Evaluation

Working with I our group has had its ups and downs but for the most part we got through it and became a stronger group because of all the arguments. 

Working with Elissa has been a joy as she always try's to see the best in every situation and works really hard all the time and always went above and beyond for our group.

Working with Nikita had been a struggle, although she started off the project very enthusiastic this soon changed and she became increasingly difficult to work with, to talk to and even to get work off. I appreciate our group has had a lot of struggles but sometimes you just have to pick yourself up and brush it off for the sake of the group, this is not something she was able to do and I have found it very difficult to work along side her.

Chloe and marko have been great to work with they are always positive and enthusiastic about our brand they rarely complain and contributed a huge amount of work to our group. 

Danny and I had our differences at the start but once we moved on from them we got along great and even when she was not in for whatever reason she was very easy to contact and would always be willing to send work straight away. 

Amanda has been good with reasoning with the group when things get difficult, she always does her work when she says she will and works well in a team. 

Elsie has often caused a lot of arguments due to uneccessary gossiping. 

Although this unit has been difficult at times it has been great learning different aspects of setting up a business and I've enjoyed that side of things, and I also like the way that the majority of our group came together in the end and produced some really well thought out work, I enjoyed working with most of our group members and hope to work with some of them again one day. 

Creating a Website

I have created a website mock up for our brand Frey, the website shows our contemporary, modern and minimalistic style using a few of the selected colours we chose for our colour palette. The images show just an outline of what our website would look like if it was officially up and running. At the top we would have different links to our collections, lookbooks, and a little information about our company. 

Since our niche brand is quite specialised and focuses a lot on safety features and extra accessories that customers can add on their bags I decided to add this as a main feature on our website. I thought that people can click on the link and it could direct you straight to lots of different accessories that you can add to the bags. 

I have incorporated some of Marko's bag designs to the website as they would be on the final finished website if we were creating a live website. Ive incorporated both patterned and non patterned designs to give a taster of what we as a brand would have to offer. 

The image above shows extra added details that our brand could offer such as little note books, pencils, rubbers and lookbooks that customers can purchase from us or that we can add as a little touch for when people purchase an item.

I have incorporated contact details at the bottom of our website and also links to social media sites so that potential customers can see what we are al about. 

Business Cards, Key Rings & Swing tags

This week I used Adobe Illustrator to create business cards for our niche brand, the images below show the illustrator files, although they all look similar when they are printed they are slightly different sizes. 

Amanda and I decided to get the business cards laser cut, Amanda also decided that it would be nice to get our logo laser cut into some key-rings to add an extra personal touch to our brand.

Business card samples

In the image above we were testing the white card to see if it would laser cut well for our business cards, the paper cut well however it just didn't look professional enough to use for our final business card. 

Final Business cards

The image above shows our final business cards we chose to use a thicker black card as it cut better and it overall looked more professional. The image above isn't a clear representation of how successful the cards turned out. I used our final logo and adapted it a little so that it would cut out better when laser cut, the logo worked well laser cut and if I were to change anything I would make the lines thicker, the logo a little smaller and the writing a tiny bit clearer. As a prototype I think the cards were a success. 

Final Key-ring

The image above shows the final key-ring, the idea was that we could give them out as a gift with our bags, they are simple yet represent our brand well with our name and our distinctive logo.

Swing tags and Receipt 

 Amanda designed these swing tags and receipt for the branding side of the business. They look very smart professional they are also modern and minimal looking which is the image we are going for overall.

Website research

I have been looking into how to lay out a website to give me some inspiration for when we create a mock up website for our group. I feel as though it is important to get across the image of our brand and to make sure it is clear that we are a sports brand. The images above show some screen shots from the luxury high end sportswear brand Lucas Hugh, the brands website is very clear and minimal which is what we are going for as a brand. The website is very clear and concise and I think we can use some of these elements within our website as it is very well presented and very easy to understand. 

I looked at other website layouts such as the brand above called Falke, the website layout is again very clear however I don't think the layout would be good for our brand as it is alot more cluttered. I like the way each website has the brands contact details and social media links at the bottom of each page, I think this is definitely something to incorporate in with our brand website. 

Consumer Profile

Today I created a unisex consumer profile for Frey sport. Our target age is 25-40, our consumers would be quite active people, they would be an adrenaline seeker who is free and young at heart. The consumer would be quite comfortable financially, they are image/fashion and environmentally conscious. They are into their health and may appear quite sporty and athletic.

Our consumer is most likely to live in the city in a modest apartment, in a long term relationship yet does not yet have children. They maintain a very good job one where perhaps they have travelled a lot they are the kind of person to go for the slightly higher end product in order to get the best quality, practical, high end item. 

Business Plan

Amanda, Nikita and I are all in charge of writing the business plan, I have been writing step 1&2, Amanda step 3 and Nikita has been writing step 4&5. It has been quite challenging writing the business plan as I didn't realise how much actually goes into a business as I've never thought about it in great detail before. Writing the business plan has made me realise how good our brand could be or how good the idea actually is, it has also made us as a group think in more detail at areas of our brand that we need to make stronger and pay more attention to. 

Mission statement 

Our companies mission is to design and make a variety of sports bags using ethical and environmentally friendly materials and practices. We aim to use a minimum of 70% recycled sustainable waist for our product, labels, packaging and marketing.  Our brand is a company that gives back so as a brand we aim to give a percentage of our profits to underprivileged kids to get them into sports, we also aim to donate some of our profits into a charity that helps improve our environment.

Our product is both beneficial to the buyer and our environment in that we offer a luxury sports bag that retains the style and quality of your typical high-end bag yet is made ethically out of recycled materials.

I have been using our mission statement as a guide to help me write the business plan as I keep going back to it and reflecting on wha we really want our brand to achieve, the aim is to reflect this throughout the business to keep our brand consistent and strong.

Logos and Colour Palette

Colour palette options

Marko and Chloe are the groups product developers, they created these two colour palette boards. We want our bags to appeal to all genders so as a group we decided to pick out the best colours from each board. We all agreed that the pink in the second image was too bright to go on the outside of the bag and much preferred the subtlety of the orange in the first image however we still wanted to use the pink somehow. We decided to compromise and create two colour palettes one for the inside lining of the bag which could be incorporated in with a print and one for the outside of the bag. 

The image on the right shows the two final colour palettes we agreed on, still using quite  simple palette for the outside of the bag to appeal to everyone while hopefully still keeping the bag quite modern and stylish we decided to give the bag a vibrant twist on the inside to make the bag more appealing and exciting. The final colours we chose will be used throughout our brand image which includes websites, apps, and any social media pages as well as being incorporated in our shop layout. 

Adapting the logos

Although Amanda an I are in charge of creating the logos Dani had also created a logo that she was quite adamant we use. I thought the best way to try and overcome this hurdle was to try and come up with a strong logo that incorporates all of our ideas. 

Amanda's Logo Designs

Dani's Logos

The logos below show the adapted logo designs I created using Adobe Illustrator, the aim was to try and incorporate everyones logo design ideas to try and create a logo we are all happy with and proud to show off. Amanda's logos were very contemporary and quite futuristic and although toned down i tried to incorporate this within the font of each logo, I then incorporated the F from my logo still connecting the logo with our brand name while keeping the logo quite modern. Dani's logo incorporates a mountain and I personally feel as if this has been extremely over used within other sports brands especially specialist sports brands however I tried to come up with some other mountain ideas and designs that I thought might look different and make our brand stand out more and look more individual.

My logos

Despite putting alot of effort/meaning into each logo Amanda and I have created our work went unappreciated as the group didn't really take time to consider any of our ideas. Amanda and I decided that it would probably be best just to go with Dani's logo as it saves arguments and it consumes less of our time as we have alot of other work to be focusing on as well and we can't keep going back and forth with logo designs.