"Taking care of business"
Studio Brief Working in groups of four you will construct a business plan or business proposal for a creative design studio and present it to your peers and tutors in an formatively assessed, oral presentation. Your plan/proposal and presentation should be based on the analysis and content that you have been introduced to throughout the module.Background / Considerations Four heads are better than one as long as they communicate. You will now have the luxury of four pairs of hands. How will you use them effectively? You will need to consider the following: What skills and services do you have to offer? Who is your target market? Who is your competition and how will you compete? What are your costs, charges and financial considerations? How will you structure your studio? Who will be responsible for what? How will you promote your services? To who? Using what media?
It is essential that you refer to a range of marketing models and recognise business ‘start-up’ principles in order to gain a pass. You must make reference to the course materials, books and web sites to demonstrate your understanding.
The presentation will be 10 mins long. You should use appropriate visual aids and printed material to support your presentation. Evidence of the research and development of your presentation and visual material should be posted to your PPD blog and labelled with the module code. You should also post pdf versions of your presentation, notes and handouts to your PPD blog.
Background / Considerations
Four heads are better than one as long as they communicate.
You will now have the luxury of four pairs of hands.
How will you use them effectively?
You will need to consider the following:
What skills and services do you have to offer?
Who is your target market?
Who is your competition and how will you compete?
What are your costs, charges and financial considerations?
How will you structure your studio?
Who will be responsible for what?
How will you promote your services?
To who?
Using what media?
Group starting points
Beginning this project, we all identified our strengths which lead us all down specific roles for the duration of this project.
Who are we - Alex
Logo identity - Ryan
Logo implementation - Ryan
Business concept - Alex
Design studio - Liam
Location - Liam
Our clients - Matt
Figures - Matt
T&C - Matt
Website - Jamie
Social Media - Jamie
Logos and branding progress:
Here shows the progression of our companies branding and our final logo, this was created by Alex accompanied by Liam, each of us had our inputs into the process and by the end of the design stages, we were all in a unanimous decision that this was the branding that was going to represent our company and were all very happy with the aesthetics of it.
The final logo and choices of typeface are found here.
Website and wires
Jamie wire framed up our website at the very start and after we had our branding figured out, we imported it into the site, at this stage something required a re evaluating but eventually we arrived at a stage where the website was something we were very happy with and felt would work very successfully for our company.
Photographs - My Role
I was in charge of photography for this project and photography for the business if it was going to set sail. Photographs in this project were important for our branding as it gave much more of a personal feel and involved the whole 'tailored to you' experience as you got to chose your designer and see their smiling, approachable faces.
Here are 3 alterations to the photographs, I had to alter the photographs to give them the same feel and colour scheme as the rest of the branding, this wasn't something that was necessary and not much photography needs to be found on our website anyway.
Business combs
The combs were Alex's creation as an alternative for business combs. We chose to get these laser cut into thin ply wood to get the rustic effect that would suit our business.
We all took our shifts laser cutting and learning how the process happened.
Each member of Barbered design had their own personalised comb which involved their details.
These were to be handed out as special touch to heads of businesses and high fliers. These would result more costly that a standard business card, but have much more of a personal touch which would have a lasting effect.
Social media elements - My 2nd Role
I was in charge of the social media aspects of the company and would be the media representative.
For this role I mocked up a facebook and twitter profile. I digitally mocked these up rather than creating proper accounts due to time constraints and also the use of having real media platforms would not be massively useful at this stage.
In the future tense we would consider creating a Linkedin account and also an instagram. I didn't mock up a Linked in account due to the fact that not a lot of design goes on on the Linkedin interface and it wouldn't be much to show.
If this company was to be going ahead, as I mentioned I would be in charge of the social media aspects:
For this role I mocked up a facebook and twitter profile. I digitally mocked these up rather than creating proper accounts due to time constraints and also the use of having real media platforms would not be massively useful at this stage.
In the future tense we would consider creating a Linkedin account and also an instagram. I didn't mock up a Linked in account due to the fact that not a lot of design goes on on the Linkedin interface and it wouldn't be much to show.
If this company was to be going ahead, as I mentioned I would be in charge of the social media aspects:
Costing and location
The location of our site is based on the company we eventually aspire to be, focussing around the personal feel of the business and the concept of barber etiquette to meet and greet our clients, for this reason we have chosen to eventually aspire to achieve to renting a property in the Headingly area in Leeds, which would be kitted out to have the appearance of a barber shop but obviously functioning as a design agency.
Here is where the costings for our business are found.
These have specifically been worked out by Matthew to be the most achievable, effective, profitable and leave us in a position for growth when it comes to the premise.
Taking care of business was a group brief that I enjoyed for once. Each of the members of the group combining to form a feasible design business proposal. I felt that I put in my fair share of work into the groups outcomes, where members of the team lead with the design and branding of the group, other members still had their inputs, as did I.
Forming a design business with friends is something I would consider doing in later life, but first I feel my confidence in approaching work and client projects would have to be boosted and I feel I have a cynical view on finding live projects in the outside world.
