unit5rubybankhead

[unit5rubybankhead]

Evaluation

500-700 Word Self-Evaluation Prompts to be uploaded to Your Blog

Course Title: BA (Honours)

Student Name: Ruby Bankhead

Submission Date: 29.01.20

Unit Title: Unit 5: Expanded Practice

Assignments:

Your work will be assessed against the marking criteria specified below.  The process of self-evaluation enables you to reflect upon how well you have met the marking criteria.

In the spaces below, identify and evaluate your learning and development with reference to the marking criteria:

Knowledge: Knowledge and Critical Understanding of key subject concepts and debates and of the way in which these concepts and debates have developed.

During this project, we organised amongst ourselves several meetings to help us keep on track throughout the research, design and exploration periods. It was really important for us to see each other at university, especially in my studio where everyone is really relaxed and everyone felt comfortable enough to talk about themselves and their specialisms. It was great to know that each person brought a different skill to the table and I felt this widened my knowledge on different concepts of how to keep our product sustainable, realistic, aesthetically pleasing as well as quality checked. 

I also appreciated being in a group because of the different opinions that came with being with people who all have a different creative eye. I feel in my specialism, being textiles, I’m in a studio surrounded by people who like being messy and there’s paint everywhere with little samples scattered around. My group members were startles by my work place and were eager to find out more. As the project went along, I also discovered there skill of design and presenting an idea in front of an audience and covering all bases from the thought of colour to the thought of the sheen of the material we were using for packaging. It’s definitely made me think a lot more of how I could use these skills in my own practice. 

Enquiry / Communication: An ability to explore this specific field of enquiry in order to progress your emerging research methodology.

Communication was key throughout this project, as working with a lot of different people means you have to keep everyone in the loop with what what new ideas have arisen. At the beginning, it felt quite difficult to know what each person would bring to the group but it became apparent eventually that I was more hands on, whereas other people preferred to stay research based, which to me was equally as important in the design process. Everyone brought something different to the table and a key aspect of keeping the group alive was our WhatsApp group which we regularly sent new ideas and notes to. It felt nice that we had a base to reflect back to after tutorials and also organising new meet ups. 

It was also really important to voice your opinion in a group situation. I don’t usually like working with a group as I have my own ideas and I like to explore things in my own process however, having everyone’s input really did help spur the creative process. I felt it was good to brainstorm together, it was so exciting to see so many ideas put on the table at once. 

Process / Realisation: An ability to use reflection and self-evaluation to make decisions and take responsibility for your own learning.

I didn’t feel it was that helpful for me to have the blog, it felt like there was another thing to have to tick off the list as there was so much going on with my Textiles project that it felt like a chore to have to do the blog along side it. However, working within a group with people who are used to being on the laptop all the time it became apparent to me that maybe I should be documenting more and reflecting. It was interesting for me to read back at my blog as I’d written things that I had actually forgotten about. So in hindsight writing the blog for me, has an advantage in the fact that I can look back and remind myself of certain skills which I may have forgotten about or even remind myself of different ways to think. As, I learnt so many new ways of how to research and look at things with the help of my group members. 

In reflection, it has been a really interesting project, I feel a have a lot more knowledge on how to go about creating my own product in a business sense of view. I also feel that working in a group and meeting people from other courses in Chelsea has been refreshing for me. 

Student Signature: R M W B

Date: 29.01. 20

[unit5rubybankhead]

Final Product

It was amazing seeing everyone’s work today at the big exhibition. It was really inspiring seeing how much effort everyone has put into such an interesting collaborative project. It didn’t feel very creative at the beginning when we were briefed but by the end, seeing everyone’s final products, it truly was exciting! 

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In The Making

After Aiha printed on my linen fabric with my patterns, I then made little tie bags for each candle. I really enjoyed making the bags as this is my specialism and I love working with fabric. I thought it was important for the packaging to have an element of home made-ness. These bags can be used for other things such as jewellery or little wash bags, as well as the glass holders, everything can be used again and nothing has to be thrown away. What once has been used has all been used again... This has made our products sustainable and also eco friendly. I think the patterns match each other a lot better than the font which Gigi was making. Gigi made labels for both candles so I could write the scent of each one. Overall, I think out product definitely represents London as it has a lot going on on the packaging, youthful colours and patterns have been used whilst the scent of the candles are very sophisticated.

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Final Patterns

As a collective we thought that my drawings worked a bit better in regards to bringing the vibrancy and youthfulness back into the branding of our project. So I was given the task of making a Shoreditch pattern as well as the chelsea one. I made two initial designs and the group chose the pink and blue drawing. I then scanned them into photoshop and repeated them so they were ready for printing!

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Whilst I was doing my Chelsea designs, Arantza was making the candles and cutting the glass bottles into containers for the candles to go in and Gigi was creating a Shoreditch pattern, which these are the images of. 

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Pattern Ideas

So these were all my pattern ideas for our Chelsea design. I was assigned doing this part of London and before I started doing some doodles I made a mini mood board of what I wanted to portray in my drawings. I wanted them to be inspired by flowers, the colours of the buildings around Chelsea and also the delicate theme of the area. I explored different shapes and repeated patterns, which is what I usually experiment with in my textiles course. I really enjoyed doing this drawings and actually really got into it. I think this is my favourite part of the project so far. A lot of this project has been very consumer and business based which I feel I get very lost in and when it gets a bit more creative that’s when I do start to really enjoy it again. 

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After our last tutorial, we are now set on our idea of making candles however, making 4 might be a bit ambitious considering our time frame, so we have decided to make 2 instead. This means we have more time to focus on our packaging and branding. We have chosen to do Shoreditch and Chelsea. Our smells have altered slightly due to the essential oils we found but I still think we’re on a good track. One is orange and Prosecco and the other is G&T with pomegranate. I went charity shopping and found some linen material that we can print on, it’s really light weight and slightly see through which I think is a really nice touch. We have to show a sample product to ual not just a shop so we are going to take this prototype with our patterns on paper to show how the fabric will look once it is printed. I am really happy with how it’s going so far but I think it’s important to also include a little note inside the packaging so that will be something to further think about. 

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Alight, ‘Alyte’

We have decided our name of our brand. The definition of Alight is

‘Descend from a train, bus, or other form of transport but it can be referred to how smells descend from the air and settle.’

Our brand ethos

We, as individuals, have our own paths and journeys we want to explore. On each and every journey, we are travellers who seek to find love and beauty in places we go. We are memory collectors. Alight wants to take you back in time, evoking your beloved memories of London through smells. 

I am really happy with this name because I feel it represents what we are going for and I haven’t seen it anywhere else before. It feels light and relaxing as well as modern and all of these three elements are crucial in our branding. Especially as our end goal is for our product to be in ‘UAL Not Just a Shop’. Exciting! I did some research into some other brands which I felt were relevant, so I could get an idea for my pattern ideas as well as who we were competing with. 

[unit5rubybankhead]

25th October

We had a tutorial, we suggested the idea of our place mats and coasters and it did go down well but not as much as we wanted it to. We were forgetting about how it would relate to London. It is definitely a British thing to have your table set very formally but is it necessarily in London’s personality? However she did like the idea of Gigi’s mini houses. It was a difficult tutorial as the fire alarm went off and we had to carry on talking outside. However, we continued and started talking more about the place mats and coasters. We thought about what it would be used for; food. So what is London food and could we consider this in the design aspect. We also have to remember to keep our product sustainable. 

Anyway, after our tutorial we decided to stay together and went to the canteen to discuss what our next step would be. We knew that we had to come up with a design idea quickly and make sure it would realistically work. I put an idea out there that I had been thinking about during the tutorial. Thinking back to my original research, I didn’t think coasters or place mats would be very “now” and there are probably more interesting ideas we could choose. I suggested the idea of making a candle set. Smells and packaging to be inspired by London. Then we got quite excited and thought of possibly making a whole bathroom set that included, soap, a place for the soap lay (soap holder), bubble bath and a sponge. We thought about selling the gift set together but also having the option of selling the candles separately. SO, the next step was to designate each candle a different place in London, we brainstormed different areas and which places were most influential but also places we were familiar with.

1. Peckham   2. Shoreditch   3. Central London   4. Chelsea

Each candle would represent each area in London. Possible smells:

Chelsea - Prosecco rhubarb                      Peckham - Beer/ Orange/ Berry

Central London - Earl Grey                        Shoreditch - G&T / Rose

These smells represent London in my opinion as we have such a big drinking culture, having pubs, bars and clubs but we are also so well known for drinking tea. We also thought in the packaging we could include a little note saying how buying each candle is helping saving the planet. Our candle glass would be made out of recycled glass bottles & the packaging would be made out of linen which is sustainable and I also had the idea of buying the linen second hand from a charity shop. 

After this really productive meeting we all had our own set challenges for the next time we meet. I had the role of finding the fabric and designing possible patterns that could be printed onto the packaging.

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20th October

This is the mind map we created as a group, as well as my one I made myself, it was really useful to see what others thought as well. I think our current idea is to make coasters and place mats. I have a few different ideas of how we could make these. One being, I could weave (weave being my specialism) a piece of fabric, using sustainable yarn such as linen or bamboo and create a fabric place mat with a matching coaster. Another important factor is to remember to make the yarn we’re using washable and stain resistant. Or another idea was to cast flowers within a translucent material, such as resin. Yes, they would be very delicate but they would be so precious and I think people would really value them. We were thinking of making coasters and place mats because they are very important within the home and very British. It is formal, and a vital part of the table during dinner & when the family come together and socialise. We would like to make an every day item special and also beautiful to look at. Another idea would be to use recycled paper and old recycled vintage place mats to make new fresh and upcoming designs. For our colour palette, our idea was to make three different sets with three different colours which would match people’s houses. We want to make sets which you can take with you everywhere too, so they can be packed up and taken on holiday to create a home away from home. 

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11th October

Lecture on what makes London and how we can make our product a popular item. 

Gigi’s idea - An idea of making a mini house, representing London... but tiny. Really sweet idea with a lot of interest from the whole group. I think you could really represent London in one of these homes. Locals as well as tourists would buy and I also think it would be easy to make.

[unit5rubybankhead]

Week 1

I have met all the members of my group. We were given the task of bringing in a souvenir to a workshop and we all brought in magnets, that is how we ended up together. We found a space to discuss ideas, we went to my textiles studio. It was really helpful to have a quiet space where we could all introduce ourselves and tell each other what each of our talents are. It became clear that we all had different skills which we could use and combine to create a really special souvenir together. Our plan of action was to all create mood boards and bring back ideas of what we could make. We knew that our money limit was £10 each and that we couldn’t go over this. We also considered the fact that we were all VERY busy in our current projects so therefore had to dedicate only Fridays but that was okay too. I have come up with my own mood board and different audiences we would potentially be making our souvenir for. I think it’s a good idea to appeal to a younger adult audience. They are the biggest group in London. I also felt it was important to make a mind map about London and how it is special and also not so special. What is important about London and what makes London? All things to consider. It is also really important to keep in mind that we have to stay sustainable and environmentally friendly whilst making our souvenir. My initial idea was to make some sort of keep cup as they are on such high demand at the moment, or even a product which would make the buyer feel they are helping the environment. I think it’s important to keep our product slick and clean and well designed.