Branding With Una Burke

A few days ago we had a guest speaker Una Burke who is a multi-award winning luxury leather and accessory designer/artist. She spoke about her journey into the industry, her struggles and how she came about her own brand and business, which was all very encouraging and really quite interesting. One of the key things Una Burke spoke about was the importance of making sure you target your customer and know what they want and need as this helps to build a solid reputation for you and your brand which is one of the most if not the most important aspects of creating a brand. One of the key things I learnt through listening to Ms. Burke was pricing, how to price items is something I have always been curious about. 

Pricing:

To price your items you add up all material costs, the time you put in to creating each piece (£15 or more an hour), calculate your overheads (packaging, logos etc.) The total amount will equal the total costs of how much you have spent, if you multiply this by two you get the wholesale price, then if you multiply by two again you get the actual price not including Vat which is an extra 20%. Finding out how to price items was is useful because it means that when Amanda and I are focusing on the branding aspect of our niche business we can research into prices of fabrics and finishing’s. This will give us a good understanding of what fabrics will end up making our bags too expensive which intern would price us way out of the market and which fabrics would actually be beneficial to our brand and our consumer.

After her talk we filled out a Niche opportunity sheet as a group. The idea was that it would help us develop our brand and product more, and help us to pin point our strengths and weaknesses. Our group struggled with this because we ended up disagreeing on what our brand was and should be an what makes it niche after half the group went away and changed the idea we had all agreed upon. As a group we ended up deciding that we want our niche brand to still focus on sports bags but in particular winter sports bags as these sports are normally more specialised and need stronger more robust bags to carry all the equipment in. We are still trying to think of ways to make our brand more niche and desirable but after alot of changes we are now set on our brand idea and hopefully this won't change again. 

Researching and Branding

On Wednesday our group met up properly for the first time to discuss our ideas for our niche brand. We discussed what we wanted our niche brand to be and how we wanted it to stand out. We all decided that our brand should be ethical and sustainable because that’s where we feel the fashion industry is going nowadays. Our brand will be a high end sports brand specialising in gender neutral sports bags that are both practical for various different sporting activities yet also fashionable and very wearable for everyday uses. As a group we came up with some good ideas and worked really well together, I think our brand idea is a good one and with a little refining could become a really strong niche brand.

We decided that the overall look of our brand should have a contemporary feel giving it a high-end look that looks good for gym and everyday uses. Our colour pallet will be fairly minimal we’ll be using light greys and blue tones with a few splashes of orange, we thought these colours would fit both men and women and would be perfect for bags. So far we have worked really well as a group with no disagreements, I think we achieved quite alot on Wednesday and it was a good head start to our project. 

During Thursday’s session our group were thinking of names for our brand, I came up with the name Cratous for a brand name, as it’s Greek for god of strength and power, I thought this was very fitting for a sportswear brand. We all liked the name and agreed that having a meaning behind the name would make our brand more individual and would make us stand out more. We then looked to see if there were any brands out there that are already called Cratous and we found a menswear brand called Kratos London, we decided that although a different spelling our chosen name was too similar. 

We ended up choosing the name Frey as we thought it was quite contemporary and simple. From this we continued to think about how our brand will stand out from similar existing brands.  We will create various different social media pages to promote our brand such as Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Global Sourcing

Just before Christmas we were put into groups for our global sourcing project. We will be working together to create a niche brand. During the Christmas holidays our group spoke alot through a Facebook group chat. Through messenger we decided on our individual group roles. I will be focusing on the branding side of things, this will be a nice change from designing and I feel as though there is alot to learn about how to successfully brand a company.

We've each been given the task to research a niche brand that's 1-5 years old. My understanding of the word “niche” is that it’s an area of the market that specialises in one type of product or service. I had an idea of what a niche brand was and what I should be looking for however it took a while to find a brand that interested me or that I could write about. After a long search I came across a blog “An Expert’s Guide to Discovering the Coolest New Fashion Labels—Before All Your Friends” the blog was written by Jasmine Garnsworthy and was interesting to read. In the blog there was a link to the website Runway2Street where I came across the brand Kekkai.

I wanted to look into a brand that offers something completely new and different. Kekkai are a newly established collaborative label founded in 2014 by two Greek sisters Emily and Yvonne-Demitra. The sister’s create their designs through exploring the artistic practice of digital and analogue techniques of pattern making. Kekkai create unique scarves that can be worn all year round; made out of silk they are light and big enough to be worn in the summer. I really like this brand, as you don’t get many brands selling scarves, normally they are sold as an extra along side garments. The sisters have created scarves that are vibrant and beautiful. They stand out because they can be worn throughout the year in a number of different ways. These scarves are a timeless signature piece that will last a long time this makes you feel as though they are a worthwhile investment. Through researching niche brands I've learnt the importance of making sure your brand has something different to offer. I've gained a better understanding of what a niche brand is and how to create my own brand. I have also learnt that creating a niche brand is about playing on your strengths and using your skills in other areas to create a strong design.

http://stylecaster.com/emerging-fashion-brands/

https://www.runway2street.com

http://kekkai.co.uk