Business Development Part 2

Introduction

During this project I will start the process of designing, developing and marketing my products for sale on a  platform of my choice. I am going to create multiple variations of my products, making sure that I am adding meaning and thought behind each piece. I am then presenting visual mock-ups of my designs to my peers for feedback, after the designs have been given critique I am able to start marketing the products to my target audience.

If I receive any type of interaction from customers then I need to ensure I evidence them in my portfolio along with maintaining records of sales, reviews and other general statistics.

Throughout the project I need to carry out an in-depth reflective record of my work and complete an evaluation at the end, evidencing my aims and any successes and failures I may have encountered during the project.

Week by week plan

I can use the 'Pomodoro' technique to help me stay on track and not lose while while completing my work. The Pomodoro technique is a time management method where you work for 25 minutes and then take a 5 minute break. After four consecutive working intervals a longer break is allowed, often 15-30 minutes.

Week 1


Week 2


Week 3


Week 4


Week 5


Week 6


Week 7

Brief analysis






  • Deadline: w/c 11th December
  • Summative assessment: w/c 18th December
  • 6 weeks to complete project
  • Etsy, Shopify, Redbubble
  • Initial sketch
  • Develop and maintain a brand identify
  • Regular reflections
  • Evaluation
  • Designing, developing, marketing
  • Create numerous iterations of designs

Research on print on demand websites


'Shirtly' is a potential print on demand website I can link to my 'Shopify' store. The prices displayed are reasonably low which is good for starting a business.


I had a look through the T-shirt blanks which 'Printful' supply and found this. It is 100% cotton and has a similar colour to the one I used in the original mock-up for my 'Smoke Tee'.

Idea generation


Before I uploaded any designs to my Shopify store I wanted to experiment further with different colours and see if any of them looked better than the original palette used.


I wanted to try different colours on my 'Gothic Riot logo' I created last project. I still prefer the red logo as it is the current brand colour.


Here is my 'Smoke Cloud' tee displayed in different colourways.


These are colour variations of my 'TMWTHA IWSAR' hoodie.


Finnaly these are the colour variations for my 'MR RIOT MAN' beanie.

Primary experimentation

Colour palette

When searching for the word 'Riot' on Google the colours usually consist of blacks, greys, oranges, reds. I want to represent my brand with similar colours, I will use the website 'coolors.co' to generate some different palettes, a brief demonstration is displayed below.


This is the generation page, to discover different palettes you must press the space bar and it will generate a completely new set of colours.


I have pressed the space bar once ands it has given me a new palette.


If you want to keep a specific colour in the palette and aren't bothered about the rest then you can lock the colour in place using this button.


The palettes continue to generate when pressing the space bar but the colour you have locked in place stays in its position.


I have locked each colour in place after finding the ones I want to keep, the colour palette is complete.

I will now create a few more palettes to possibly be used as my website colour scheme.


These were the first block of colours I generated and tweaked manually to my preference:

White - #FBFCFF

French grey - #D0CCD0

Wenge - #605856

Verdigris - #0CBABA

Tomato - #F85A3E

These were the second block of colours I generated and tweaked manually to my preference:

Antique white - #FFEEDB

Outer space - #4C5B61

Redwood - #A23E48


These were the third block of colours I generated and tweaked manually to my preference:

Persian red - #D32F2F

Jet - #333333

White - #FFFFFF

Grey - #808080

Dodger blue - #2196F3


These were the forth block of colours I generated and tweaked manually to my preference:

Tomato - #FF5733

Black - #000000

Silver - #C0C0C0

Grey - #808080

True Blue - #0066CC

Reflective journal

After completing my idea generation and researching lots of different colour palettes I am confident in the colours I will be using for my final products listed on the website I am going to create, as well as my website theme colours. I am happy with the outcome on both of these activities as it has broadened my knowledge of colours within clothing design and general colour when designing my website. I am also happy that I found the website 'coolors.co' as it is very helpful and easy when it comes to picking colours palettes for projects.

Idea generation and Development



I started by sketching out the rough logo concept, I then imported the image into Photoshop and dragged guides onto the canvas in the necessary positions.


I placed rectangles in the correct places so form the base shape.


I then used layer masks to remove the areas of the rectangles I didn't want showing and added a circle for the "o".


After finishing the letter "R" and adding the ellipses at the top and bottom of the design, I exported the image as a PNG and saved it to possibly use in a clothing design later.


This was a quick experiment I did seeing how it would mix with smaller text and a change of colour.



I further researched the website options I have to sell my products online, these were the ones I will most likely be using:

  • Shopify
  • Printful
  • Printify
  • Shirtly

'Shopify' makes it extremely easy to start selling straight away, offering a free trial and then £1/month for 3 months afterwards. You can link print on demand websites such as 'Printful', 'Printify' and 'Shirtly' straight to your Shopify store so that when an order is placed the websites will print and ship the product to the customers door.

I have created a 'Shopify' account and begun setting it up. To allow me to move forwards with my online business I need to obtain a VAT number, to get this I need to register for VAT on the gov.uk website. A VAT number is used to receive payouts after a product has been purchased by a customer.

I investigated further and found out that I could also choose to be a sole trader which allows me to avoid registering for a VAT number.

I started creating some ideas on the layout of my website, these were the best ones I created.


Home page


Collection page


Contact page 

Begin Marketing


I started creating products on Printful and Printify which then sent the finished designs to my Shopify store to sell. I have uploaded 4 products as of now but I want to continue to add more garments.


Here is the base template I have created for the home page of my website.



Final home page.


Final 'Choose options' page.


Final Cart page.


Final Catalog page.


Final Contact page.


Final Search page.

Reflective journal

I'm glad that my website turned out how it did. It maintains professionalism as well as having a bit of a streetwear feel around it. I wish to make more products to display on the website if I have time at the end. Overall I am proud of how my website has developed.

Uploading designs to platform



After spending a few hours finding out how to use print on demand websites properly earlier on in the project, I felt confident in trying to upload my designs onto these products. I also had to create some designs to be uploaded to the website as I had only created two designs in the project beforehand, I will display the new designs down below.


Design 1, this is used on a hoodie.


Design 2, this is used on a beanie.

Group Critic


I created a group chat on Teams to communicate with my course peers, I then sent over a few screenshots of my website, asking for opinions on it.

This is the feedback I received:




Reflective journal

Overall I'm happy with the group critic feedback as everyone seemed to generally enjoy the design and appearance of the website. If possible, I will attempt to put some red accents onto the "Choose Options" page like Fenton suggested. I will also add more products to the store as well as opening up the target audience range slightly wider so that it caters for more people. 

Update: I have attempted to add some red accents onto the 'Choose Options' box but am unable to. I am not sure whether it is possible to do this with Shopify or if I am just missing the option but I cannot find it anywhere. I will continue to find a solution but it may be inevitable.

Marketing products

If I want to move forwards with promoting my business I need to create various social media accounts on popular platforms to gain further traction to my brand. 


Instagram account.


Twitter/X account.


TikTok account.


I posted to my Instagram account displaying a message reading 'Coming soon'. This is to build hype and create traction.

Reflective journal

Social media is very important when promoting a clothing brand online, these are some reasons why you should promote your brand on social media:
  • Further engagement
  • Targeted advertising
  • Insights and analytics
  • Showcasing visually to potential customers
  • Collaborations with other brands
Overall it is very important when growing your clothing brand to have a presence on some kind of social media platform as that is where you will be finding future customers.

Evaluation

I am glad that I have created my own print on demand website as it has been something new that I haven't experienced before, it has progressed much more positively than I thought it might have. The brief seemed quite daunting originally but as  I worked through it I picked up the pace and became more familiar with it. Many new skills were developed and improved on such as:

  • Further graphics design skills and techniques
  • Understanding print on demand services
  • Marketing skills
  • Promotion skills

During this project I have learnt how to sell my own products online using Shopify. I have also learn how to market my products, as well as many useful techniques along the way. I have worked to the brief requirements and completed this project on my own with no help. 

In my opinion the most enjoyable part of the project was creating the final website, I was really happy with the final result. The reason why I liked this part so much was because I was able to see the website get built up over time it finally ended up with something I was happy with. I also enjoyed creating the designs for the garments. I really liked creating the 'TMWTHA IWSAR' design the most as it was quite a different style, it had a special aesthetic which made it stand out.

If I had more time then I would focus on making more products to be displayed on the website.  I started making collections as I got closer to the deadline but I think that the Winter collection is still lacking in products. In the future as I promote my brand more I hope to make some sales and then motivates me to keep adding items onto my website.

I didn't experience many issues whilst completing this project. The only problems I had were when using Shopify, but that is because I'm not very familiar with the website and I'm sure I could eliminate these issues when I get more experienced with Shopify.

Overall I think I have done well in this project. I am proud with what I have achieved and the final website I produced. I have already noted any improvements I think I could have made but on the whole I think that the project has been a success and I have really enjoyed completing it.

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