The world is full of stereotypes, which means there are a whole bunch of people like me who don’t really fit in. I wanted to design and build a business venture, that recreated the feeling I had on a military camp, but for the nerdy social outcasts like myself.
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The brief and why
In The Wire
I’m also a nerd, a big one, video games, board games, card games, films and comics/books, anything nerd culture, I probably do it / watch it / read it.
Research and Development - Timothy Stokes u1575572
The brief and why To some, I may be considered a social outcast. There is no place I would call home, at least not in the conventional sense, and I have uprooted enough times to be good at making friends, and good at moving on. There is one place I will always feel safe though; on a military camp. Inside the wire, one may say.
In The Wire
Choosing a name The naming process went through many iterations, the majority of already existing shops of pop culture content have pretty generic, obvious names. “Something games” “Pop Culture Reference” “Geographical location comics”
Choosing a name
Nothing stood out boldly enough, nothing had the Impact I wanted nor created the feel I wanted, so I went back to the drawing board, and to the reason why I was working with this brief. It all became obvious.
Research and Development - Timothy Stokes u1575572
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In The Wire The Wire
THE WIRE
THE WIRE
The Wire I had spoken the name a hundred times before I even realised it would be the name, I had used it as an analogy to why so many times, always helping the person I was describing the brief to understand. Yet I had looked over it, the simplicity, the boldness. Admittedly there were some issues, The Wire is already a big magazine and TV series, leading to a need to adjust, elaborate. Make the name too long, it loses the impact, remove too much from it and it doesn’t transfer the point.
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Research and Development - Timothy Stokes u1575572
THE WIRE
In The Wire
The Content Nerd culture is a broad and varietal world, so deciding on the content influences for the shop is a task of it’s own, if you try to include everything, the shop will look like a mismatched market of stalls, include not enough and the shop would never be successful enough.
The Content
Deciding what to include took market research and talking to other people in the industry. Success and popularity vs Profit Margins and “overselling”.
Research and Development - Timothy Stokes u1575572
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In The Wire Finances
So if you stack your shelves with all the best brands and popular products, you may find that you make alot of sales, yet you don’t make enough money to stay afloat, and in the same way if you stock all the lesser known brands with better margins, you’ll make less sales and again, not stay afloat.
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Research and Development - Timothy Stokes u1575572
Finances Nerd Culture is very brand oriented, and one of the biggest considerations of a business selling these brand’s products ismargins. The really popular and successful brands generally come with tight margins, and strict sales rules.
In The Wire
Types of Product Choosing the type of product is also an Important part of creating the feel and design of the store. There are many different types of product that fit under the nerd culture roof.
Types of Product
The store is supposed to be a supermarket for nerd culture, a get everything kind of place. The best way, after checking out other stores, is to take a waterstones/book store style approach. Dividing the store into sections divided by brand and product. The idea is to focus on Card Games, Board Games, Tabletop Games, Books, Memorabilia and Graphic Novels.
Research and Development - Timothy Stokes u1575572
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In The Wire Warm Gray - C32 M30 Y32 K80 Off Black - C78 M68 Y61 K86 White - C0 M0 Y0 K0
Off Black - C78 M68 Y61 K86 Black - C91 M79 Y62 K97 White - C0 M0 Y0 K0
Working with Colour Nerd culture branding is so full of colour, I had to choose a colour palette to show it off to it’s best, yet still maintain the brands own impact and memorability. It was obvious that using an off black was going to be the ideal starting point. Whether to go for a Cool Grey, Warm Grey or pure off black was the main decision though.
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Research and Development - Timothy Stokes u1575572
Refining the Brand
Cool Gray - C44 M34 Y22 K77 Off Black - C78 M68 Y61 K86 White - C0 M0 Y0 K0
In The Wire
Logo with barbed wire across the top of the H
Logo with barbed wire replacing the crossbeam of the H
Working with Colour
Logo with crossbeam barbed wire expanded and made bolder
Research and Development - Timothy Stokes u1575572
Refining the Brand With the product decisions out of the way, it’s time to return to the name, and expand upon it. The Wire needed to be expanded, yet keep the same impact and simplicity. The decision was eventually made to change it to “In The Wire” and as such it was time to begin working on the wordmark.
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In The Wire Research and Development - Timothy Stokes u1575572
What was found was a challenging building, yet one I felt was perfect. Three spacious floors, lots of character and enough window space Combined with wall space (Wall space is important for the interior)
Finding the Property
Finding the Property With the branding coming along, it was time to find a premesis to overhaul. I’ve always dreamed of living and working in or around Edinburgh, so I looked for a building, something with lots of character.
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In The Wire The Outcome
The Outcome Now is probably a good time to say that my FMP isn’t actually about buying a building and setting up a business in Edinburgh (Unfortunately!)
Research and Development - Timothy Stokes u1575572
However creating a model concept of the building? Definitely possible, the direction of the project shifted at this stage, instead of going for a branding campaign, it became about creating the concept, the artworking behind it and the envisioning of actual store. I had to step back into research mode, and start looking at existing nerd culture stores, how they looked and felt, how I could create something new yet capitalize on their success.
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In The Wire Digitalizing the building
With the reference Images I had found, I created the basic form of the building I had selected in Edinburgh. This allowed me to work out what I needed for both the exterior design and interior design ready for laser cutting and UV printing.
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Research and Development - Timothy Stokes u1575572
Digitizing the building With the building selected, it was time to hit up sketchup. I had used it 9 years ago during my Product Design A-level, and it was by far the easiest way to model a building in my experience.
In The Wire Designing for laser cutting
File with no brickwork etching
File with red etching for brickwork
Research and Development - Timothy Stokes u1575572
Designing for laser cutting My first design for laser cutting was the plain shell, straight from the 3d Model, I extended the image in height as I had miscalculated the height of the building from the reference images. The design truly came together with the brickwork etching though, the character of the building, lost with the plain nature of vector imagery returned (at least somewhat). The first test went very well, And with a little more detail on some of the more plain areas. The Design for laser cutting was complete. Photo of first cutting attempt
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In The Wire Getting the Feel
What modern company doesn’t have a website to tie their brand together andpromote exposure. The Wire website mockup is a simple website, not complicated, all product categories are presented on the main page.
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Research and Development - Timothy Stokes u1575572
Getting the Feel With the physical project coming along nicely, it was time to return to the digital, I find mockups to be incredibly useful when imagining settings and situations, and what is one of the most Iconic things for a store? The bag, think Abercrombie, Victoria’s Secret and Crewe. I wanted to create something similar, enter the In the Wire bag, a strong bag with soft plastic handles styled as barbed wire.
In The Wire
Four layer interior artworking for being layered
The Interior
The Interior The Interior design is based on creating a 3d feel using multiple 2d layers seperated within the building. My initial design was a very cold, commercial looking concept, a sort of concept of the space, not what fills it. Research and Development - Timothy Stokes u1575572
After much deliberation, the decision was made to keep the style, but add character and bring the building to life by, adding characters, all related to the products and themes of the shop itself. There will be four layers, all UV printed on Acrylic sheets so that you get a feel for the building without modelling every little thing inside. Layers unseperated with added characters
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In The Wire The Exterior
The other will be fully opened up so you can see the full interior, on the exterior side, the printing is only a single layer, which can provide a challenge on depth perception, which is easily defeated on the interior layers. I felt keeping it simple was the best approach. The UV printing will take place on two A3 sheets of Acrylic, one of which will be cut at the top for the roof.
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Research and Development - Timothy Stokes u1575572
The Exterior The Building will have two showsides, one showing the full laser cut exterior, with windows that will have printed content on them, but you will also be able to see the Interior layers at an angle.
In The Wire Contruction of the building Research and Development - Timothy Stokes u1575572
Construction of the building The building itself is designed around being simple to construct, 3 built up sides, the two back ones with boarded up windows and the front side with open windows with acrylic behind. On the cut out side, there will be 8 acrylic sheets, 4 layers 2 high, slotted in through the top with MDF slots on each side to hold them in place. The roof will sit ontop of the supports for the acrylic, the base will act as a plinth, where the entire building can be pulled off of the plinth.
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Research and Development - Timothy Stokes u1575572
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In The Wire
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