PCL

Charlie Crosby Level 06 2012/13 OUGD301 PCL.

A collaborative brief with Marty Edwards based on branding and screen printing with an aim of creating a platform to launch a fully functioning business and clothing label.

With this brief I wanted to look at retail and fashion trends to build a desirable and original clothing label to be sold online and at pop up events.

The retail industry is very big and ever changing so the branding and identity was to consider this and develop a plan to adapt to the changing demands of consumers and developing fashion trends.

This brief is intended to continue throughout the rest of level 6 and be rewritten into several other briefs that will focus on specific parts of building the brand and expanding the business.

Brand & Identity.

My side of the collaboration was to do the designing of the brand and identity. My time was mostly consumed by the deisgn of the logo and the concept development.

The logo OTTO stands for Obediah The Trend Original. Initially we came up with hundreds of names and concepts but nothign really appealed to us. One name that I came up with was Obediah which is a boys name meaning ‘servant of God’. We eventually settled on this name and built a concept around it. We want to create a faithful following of our label and treat our customers as though each and every one is important to us. We also understand that everyone is an individual and we wanted to offer them something unique. Thats where ‘The Trend Original’ came from.

The first range of clothes and products was developed through focussing on the branding. It made a lot od sense to reflect the brand in this first range as it would be the designs that would launch the business. The designs themsleves were never the focus of the brief but they became an essential part to the success of the branding.

With this brief being a collaboration I had to take into account Marty’s opinion and preference with respect when designing joint deliverables such as business cards. We made the choice to have both our details on them and perferate the card to symbolise that it takes both of us to make the brand.

bigcartel

Follow

us

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Social Media.

The second of my roles in the brief was to set up the social media and online presence of the label. This included designing for profile pictures and backgounds.

As well as setting up the social networks I needed to create something to direct people to them. Crossing over to print and creating a secondary business card which informs people of where to find us. For this I came up with the tag line ‘Follow Us’ to fit with the concept of the branding.

This then lead me to designing and tailoring the logos of the networks to fit with the aesthetic of the brand.

Skills development and collaboration.

The collaboration really cames together when my branding deisgn met Marty’s editorial skills and ideas. Marty role was to design the lookbook and refine the editorial elements to the branding.

We designed the prints for the clothing range seperately but developed them together through research and screenprinting. We came out with three designs each that went across the products. Working together we created designs that were appropriate to the branding through project based work.

The main skill that we have both developed is screen printing onto fabric. There were many differences that to paper screen printing that we didn’t anticipate but we know have a strong knowledge of the process and confidently printed over 50 products.