Final Project Tutorial

Today I had a tutorial to discuss my final major project idea and thankfully my tutor seemed to like it.

Synopsis of study
For my extended major project I have set my own brief and have decided to create a shopping guide, which will take the form as a small booklet. This booklet will be aimed at women aged 16-23 who have a particular appetite for fashion. The guide will be showing various quirky, vintage and fabulous stores I have found in Dorset through research.  As I have lived and studied in Dorset for a few years now, I feel it would help to increase my knowledge of the area in general, and will hopefully lead me to find some unique fashion stores and boutiques present in this region. I decided to choose a less obvious area for a fashion shopping guide as there are many fashion conscious students and people within Dorset and as most people would assume London is the place you have to be to get your most stylish fashion fix, I want to show that there are some lovely gems to be found closer to home. I want to pass these findings onto others in a compact booklet, the booklet will be a handbag sized A5, so that is it portable and convenient for the viewer rather than a hassle.

The booklet will be very informative, guiding people on my recommended areas to visit within the county, with fashionable and unique shops listed displaying what they do well and not so well with relevant style do’s and don’ts for the season, as well as street style photographs of fashionable people in the areas, and finally adding the surprise findings (if any) such as a cute café to stop off for tea and cake or a fun park to have an after lunch stroll. This book will be concentrating on the trends for Spring Summer 2012 and the research for that particular season will be expressed throughout the fashions shown and advised within the booklet.

Throughout this project I will be collecting information in a sketchbook, this will show my findings, collate images, inspirations and research together to show all of my ideas, thoughts and processes along the way. The sketchbook will tell a story from beginning to end.  I will also keep an online blog that will show my professional thinking, showing each step and development along the way, whether they be bad or good. These sources will act as my Research and Development, which will be handed in at the deadline for assessment. To keep organised I will concentrate on my time management by writing a critical path of what needs to be done, date set, date of proposed completion, and the date achieved. This will help me to keep on top of deadlines that are approaching, by separating work into smaller sections to make it easier to manage. 

The project is related to my own specialist practice as the main areas I am interested in pursuing after my further education are; styling, fashion photography and magazine work (designing layouts, styling, photography). This brief enables me to explore, learn and gain new skills in these areas and allows me to put them into play by trying to create my own shopping guide.  

The areas that I have highlighted in purple or underlined are the areas that were questioned during my tutorial. 1) The age group is disliked by my tutor so I may raise the ages. 2) The word quirky should be with a capital Q, Quirky being the main concentration for this booklet. 3) The reason for me doing this booklet did not seem strong enough and therefore I will be adding to this idea with the idea of wanting to get back to the 'pride of Britain, made in Britain' feel.



An idea that did come to light was to use augmented reality within my booklet, which would be amazing and a very up to date twist for my shopping guide and would bring it into the 21st century, but I am unsure and wary of whether I will be able to get a digital media student to help me out with such short notice, but we shall see.

Here is a video on youtube showing the augmented reality used (it's soooooo cool!):