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. 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 16th 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?
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..
