International Bridalwear Linesheet | Forever Unique

I was really excited to create this linesheet for an upcoming overseas bridal event as part of the Forever Unique brand's American wholesale branch - a task which I was given full management of by liasing back and forth with the various departments. I was initially briefed by the wholesale Sales Executive who had been requested to feedback the linesheet to the international team within a very restricted timeframe. I was provided with a basic list of styles which should be included in the linesheet as well as the key information of the particular event that this marketing material was intended for. The intention of a linesheet is to promote the pieces available in a catalogue format at a showcasing event such as the Atlanta Apparel Market in the USA, to encourage international retailers to stock a concession of the Forever Unique collection. To support this, I developed the format of the linesheet in order to tell a particular story surrounding the event. This particular event at the Atlanta Apparel Market centred around bridalwear, so I merchandised the product listings I had been provided by splitting the styles into specific wedding/occasion categories including Bridal Shower, Bachelorette and Bridesmaid. This ensured that the linesheet would flow well and that retailers browsing through it would be able to make sense of the large number of different styles, identifying which pieces would be better suited to their brand and target customer based on the occasion. Reviewing and editing was vital before submission of the linesheet, in order to make sure that no mistakes had been made in labelling the names and product codes of the styles. I liased back with and forth with the international team to confirm that the contact and address details were up-to-date and the Sales team to confirm that they were happy with the final product.

Brand Profile | Forever Unique

I was presented with the task of designing a ‘Brand Profile’ this week by a newly obtained member of staff, a Branding Manager. It became exceptionally clear during the process of this project that this organisation has some fundamental issues with communication across departments and within them. The briefing process was completely deficient; I was approached in person by the new manager (whom I had never previously met) with nothing recorded in writing and expected to understand and memorise the requirements of the task in full with limited instruction. Moreover, I wasn’t given information on the purpose of the Brand Profile - from its audience to its final destination. Basically, I was extremely ill-equipped to take on such a large task - and while I don’t want to pass the blame onto others for my disappointment in the final outcome, I know that I wasn’t supported throughout the duration of the design process as an intern should be. The fault in this laid entirely in the time management and communication skills of the responsible manager. I was not set a realistic or cemented timeframe in which to complete the task and no consideration was given to my other work commitments which suffered as a result. I didn’t have time to eat lunch, drink enough water or even regularly go to the toilet as I tried frantically not to disappoint the senior managers that I deeply wanted to impress. If a system exists in a workplace where any member of staff has to sacrifice their physical and mental needs to complete a task, there is clearly a very serious problem with the way the business is being run - especially when that member of staff is an intern. In hindsight, I realise that I should not have sacrificed so much to complete the task but rather worked at a healthy pace. I regret that I let myself get so flustered by the stress. 

The most challenging part of this task was being solely responsible for chasing up other departments for necessary assets, such as copy from the Copy Editor or suitable/preferred E-commerce imagery from the Campaign Manager. Naturally, these assets arrived late - only increasing my stress level - because each individual member of staff who contributed to the Brand Profile also had absolutely no idea of its contents or final purpose. Nevertheless I was extremely grateful for their support, although the rest of the team were left quite powerless and uninformed to assist me. Their was no plan in place for exactly which images or copy would be required, so it was often left up to me - an intern with 3 months of experience at the business - to decide what I thought would be most appropriate. I feel very despondent in the fundamental design of the Brand Profile itself, because I was instructed to replicate the design of an outdated branding material which no longer represents the branding and personality of the Forever Unique brand as I know it. This is even more frustrating given that the Brand Profile centres around the SS18 Collection which will be even more outdated in comparison to the campaigns and materials produced by my Retail Team when the collection is promoted early next year. I was very limited creatively by this, and with the added pressures of restrictive time limitations, I was always doomed to struggle with achieving my full capabilities.

Truthfully, I’m still not especially clear on the purpose of this 33-page long Brand Profile. I am unsure who is using it, or distributing it, or whether it serves any informative benefit. I hadn’t quite fully realised how negatively I felt about the process of creating this project until penning it to my Critical Journal, which has been beneficial at least in getting my thoughts together in order to develop a critical understanding of the briefing process within this company. Because of the demands of this project, I missed out on my opportunity to assist on the Christmas campaign shoot - a shoot which I had taken on a huge amount of responsibility in planning and preparing for and was so looking forward to watching come to life. My one aim during this placement year - aside from getting as much valuable experience as possible - is just simply to enjoy myself, but unfortunately I dreaded the thought of going to placement this week.

I have chosen a selection of pages from the 33-page document to include here.

Poster Redesign for NYC Event | Forever Unique

In September I was set the task of redesigning the current outdated template for posters and e-flyers distributed in the run-up and duration of the Coterie event held during New York Fashion Week. Coterie is an international tradeshow event which showcases up-and-coming women's fashion retailers, with similar events held across America in Atlanta, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. The purpose of Forever Unique's attendance at the event is to showcase our upcoming collection to the American wholesale market, which makes up a large segment of the business. In this case, the event was showcasing our brand new and not-yet-released SS18 collection.

I worked with the branding and design teams to select bestselling styles to feature on the posters and worked from the past template to use the existing information of the event. I used Photoshop and InDesign to reach the final outcome which are two skills I have enhanced significantly during my time at Forever Unique. It gives me a lot of satisfaction that thousands of people have seen my work, although to them it will obviously be quite insignificant as I'm sure guests attending the tradeshow will have been inundated with similar posters from a number of other fashion and occasionwear retailers throughout the duration of the event! In terms of the process of designing these posters, I felt quite restricted by unrealistic time pressures and a heavy weight of my other responsibilities which meant that I wasn't able to develop my creative technique or advance my skills as much as I would have liked. In retrospect - and given more time to complete the task - I would have experimented with cutting the model images out and adjusting the background colour as I do feel that although the plain white background was easier to work with, it is quite bland and forgettable. Something that would have benefitted me during this task would have been to research into what marketing materials the direct competitors of Forever Unique and other brands present at this event have used in the past. I also would have developed the positioning and alignment of the text more, in order to draw more attention to the date of the event in particular. 

In an ideal world, I would have used really impressive campaign images of the collection which would have immediately gained a lot of public attention. However, at the time of the event we as a Creative team had not yet shot the SS18 collection as a campaign so I unfortunately only had the e-commerce shots to work with. While this may be a recurring issue at a lot of fashion retailers, I can only speak from my experience specifically at Forever Unique in saying that there are often a lot of flaws in the infrastructure of the yearly calendar whereby marketing deadlines aren't aligned with the necessary shoot which could really benefit the effect of the materials and ultimately, propel the status of the brand. I think that these problems are mostly caused by poor communication from international branches of the business to the UK HQ and within the UK HQ, between and within different departments.

Christmas Campaign Shoot | Forever Unique

The Christmas campaign was the first big campaign process which I was heavily involved in from start to finish, collaborating with the rest of the creative team. One of my main responsibilities in the run-up to shoot day was researching into local venues, having been given a general moodboard and venue style to follow, and contacting them for prices and availability. This whole process was pretty complicated given the number of venues that I contacted, but keeping clear separate lists with information for each venue helped to keep the system organised. The process also included visiting our selected venue first to view for specific shoot locations so that we would be able to break the day into different 'looks' which consisted of three trends. In the days leading to the shoot, I worked closely with the campaign management team to ensure that the styles had been selected well in advance and of those styles selected, that we would have a high quantity for sale at the time that the Christmas campaign would later go live to the public. The garments were sourced in our warehouse and steamed by myself in the days leading to the shoot, then prepared in dress bags for transportation to the venue. On the day of the shoot I arrived early to meet the model, photographer and hair/make-up team as well as the rest of the Creative team to set up, which involved hanging garments into shoot order and laying out shoes, accessories and the styling kit. 

I was really enjoying the day up to this point, and it was my first taste of an off-site shoot since working as Stylist's assistant at Fabulous magazine. Sadly, however, my day ended abruptly as I was called back to complete some outstanding work. This day ultimately became the worst day that I spent at this placement, as I was wrongly blamed by high management for the incompletion of the work - I emphasise that this was wrongly done since the unrealistic deadline and total lack of communication across the wider team at the company was overlooked. To maintain my professionalism, I won't go into much more detail about what occurred! The most significant thing that came out of this was a new briefing system which was established by a member of management to be instigated immediately by all members of staff when setting myself and the rest of the Creative team any kind of task or assignment. This was the beginning of a much less stressful placement experience where my role became clearer and my time was being used somewhat more efficiently, given my new ability to be properly assigned tasks. While this new system did work to some extent, this still marked the first time (and not the last) that I cried on my way home from this particular placement and it remained tainted somehow; I never really felt 100% comfortable there again. After this, I really felt quite despondent with updating my Critical Journal with weekly entries so this is where they stop. Instead, I have gone on to update my journal with summary entries of each separate major project completed between September to November upon my time of leaving the placement.

Nevertheless, I am still extremely proud of the outcome of the Christmas Campaign shoot!