It would have been helpful to be briefed before hand on the kind of things we should be looking out for. It seemed that some people had very different priorities when it came to marking, with a lot concentrating on the appearance a layout of the booklets as opposed to how well they meet the brief, which is fine, but I think there needed to be a more conclusive stance on how we were marking so that everyone was on the same page and the feedback was reflective of that.
I need to sort my life out...
My promise to myself for this module was not let myself procrastinate till the point i was stressing about work. Well I've already broken that promise. Only about 3 weeks in and I already feel like I'm flagging. I don't even know why. I mean I really enjoy my course and I think our briefs have been interesting, but I think that might be part of the problem. I look at the sheet of paper with my assignments for the coming months on it the same way I would look at a death sentence. I put too much pressure on myself to succeed. It's something my teachers have said to me since I was about 13, and so many times that pressure has resulted in me cracking. I think the procrastination was almost like an avoidance technique, almost as if I ignored the work in front of me it would just go away and take the pressure with it.
But the promise to change was much like a New Years resolution, to dramatic, too much of an ambitious to change for it to succeed. So here's the new one. Small steps starting with taking a break from uni for a bit. I've got a trip home planned for the weekend and I think it's what I need more than anything right now. Just to spend some time with my family, have a bit of a breather and chill before I start again. And by start again I don't mean throw myself into it, that clearly hasn't worked in the past and I doubt it's about to start working now, but just start gently, with the biggest aim being to keep the pressure off.
And whether someone reads this or not, it's been therapeutic writing it, just to get the fuzziness of feelings that were in my head onto something physical, just to clear some space and give me a fresh perspective and a plan, and this time I want it to be a plan I stick to.
But the promise to change was much like a New Years resolution, to dramatic, too much of an ambitious to change for it to succeed. So here's the new one. Small steps starting with taking a break from uni for a bit. I've got a trip home planned for the weekend and I think it's what I need more than anything right now. Just to spend some time with my family, have a bit of a breather and chill before I start again. And by start again I don't mean throw myself into it, that clearly hasn't worked in the past and I doubt it's about to start working now, but just start gently, with the biggest aim being to keep the pressure off.
And whether someone reads this or not, it's been therapeutic writing it, just to get the fuzziness of feelings that were in my head onto something physical, just to clear some space and give me a fresh perspective and a plan, and this time I want it to be a plan I stick to.
A Little Project...
For one of our recent briefs, we were set the task of researching and designing a fragrance trend booklet, predicting the trends we thought would most dominate the fragrance market in 2015. The snag was having to design and produce the whole thing in indesign. Indesign is as alien to me as well, aliens. And being a total technophobe anyway the prospect of having to somehow learn more software skills was pretty daunting. But I gave it my best shot, and while it wasn't the most inspiring thing ever, I thought it was alright for a first attempt.
From a list of categories I chose to go with trend relating to Model & Casting, Location & Place, Historical Reference & Era and Bottle Silhouette & Shape.
The introduction to my booklet was centred around discussing the macro trends that were having an influence on on the trends within the perfume industry.
A list to Z list, the exploration of Hollywood A listers being used to endorse fragrance ads and the evolution we are likely to see towards more everyday, girl next door, unphotoshopped models considering the publics disdain and disenchantment with the beauty/fashion industry's attitude towards normal women, i.e. theirs no such thing in their eyes, they must all be images of perfection. The response to this is a reaction to the wider trend of female empowerment and a new wave of feminism trying to repair the damage to the word 'feminist'.
Moving forward from the predictable and frankly quite tacky world of the clear blue sea, French Riviera location, we're coming to the far more mysterious and darker water based locations. Black lagoons and Amazonian adventures are the centre of the future of fragrance ads, taking inspiration from the nomadic, hence 'No man's land'. It's time to dip a toe into much more exotic and cloudy waters.
Androgynous fashion is something that has been around for a few years now, and something that has filtered down into the fragrance industry. The shape and silhouette of the bottles are reflective of that, being very geometrical, simple and almost quite masculine in their brick like design. However as the rising trends in healthy lifestyles grows and the introduction of the EU's regulations on allergens, people are becoming more concerned with the actual chemical content of their products. This has reflected the designs of fragrance bottles, seeing them now referencing those that you would find in victorian apothecary or health store. This gives the appearance that the ingredients in the bottle are all naturally sourced and almost give the impression of the perfumes being home made and therefore likely to be very natural.
Doing this little project allowed me to understand and see first hand how wider macro trends can impact into so many different industry sectors, including fragrance. I think hopefully it will encourage me to stop taking for granted activities in the wider social, cultural, economic and political worlds, and realise that their knock on affects could have consequences on much smaller aspects of my own life.
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