Viva La Français!

Bonjour ma chérie!!
Just thought id update my blog over the summer holidays!
Im off to Nice, France for two weeks! Lots of stunning architecture, culture and sights to see! Cant wait!
Hopefully be taking trips to Cannes, St Tropez, Monaco & many many more destinations! I think this holiday can give me inspiration for my disertation and also projects for my up-coming third year in my course. A little tan will also be very helpfull in the relaxation process before the start of the semester in September!
Hopefully go and see some exhibitions and museums while im out there!

Interior design Scotland

After a few too many drinks on Saturday night, come Sunday morning i glanced down at the newspaper. It contained as it normally does a home section which i usually have a quick look through! In this weeks edition there was a little magazine which is sponsored by the 'British institute of interior design'. It was actually very good and shows lots of interior's companies all over Scotland. What i found interesting was where these companies have worked and what they have accomplished. Honestly when i started this degree i thought... 'there aren't any jobs in that field but id rather do something i love than something i can just get a job in!' but after recent lectures and reading into interior/ architectural firms throughout the UK i have realised that yes, there aren't many jobs but the jobs out there are looking for something special. I need to stand out. Show my work. Read and research.

While looking through this little 40'ish page booklet i found nicely designed homes and hotels. Companies such as Malcolm Duffin in Fife, who have worked throughout Europe and America!

It was also very inspirational to see a snippet in titled, "the expert view, Iris Dunbar, Knowing interiors inside and out". Iris has been the president of the British institute of interior design... She has had 40 years of experience in the feild and now provides professional courses at the interior design school in north London! She also studied at Duncan of Jordanstone! Its good to see that people who have done my course in the past have moved on to achieve great things. I'm sure there are many more people to look up to but to see in a magazine a woman who has been in my position move onto teach and be so successful, its really promising!

If anything it has made me want to do better! and achieve greater! Whatever i decide to do after my degree is mine to achieve! I cant wait!

Carbonmade, Some first year projects.

This is a quick website i created which includes project presentation boards for our S.H.E.D project. It also shows my CAD class presentation, which shows my design for a new public seating which can be used in a mannor of ways.

Have a look! i achieved an A3 for my S.H.E.D project, which was inspired by drMM architects sliding house...

Portfolio website- http://catherinemyles.carbonmade.com/projects/2412282#1

Sliding house- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEUMVDEBea4

Assignment 5B

Relating back to semester one furniture project!


In this task i was asked to write a bit about how i would change a recent studio project by adding skills from semesters one and two if had the chance to it again.As this year we have mainly focused on group briefs i was unsure which to write about but i think i shall go with the furniture project of semester one.
For this project we were put into groups of three and asked to design a piece of furniture. After awhile we came up with a concept for creating a chair. we researched different kind of chair designs and loved designs by droog so decided to incorporate the idea of mobility with a seat. Our main idea was based around the idea of sitting next to someone. We designed 3 stools which can be connected together or become totally isolated. this was our main idea behind it. The idea was that if you wanted to sit next to a friend you could connect to them. if you didn't want to sit next to someone you could take the stool away and connect to someone else. We were also asked to incorporate colour and show what that colour represented and what mood we were trying to portray.
Observation skills were used a lot during this process so i would be lying if i said that we should observe people to see if the sit next to strangers willingly... On a bus for example people try to find a seat by themselves, they don't want to be sat next to.
Using the pictures could work from assignment two as we could ask people what emotions different chairs bring or different colours make you feel... there could be a series of photos and we could ask them to write their own imaginative story based around them.
Maybe we could have done more research into how people sit and want to sit for example we designed our stools to be based in a shopping center, ideally they would be tagged and let loose almost to see where in say the overgate they would end up. We found this really interesting how people can move their seats in public. its a fun game. As they are on wheels its very simple to move them.
We might have been a lot more aware about the design of the product for the public through what we have learnt from design studies. Perhaps we could have thought more about the durability of the product, oak is a good, strong material to use but is very expensive also, would this be possible in a cheaper form? will it still look good? do the job its made to do? We might have designed different sizes, different styles, different personalities for our chairs i think. I personally would have liked to see a "family" of them. Taller stools, shorter stools, thinner stools, longer stools... the possibilities are endless.
I think the main thing Design Studies has shown me, (without sucking up too much!) is that blogging is what we need to do today to get ourselves seen and heard by the world. The world is too huge and without blogging how will anyone hear of your work? blogs are brilliant! i have found different blogs i am really interested and am loving! For example Ric O'barry's 'save japan dolphins' blog is really inspiring and i really look up to his conservation efforts. I think the blogging process makes you more laid back about writing also. Its not as formal as an essay, its almost like your notepad its somewhere for you to connect with your friends in the world of design/ the world! Get yourself heard!!

Assignment 5A

Branding

Successful product branding is dependant on lots of things. If you can clearly show the message and get to know clients needs and wants you will ultimately be onto a success. I want to investigate how some brands are defeating other brands, what makes some brands more successful than others? how can we change our perceptions of perfection? i want to find out the meaning behind the advertising, the production of the products and how much toxic chemicals are released into the atmosphere each year. facts like that will shock the public and change our idea of a perfect lifestyle.

The American marketing association (AMA) identifies a brand as a ‘name, term, sign, symbol, design’, or a combination of them. Therefore good branding is achieved by understanding your target market and providing answers to their problems. You must not only deliver the message well but connect and motivate the client in a way in which they want to use your work again, you need to prove your loyalty to the project. You must also take the time to research and produce the message behind your brand. Why? Who is it aimed at? You must ask yourself these questions while in the process of creating a brand image.

Brand image sells your product. The product sells your brand. Good quality and aesthetics lead to your brand becoming a success. Word of mouth is spread from person to person like an air born infection if a new product comes out which is about to revolutionise how we live our lives on a daily basis. Ground breaking technology seems to come forward, gradually out-doing its competition. It’s crazy; we live in a throw-away society. The “stuff” we buy turns into junk within a matter of months. New “stuff” comes out, promising to be better, do more “stuff” and make you look good, feel good. Landfills are piling high full of our so called revolutionary technology.

Recently I saw the film ‘valentine’s day’ and it made me think of the pressure we are subconsciously put through. The amount of brand power involved in the film industry is immense. Everything and anything is advertised through the film industry and celebrities. In this film there happened to be a tone of celebs, they all seem flawless. You buy into this persona, they are acting. People see on these films how good the actors/ celebrities look and buy into it, they want to create this perfection for themselves. It’s a lot of pressure to be under, especially for young teens. Magazines are a prime example, flicking through any magazine but especially things like vogue you can see a tone of adverts calling out to you. They are crammed full of pressure brought forward by the branding and advertising to make you want to buy their products. I like to call it the “coolness factor”.

As i am focusing on brands it would be an obvious start to pick a couple of brands that that popular and work well, appealing to different categories of people and contrasting them with brands that have failed. These failed/ failing brands may have been regenerated, like Marks & spencers. They may have gone out of business. But that is what i would start of by doing. Researching different brands and where they stand in the current market. I would look at profits and comprise a series of line graphs to show the increase of sales/ decreases over a certain time period. From there i would then decide if that brand is a successful one or a negative one based on the facts on paper. This would be a good starting point because after all my research is conducted i can compare the “facts on paper” with the more “psychological experiments.”

Why are some brands more successful than others? To answer this I need to really think outside the box. I will need to use lots of different social experiments to help me come up with the answer. I don’t want to focus on one type of product i want to focus on many different ones. Clothes, technology, kitchens! You name it. One of the brands i really like just now is innocent smoothies! I particularly even like smoothies. Its the simplistic packaging and easy message that has gained the respect from the consumer. Products like this deserve to succeed, that use simple messages and that are good honest products.

Through thinking of branding in a supermarket i would randomly select a few different well known products from well known companies and then also purchase the same cheaper supermarket equivalent. I will then go and ask a random selection of people to choose which product they would go for if they would go into a shop. Then using a quick set of questions I would then ask about the packaging, design, ease of use, also ask things like which one looks simpler to cook and which looks nicer. Why did people choose that? What kind of people were they? Using observation skills, what wear their physical appearance? Were they healthy looking? Did they have children? After the interviewing process did I notice a visible difference in results? Did I expect the results to be that way?

Relating to the short video we watched in Design Studies based on young teens who were obsessed with labels and brands. I also decided to focus on clothing. Using different styles and focusing on the latest trends i would do the same experiment as the supermarket food but instead buy clothes from high end retail store and low end retail store. I would then see if different age groups act differently to branding. Would children care more than their parents? I found this quite interesting after watching that cringe worthy programme! Was I as bad when I was growing up? Yes i was obsessed with ‘Tammy Girl’ and ‘Claire’s accessories’ but i don’t think it was as bad for me growing up as it is now. Kids get physically and mentally bullied by not having the latest trends or by wearing old trainers. I decided i would test this in my proposal. I want to find out why, and if we can convince people to change their opinions on branding.

As i have decided to repeat the test again i can then compare the results i gained. This will make the results more accurate and if it all goes wrong i have a plan B. If the results fail completely i would then re-do my experiment and use banners and observe how many people went u and viewed the banners. I would have one for say a high end retailer such as topshop and a less desirable one such as Primark. I would have information on the posters about the hottest new trends in store so if it was topshop it might be the ‘new’ boyfriend blazer trend, and in Primark it could be simple printed cotton tops? I would want to make it a fair test by having the same amount of information on each. After doing this, I would place them in certain locations, around Dundee/ Scotland? I would then choose a safe distance and tally the amount of people that stopped and viewed each poster. I would observe the type of people, are they fashionable? What body image do they portray? After doing this i would count the results and see if i could count as people with bags from the two shops and almost observe how many people would choose topshop over Primark and vice versa.

In conclusion i propose to to answer the questions relating to brand power. I plan to observe, interview, test and research my line of thought in an attempt to change public perception of branding itself. i hope that as a human beings we can look past packaging and see what is beneath the exterior of the purchase. Are the two contrasting companies products made in exactly the same companies? with exactly the same materials? what makes something more expensive. why is topshop 10x more expensive than shops such as primark? these are the things i would like i look into further. I want to test the public and show them what is under the sexy branding surface. I want to dig deeper and uncover the truth of the products.

bibliography.

Lake Laura, American marketing association (AMA)

http://marketing.about.com/es/brandmktg/a/whatisbranding.htm , 2009

Sketchbooking!

Wanna see my sketch book cover?! no? ok... ill show you anyway!

I usually just buy a sketchbook from DoJ but recently in class we have been attending a book binding class at the DCA! its all to do with our project and lets us have one-on-one time with Emma Fraser our client. Its good fun... and at home while i was ill and bored i decided to have an attempt of making a cover for my sketches... i used paper mache! simple stuff then tore out different colours and textures from magazines and newspapers and made a wee collage!

Assignment 4- Interviews

I chose to interview people about how celebrity culture effects branding of products!

I started thinking how these interviews could help me in the proposal writing process so decided to focus on a sub-topic of the branding culture.

I started off asking people who their idols were. who they looked up to... almost like a pre-interview attempt... i found that this varied depending on the gender and age.

The experiment

The question

I asked 3 people who their celebrity idol was. I also asked why and if they would buy a product endorsed by that particular person. Who wouldn't they buy a product back by...

An eleven year old female was asked the question, she responded Miley Cyrus because she is pretty, young and successful. She also started out singing when she was around the subjects age and looks up to her. She said she wouldn't want anything advertised by a man as it wouldn't be girly enough especially not a sportsman, such as david beckham.

20 year old male, was asked the same questions, he responded obviously different than subject one. he said he looks up to "the usual people" so when i asked who they were he struggled to come up with a name which i found quite strange. Maybe because he was on the spot i don't know but he struggled! eventually he said he looks up to music bands especially pop/ punk bands such as muse. When i asked why he said he wasn't sure just because of the way they dress and likes their music. He said he wouldn't buy products endorsed by younger singers such as Justin beiber...

19 year old female, was asked the same thing, responded quite interesting actually... she said she would buy a product from a man and a woman. i found this interesting as my other subjects had a clear dislike to a certain person or image. She didnt seem to mind. what she said was interesting as she said if a girl was selling you a product like cheryl cole she would buy it because if she thought a successful woman would buy it and use it then she should! She also said if a hunky man was telling her to buy a certain perfume or something she probably would because he would like the smell and she would appeal to him more... this got me thinking a lot...

There are some things that cant be done! Say if Gerard Butler was to advertise tampons?! Would women run out and buy them?! probably not... they wouldn't because he doesn't understand what a woman needs and wants. but if he was to advertise say a t-shirt then they would probably buy it! As subject 3 said she would buy something to get the attention of the celebrity. He obviously liked it enough to advertise it so people respect this and want to buy it because they want him.

I then asked them what they thought about interior design in general... i asked them to sum up my discipline in 3 words. what i got back was pretty expected... "pillows, throws, wallpaper" not "ground breaking brilliance!" i asked myself why?! why do people not understand what interiors is about?! i realised i had to admit ok... it is a tiny proportion to do with wallpaper and cushions and throws... but it is more to do with emotion and expression! Peoples needs and wants. Architecture, historic features, design for hotels... Design is about people, my discipline is no different, Laurence Llewelyn Bowen is the reason people believe interiors is a about decoration. flamboyant patterns and faux fur galore! Its not... Even when i tell people on the street what i do they say to me ... "oh i need my living room decorated ill give u a shout!"... Its quite annoying how stereotypes are fueled by hundreds of TV programmes. don't get me wrong i loved watching changing rooms when i was younger but it has totally destroyed peoples opinions on interiors in my opinion.