To improve I’d like to discover how to get my brand out there more, I feel as if I’m relying on social media for sales and customers, and although there’s nothing wrong with this and they’ve got my brand known to the point where I walk around Leeds and I see people wearing my t-shirts, I want to see if there’s another way, a more professional and more collaborative way of showcasing my brand.
Sunday, 22 October 2017
Manifesto
From my exploration in to my own personal aims as a designer over summer, I want to take this year as an opportunity to really see how far I could go in terms of combining graphic design and fashion.
Wednesday, 11 October 2017
SUMMER
During my time away from university over summer, i developed my own clothing brand The Prawn Shop.
I sought out samples from various t-shirt printing manufacturers i found online, after 4 disappointing iron on type printing methods, i found Martin (or at least that's what he told me to call him) a seller on ebay.
I developed a working relationship with martin, who's based in London, over summer, discussing the printers he used, which colours would work best on which fabrics and over a few weeks, brought out my first two t-shirts on the 20th of June.
I posted the two designs on social media (twitter, instagram and facebook), my first tweet about the shop, which included images of the two tees currently available and a link to the shop has been viewed over 66,000 times in the 112 days The Prawn Shop has been live.
In the first day of sales i sold 33 t-shirts in 7 hours. From this came a following to the brands instagram account which now has over two thousand followers, along with this i developed loyal customers, some of whom have bought every t-shirt available on the website.
I'd tried to set up a brand similar to this last year however i got few sales, the problem i've identified with past ventures is the lack of focus within the designs. I researched my intended target audience of 16-25 year olds and developed a series of t-shirts with designs focusing on issues that matter to me and evidently issues that matter to other people.
The designs available on the prawn shop focus around sexism, misogyny, body confidence, sexuality and equality.
As the bands following increased there was what i felt to be a demand for more designs available, so with the rest of my summer i developed 9 new designs in a range of options including coloured t-shirts, jumpers, sweatshirts and more recently (using the printing facilities at university) prints!
By creating my own clothing brand in just over 2 months, i've sold over 400 products.
This summer has informed my career direction for the future, i know that fashion is something that i would love to pursue, in a way that combines social issues and design all in one, and from the way things are going, i don't see any reason why i can't achieve this.
Last years PPP module got me thinking about what career i would ideally like to go in to, during a presentation i presented to the course i expressed my interest in clothing and clothing design and it being something i would like to look more in to.
With almost 3 months to my self i decided to turn my designs in to t-shirts and so www.theprawnshop.bigcartel.com was born.
I sought out samples from various t-shirt printing manufacturers i found online, after 4 disappointing iron on type printing methods, i found Martin (or at least that's what he told me to call him) a seller on ebay.
I developed a working relationship with martin, who's based in London, over summer, discussing the printers he used, which colours would work best on which fabrics and over a few weeks, brought out my first two t-shirts on the 20th of June.
I posted the two designs on social media (twitter, instagram and facebook), my first tweet about the shop, which included images of the two tees currently available and a link to the shop has been viewed over 66,000 times in the 112 days The Prawn Shop has been live.
I'd tried to set up a brand similar to this last year however i got few sales, the problem i've identified with past ventures is the lack of focus within the designs. I researched my intended target audience of 16-25 year olds and developed a series of t-shirts with designs focusing on issues that matter to me and evidently issues that matter to other people.
The designs available on the prawn shop focus around sexism, misogyny, body confidence, sexuality and equality.
 |
| the first two Prawn Shop designs. |
As the bands following increased there was what i felt to be a demand for more designs available, so with the rest of my summer i developed 9 new designs in a range of options including coloured t-shirts, jumpers, sweatshirts and more recently (using the printing facilities at university) prints!
By creating my own clothing brand in just over 2 months, i've sold over 400 products.
This summer has informed my career direction for the future, i know that fashion is something that i would love to pursue, in a way that combines social issues and design all in one, and from the way things are going, i don't see any reason why i can't achieve this.
Below are more examples of the designs available at the prawn shop, along with customer photos, including customers from the U.K, Berlin, Australia, Greece, USA, Spain, Poland and Germany.
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