In my next few blog posts I’m going to be going through my summative project and each stage. In a couple blog posts back I explained the brief for the project and in this post, I’m going to be exploring the first stage of that process, contexts.
Contexts is an extremely crucial part of this whole thing because it completely lays out the rest of the process. If you find yourself struggling with ideas (the next stage), chances are you haven’t exhausted the contexts stage enough. This is basically where you have to research the crap out of every single thing that comes to mind. We were given a trend story, mine being ‘Prints from the Past’, for the brand ‘AllSaints’, with a digital outcome. As I explained in my previous post, I was quite happy with this combination.
I began looking into my trend story and how prints had been used on the S/S 2020 catwalk.
Surprisingly, there were a whole lot of prints going on. Animal print, polka dots, stripes, and most predominantly, a lot of floral. From small ditsy print to large maximalist florals, they were all over the shop. One particular aspect which caught my eye was the references to the 60s and 70s, specifically the year 1969. Now, I love a good 70s flare and the 60s style is just wonderful, so this was instantly something I knew I wanted to explore more. I delved into flower power as well as late 60s – early 70s interior design, where a lot of the florals on the S/S 20 catwalk gave reference to wallpaper. Through research I saw the crazy in-your-face interiors of the time where everything was so bright and over-the-top. This is something I thought I could explore more through the project and how it would work with my brand, AllSaints.
I must admit, when I think of AllSaints, I instantly think of expensive leather jackets in a dark, grungey style. And through research, if found my instinct wasn’t too far off. AllSaints’ brand image is dark and edgy, with the store interior being very industrial. The brand has a very strong connection with music, having their own studios, as well as having ‘LA Sessions’, where artists perform, and the brand post videos on their social media and website. They also have a link with film, creating video campaigns to promote their clothing, rather than the traditional ways of promotion through a simple photoshoot.
These were all aspects that I thought gave me a basic understanding of the brand and where I could go with it. I later decided to conduct a survey to find out more about the consumers of the brand, and why other people choose not to shop there. This deeper understanding showed me people saw the brand as edgy but sophisticated, quite expensive, and often associated with leather jackets and t-shirts. This helped me figure out how people see the brand and how I can find solutions to the problems that may be associated with a digital outcome.
Researching into a digital outcome was quite a simple process as we had previously explored this in a seminar. I created mind maps on what a digital outcome could be, ranging from a blog to online campaigns on a viral platform. I also looked at the pros and cons of the digital world, where we can see things at an instant, but with constant competition from other fashion corporations. This meant I had to come up with an interesting idea that wasn’t just a revamp of the AllSaints’ website with some 60s floral wallpaper shoved on it.
At this point I kept each element quite separate because I wanted to exhaust them all before I tried thinking of ideas and concepts. I thought this would help my idea process by being able to look at each parts research and see how they could fit together. Don’t get me wrong, I had ideas in the back of my mind, but I kept them there, I didn’t want that to overshadow the research process.
After a long researching process, it was finally time to start developing ideas. Read my next blog post to see where I go next!
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