Monday, December 10, 2007

Sneaker Design School, The Hand-In

This week compiled of a 36-hour adrenaline crazed design marathon. After battling sleep and forgetting to eat, there were a few hurdles in the form of people and transport on the way to hand-in. A last minute sprint up several flights of stairs to the registry office saw me slam it down in the final minute If I’m honest this is the closest I’ve ever got to missing the deadline, ‘never again’ mmm de-ja-vu.

This term consisted of a giant sketchbook, mood-boards, consumer boards and a 3500-word essay on the concept development. This outlines the general footwear market, the trainer market, consumer habits, needs, and concerns. It’s something that you are supposed to be working on throughout the term. Planning for this is essential, there are a lot of area’s to cover, and the work count is rapidly reached. ‘a picture can say a thousand words’ is a comment regularly made by tutor’s, so the finished report has charts, tables, and images.
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Presentation and organisation is key for all work, which is hard if you’re known as ‘eclectic’ or messy.

The concept development is there to sell the idea, and show you have found a gap in the market.
There are market research web sites, like Mintel and Verdict, that you have to find secondary research about consumers, lifestyle, shopping habits and predictions for the markets future. It is the written version of your sales pitch, if you’re not there to explain can your work speak for itself?

Sounds long, but this helps to organise your ideas, and give direction to the project.
It’ so easy to get carried away with research, the overspill of my research litters my bedroom floor,
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
^some of what I couldn’t fit in my sketchbook.

Once you’ve given all you’ve got, you have a brief recovery to get your sugar levels back up, and then the next day you’re told about the Strategy Report to be handed-in in January.
It’s on a realistic time-scale, there are no holidays in Industry. It lives at a fast paced and it’s raw.

All the work paid off, and I attained a first.

Work hard, party hard!
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

No comments: