I realise that this blog has lain dormant since uni but just a quick shout out to my awesome brother Reece at http://reecetownsonblog.blogspot.co.uk/ !!! he's got some awesome IT blog in the pipeline with some exciting and informative things to come!

These are pics of us working hard for our exhibition: Sympathetic Magic that was presented in the PR1 Gallery in the Nothern School of Design, Preston. In the pics are (going from top downwards) Hannah Ng, Beth Lambert with Sapphire Duerden and work from myself.

I should be hopefully updating images of the exhibition itself when it was opened to the public shortly :)

This is the first draft of the presentation we will be, well, presenting :P

Hello, our group is called MASH. We started our business, originally with the intention of creating laptop bags for the student body of UCLAN. However, after identifying the risks of such a venture we decided to produce acrylic necklaces as we had the ease of access to the equipment needed. This business was to showcase all of our talents and skills which would create something profitable and adaptable for the business. Our mission was to sell cheap, good quality laser cut necklaces which would be in small batches with the assurance to the consumer that the designs wouldn’t be found anywhere else. We also gave our customers that extra incentive to buy our products as the proceeds were intended to go to charity: Red Nose Day.

We started this venture in a great environment. We had a great opportunity to exploit a niche market within the student body and although we had no formal announcement to the widespread community of our wares we were able to advertise over Facebook.com, Blogger.com and word of mouth. We were lucky enough to be close to our target market without having to relocate or factor in extra travel costs. Also, thanks to the nature of our product, costume jewellery, we didn’t have to rely on a specific colour which would’ve limited our options. As jewellery designers we had the advantage of setting the trend for the market, not following it.

After deciding on our product and the charity to which the profits would go to, we booked the venue, The Student union on Monday 16^th march so we had a self imposed deadline to work to. We looked around for suitable materials and focused on a selection of red, black and white acrylics with pink, green, blue, several translucent colours and a mirrored acrylic to enhance the primary red nose day colour scheme. We also purchased several thicknesses of silver, gold, black and rainbow painted chains to hold the pendants. We started our ideas generation with 4-8 designs each that could be analysed through market research to see if the public were interested in wearing such a design. I myself found out that 3 of the 8 designs I’d drafted were picked up on when talking to our target age group of 18-25 year olds.

What do people think?

Mia's World

Just to let people know, in case someone is interested, I've started a new blog called Mia's World or curseworld as miasworld is taken...wtf? I'm gonna check out who nicked my cool idea :P

Its slightly different than this blog in that its more personal and less about the assessment work, although I think there may be some overlap as its going to feature things that are going on in my life :) Hope to see you on there! ^_^

xx

I haven't updated in a while so I thought I'd bring any interested readers up to speed. 

I've just been catching up (slowly but surely) on what I can do work-wise and have been trying to get allowances on what I cant. Many portfolio works, presentations and exhibitions are in the pipeline so to blow off some steam I've been exploring various opportunities for work I can do over the summer. One in particular is 

http://dearjanesample.wordpress.com/2008/05/19/fun-with-brands/

Its an interesting look at how brands interfere in our lives. I mean, we're bombarded with them 24 hours a day! even as I peer around my room as I lounge on my bed there's Wilkinsons, Jinx clothing, Parmolive, Time computers, Carling and Primark glaring back at me. 

It sounds like a great social experiment to carry on over a period of weeks with any kind and patient helpers. Which I'd hopefully (with enough data) utilise in a fine art/textile commentary on the media and its involvment in our lives.  If anyone is interested (I'll be grabbing family and friends and begging and pleading them) please please please give me a shout on here or gothdeviluk@hotmail.com

Thanks ^_^

market research

I have started market research which is relevant to my design generation and pricing up of the product. I had intended to enquire into preferred colour ways of my target market but this seems irrelevant as we are basing our products around the RND colours of Red and Black acrylic with some white and mirror acrylic making up these central colours.

I have conducted this research so far to prudent members of the public outside Blackpool pleasure Beach (I wasn't allowed to conduct it inside) and throughout the student body at UCLAN university. This has enabled me to analyse the reaction of over 30 18-25 year old men and women (our demographic). 

I have learnt that 3 of my designs seem the most profitable (I generated 8 original concept designs) with people erring to the side of £5 - £9 (23 people agreed with this price) with some people willing to pay up to £29 for this product if it was on a large scale. One of the most popular acrylic jewellery companies, Tatty Divine charges well above this price (The most expensive I've found so far has been £102!). 

http://www.tattydevine.com/boutique/product_info.php?cPath=137&products_id=897

I will present more detailed analysis at a later date to allow me to collate all the data together. 

Things with the Acrylic necklaces seemed to be moving along nicely; the colours chosen, the shipment on its way, the designs realised (well, mostly :P), location for the event organised and flyers in production to be distributed. 

That was until we came to sorting out the price of the chains to which the pendants would hang...who knew how expensive it would end up!?

To cut costs there are 3 options that I can see:

1) Make some of the pendants into broaches, keyrings and hairpins as the backing pieces are much cheaper.

2) Use ribbon/velvet/leather thong - It may compromise quality but lets face it, we're doing this on a shoe string and if employed well it could make a nice feature...maybe if we display the same pendant on two different chain/fabric thongs they could show more options for our customers :)

3) make them into chokers and have them stitched into fabric/lace

I think I'm probably going to employ all three of these options as it will shrik expenditure and add some variety to my range.

This course so far has taught me to worry about EVERYTHING! >_<

necklaces

instead of chain, how about we use organza ribbon? 

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/10m-x-7mm-Mono-Edge-Organza-Ribbon-23-Pale-Lilac_W0QQitemZ120376496147QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Crafts_Cardmaking_Scrapbooking_Ribbons_Fibres_EH?hash=item120376496147&_trksid=p3911.c0.m14&_trkparms=72:1683|66:2|65:12|39:1|240:1318#ht_600wt_907

Note: added later - http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130287107916&category=150064&_trksid=p4340.m212&_trkparms=algo%3DSI%26its%3DI%252BC%252BS%252BIA%26itu%3DPSS%252BCRS%252BUCC%252BUCI%252BIT%252BUA%252BSI%252BUS-BWR%26otn%3D4%26ps%3D56#ht_1011wt_907 this is 10m grey/silver tiger tail jewellery making wire. Useful?

bought the acrylic

Right, I've taken on the comments made so far and as we need to order mats fast to allow for postage I've ordered some A4 (3mm thick) sheets of red, black, white and mirrored acrylic sheets as my wages have gone through that we're all free to use for the project. I looked at the colour way you put up Steph but there simply weren't any matches that I could find >_<

I've gotten some other colours for myself (as I didn't wanna pay multiple postage on several orders on my pitiful wage) that you're free to use if you need to, please be sparing though as its my personal stash :P

These are blue, red tint,light n dark blue tint, clear, purple and pink (the pink I'm happy to lend out as I dont particularly like it but I figure 'princess' type girls will flock to it :P

I dont know how people want to sort out a combined kitty type fund for mats? As we haven't discussed anything yet, I'm willing to pay for the 4 main colours that we all use if someone else gets the chain? (and would I be able to take any scraps of the main colours?

suggestions would be great :D

acrylic sources

I've probably not given people a chance to read through the past post (pleaese read it! :P) before moving onto this one (so much work to do!) but here is an idea for buying in our mats..

http://www.hindleys.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=7_57_60_61_62_70

These bulk packs would mean getting a range of colours and still keeping our costs low. These fluorescent ones (above) seem to be the cheepest so far at £15.48 for red, yellow, green, blue and orange (5 colours).

The transparent Acrylic pack (below top) being £19,38 for red, yellow, green, amber, blue and smoked (6 colours).

The standard Opaque colours are slightly more at £22.06 for red, yellow, green, blue, orange and purple (6 colours)

All these packs are for acrylic which is 600mm X 300mm and 3mm thick. I hope this helps :)