This week largely involved shooting in-house in the Forever Unique HQ studio. Shooting in a studio on-site has some advantages, including having all samples already located on the grounds and having access to adequate changing/hair & make-up areas, steamers, lighting, colour rolls and props etc. which keep the shoots flexible and casual. It does however make it harder when very little budget is allocated to a shoot - as is often the case with the brand - and so there can be limitations to what is achievable. One of my briefs prior to the two shoots this week which centred around the themes of Faux Leather & Jackets, was to find a shoot concept which didn't involve the use of a model in order to cut costs. I looked to Pinterest for inspiration, as well as a number of different brands on Instagram for interesting campaign content. I'm happy with the final images, which I co-styled along with Mark, as they remain very on-brand to the Forever Unique personality while also appearing quite experimental.
I had several meetings which seemed to drag on foreeeeever as the team has grown by several new members in the past couple of weeks. A new Social Media Manager has started and is bringing fresh ideas about what she'd like to see across Forever Unique's social media platforms in order to gain the highest level of engagement possible. I really like and appreciate all of her ideas so it'll be good to see engagement levels increase over the coming months and have more and more people see the content I'm producing there. The flat lays I create always get a higher level of engagement than average which really excites me! One of her ideas was to compress the Instagram and Snapchat stories structure into a more compact format where each image of a garment also features its name and a reminder to use the stoppable function all in one quick sequence. This keeps the audience alert and interested, meaning that they are less likely to click away or swipe through the story without properly digesting the information.
In keeping with the way I seem to begin every post, this week has yet again been very intense and high-pressured. With the launch of the A/W17 campaign now fully underway, a lot of time is being put into creating up-to-date content. I get the impression that this season, the creative team are trying to be much more daring and striving to create content which is more challenging. In light of this, my role this week largely involved assisting on shoots. The prospect of being partially responsible for the creation of content which will roll across social media, the website, the three-times-weekly email newsletters and various other aspects of the campaign is very daunting. Nevertheless, I really enjoy the freedom to explore new things and take creative risks that comes with this placement. This week, I created a series of flatlays for all of the soon-to-be-released handbags which will launch this coming season and I'm so happy with the results, especially now that Mark, head of creative, has edited them in post-production. Creating effective flat lays requires a really fine attention to detail and a methodical approach in terms of experimenting with all possible compositions and angles possible. I'd really like to use my strength in product photography to my advantage in final year somehow, whether it be during the magazine project or my final major project.
This week I took on a really big responsibility to fill in for an absent team member by being in charge of the social media coverage while assisting on a shoot which involved Shelby tribble, a blogger 'taking over' the Forever Unique social channels for the day. While juggling my photoshoot assistant skills of steaming clothes, hanging samples, keeping things running smoothly and generally lending a helping hand wherever possible, I also had to keep Forever Unique's Instagram and Snapchat feeds updated regularly throughout the day with interesting and integrative content. It was really interesting to learn more about Instagram's business features on this day, and I enjoyed being able to trial functions firsthand, such as linking images and video clips from Instagram stories straight to the shoppable Forever Unique website. It was really refreshing to get out of the office for half a day for a location shoot. I was part of a very small team that day which literally consisted of myself and Eilidh, plus the photographer and Shelby, the blogger, so a lot of responsibility was very much on my shoulders. My experience on shoots at Fabulous was really valuable, but this time it was exciting to get to have more of an influence in styling Shelby's accessories myself and directing her poses occasionally. I had to be switched on at all times in order to also get good quality content to upload to the social media channels, which would have been difficult if I hadn't been enjoying myself as much as I was.
This week I was also much more involved in the planning process behind the shoots, tasked with creating mood boards for all of the upcoming shoots all the way through to October. I did this by using the creative team's pinterest boards to find inspiring and relevant images before arranging them on inDesign. I was also tasked with the mission of reaching out to companies and organisations which could assist with our ideas. This week, I've send out what felt like several hundred emails to arcade, amusement and fairground businesses as well as the Southport and Blackpool councils to pay to use a fairground setting as a backdrop to the images for Forever Unique's christmas campaign. I've also reached out to several bars in the Manchester area and organised for myself, Eilidh and Mark to visit some to look at for more potential shoot locations. These tasks really reminded me of the event module which we completed for Stephen at the end of the final term of second year, so it didn't feel to alien for me to be emailing a high number of people at once to arrange logistics and costings.
The past four weeks in my second internship position at Forever Unique have been quite intense, hence the backlog of journal entries as I haven't managed to keep on top of my blog week by week.
I've been quite caught up in the stress and demands of a 40 hour week so I am really appreciative for this time where I can sit and reflect on how my skill-set is developing as my internship progresses. I've just reread through my first month's journal entries with Forever Unique which has actually been so valuable in reminding myself about how much can change during a month. I still feel just as overwhelmed and anxious a lot of the time during the week because so much is expected of me, although at this stage I do recognise that I have the capability to achieve difficult tasks - if only I wasn't limited by a lack of time, communication, budget and man power at the company. I am really struggling to adapt to the working environment which I'm finding to be unprofessional at times, and often incredibly bitchy. Communication falters on a daily basis and I often feel like I'm being deliberately left in the dark about things that would actually help me to know more about. I don't fully know how I'm supposed to approach this kind of problem as an intern, where I'm very cautious about not overstepping the mark and fully aware that I am a representative of the uni and the course above all else. I don't want to feel uncomfortable in a place I spend most of my week in for the entirety of my placement year, so this is just one of the many reasons which brings me back to the big debate inside my head about whether I'm going to be able to stick out a whole year here.
Nevertheless, looking back on the work I produced in my first month has made me really appreciate how much I've enhanced so many skills since then. There have been some issues with the allocation of my tasks and the rest of the team not being clear that my time is limited and tasks that they would like me to complete aren't especially my priority. I've had to adjust to prioritising my tasks very quickly, which was hard during the first month (and still is to some extent even now) because I have never been given an extensive list of my tasks or a job description to refer to. My roles in the past four weeks have included creating GIFs for social media stories, producing content like quotes for social media posts, assisting on shoots, researching into ideas for the recently launched AW17 campaign, producing flat lay compositions to be photographed for content across all social media and website/email-newsletter assets, and generally undertaking any other creative task asked of me which this month, has included painting suitcases to be sent as press packs to various department stores, organising the jewellery in the studio, arranging sets, renaming hundreds of files, designing e-flyers for the US wholesale side of the company and even making an impromptu trip to IKEA for some showroom furniture!
I have attached a variety of my favourite creations from the past month onto this post - many of which were only created this week, which is a good sign that I am progressing well even if I've often been feeling like I haven't. I definitely feel like I have a greater understanding of the brand and I can see that I'm beginning to develop my own personal style to express the brand's personality. Finding a voice for the brand on social media was something I really wanted to do during my first month so I'm glad that I have begun this process and feedback from the management team has been positive.
I had several meetings which seemed to drag on foreeeeever as the team has grown by several new members in the past couple of weeks. A new Social Media Manager has started and is bringing fresh ideas about what she'd like to see across Forever Unique's social media platforms in order to gain the highest level of engagement possible. I really like and appreciate all of her ideas so it'll be good to see engagement levels increase over the coming months and have more and more people see the content I'm producing there. The flat lays I create always get a higher level of engagement than average which really excites me! One of her ideas was to compress the Instagram and Snapchat stories structure into a more compact format where each image of a garment also features its name and a reminder to use the stoppable function all in one quick sequence. This keeps the audience alert and interested, meaning that they are less likely to click away or swipe through the story without properly digesting the information.
