just built on that, with some help from my group. I also added in some points around my artist, although the SWOT does primarily outline my brand Gucci.

After this, we moved on to some quickfire questions that really got us to start thinking about building out branding. We started with who would be buying our range, which to me felt like using my customer profile and thickening in out a bit to the kind of target consumer that would be drawn to my designs. I really liked the idea of an ambitious and bold type of consumer and decided to skew my customer profile towards both men and women as more of a unisex range to broadly appeal to a wider and younger audience. I wanted to outline a socially active customer who had the realistic traits of a young person in a progressive urbanised society.

We then looked at brand values and was given a list of words to take from that we felt best described our ranges. I thought of a few, but ultimately wanted to go for diversity, powerful and sustainability, although later, I changed powerful to success, as I feel like it felt more directed and inclusive. Honestly I feel like I could come up with a bunch of values for my brand, but focusing on three has allowed me to focus on the core values and what my brand would stand for and try to communicate.

We then looked at brand personality and the personality slider that further aligns our brand’s core. I decided to write a testimonial as a customer who had just bought from my collection as I wanted to create a customer voice and describe how the clothes would appeal to them combining the personality traits and values I had previously built. I also thought this was a great way to involve my target customer in my brand building.

We also looked at how typography and colour are important to physical elements of branding like packaging. For colour choices, I was drawn to navy, red and orange, as the key words under those colours were ones that resonated with my brand. As for typography, in Part 1 during business, I constructed both a written signature for my collection, as well as a graphic logo, which I feel I’m going to reuse rather than create something new as I feel quite connected to their symbolism.

Then, it was time to start coming up with packaging ideas. I decided to work digitally, as I work more efficiently that way and also did not have a spare box lying around. I ended up doing two different design styles; one using the colours I had selected from the session and one using my artist’s artwork as the carrier bag design. Personally, I preferred the one where I used my artist’s work as I feel it looks more custom and is more personal to my collection. I still feel the colours hold some intensity and boldness to it too though, and may end up using either this colour scheme or another one based off my artist’s work.

Another thing I want to think of in my packaging is practicality and accessibility. A while ago, I was watching a YouTube video about how a bling girl identifies her beauty products based on accessible packaging. This includes things like tactile markers and embossed logos which were quite naturally embedded into the packaging while still being ideal for those with vision impairments. I really liked this train of thought and ideally would like to include some embossing on my carrier bags/ boxes as tactile markers to further the accessibility and inclusivity of my collection.

Overall, I feel like I got a lot out of this session and we certainly came out of it with a lot of work to do! However, as I’ve completed my design and media tasks on schedule, I now have the next few days to solely focus on business and plan to have the majority of the work done by Tuesday, which is when my business tutorial with Sarah is, as I can get some valuable feedback from her. It’s officially one week until our submission, and I can definitely tell it’s going to be very busy, but I feel good that I’ve been super organised and prepared throughout this whole unit and given myself plenty of time to create good work.