Bootees- Evaluation

Developing and branding Bootees has been a thoroughly enjoyable brief and I am really happy with the outcome, however there has been many problems along the way with screen printing and getting everything together, the little things such as sewing the labels in actually too a lot longer than expected.

While screen printing a previous brief with Hollie I realised how easy it would be to screen print t-shirts and begin a clothing brand of some sort, myself and Hollie are both into the same clothing brands so it made sense to work together as we would have a similar vision for the brand. We both love colour and knew we wanted it to be as bold as possible. We had no brand name or designs when we first started this brief and we have finished it with six screen printable t-shirt designs and an Instagram with over 900 followers.

Our ideas developed quite rapidly, we knew we wanted bold pattern and fun design but just wasn’t sure what of, our initial ideas was to put puns onto t-shirts but then we had to question who would wear them. We started to experiment with brush strokes and screen printing them with a gradient pattern but neither of us was happy with the outcome, so we developed ideas further on paper scanning them in mocking them up on a t-shirt to see what would look best. We also researched into brands that we liked and looked at them for inspiration, their fashion styling, logos and the overall brand and what made them stand out.

We experimented with paper screen printing some designs to see how that would work, this did not go to plan, after a lot of frustration we decided to expose screens to repeat the designs easily and quickly. We experimented with the paper screen printing as this brand is something we both want to carry on a peruse after uni and as we wont have access to an exposure unit after uni we thought to use paper would be a good idea. The process was too long and we both began to get frustrated.  

I digitally developed all of the t-shirt designs, I designed all of them but ‘Harry’ the face design with the glasses. We decided to go for primary colours and pink and screen print onto white t-shirts after much debate whether to get coloured t-shirts. The screen printing was a long process as we were using 4 colours on each t-shirt and we needed to get the t-shirts ready as fast as possible so they can be used within fashion shoots. There were a few problems when screen printing as the t-shirts are white if anything gets on them they look grubby so keeping them clean through the screen-print process was difficult. I have never screen-printed more than two colours on a design before, this was a new experience and a skill I have definitely developed through this brief.

We both have a love for vintage items and after researching and visiting vintage shops together we thought the best direction to push the brand was with colourful shapes, so we did and added extra face designs for fun.

We had to photograph the t-shirts for the product shots a couple of times to get it right. Hollie was in charge of getting the photo-shoots organised and this casued a lot of stress. We had a lot bigger plans for the photo-shoots initially and were planning on doing the shoots on location in an ice-cream van and at a bowling alley, however so many models let us down last minute after a lot of planning. This was disappointing and we were pushed for time to get the shoots done. 

While the shoots were taking place it was my responsibility to sort the branding for Bootees. The logo was something that I really struggled designing as there was so many possibility’s with it, I mocked up loads of designs and it took a while for something to click, we eventually went back to the very first typeface I suggested. There was a lot of printed material to be designed for the branding, I tried to imagine what the brand would need when sending the t-shirts to a customer. I designed a variety of things, swing tags, returns forms, business cards, postcards, wrapping paper and thank-you cards all in the same typefaces and colours we chose to keep the brand uniformed.

We created online presents to push the brand into the real world and sell some t-shirts. The t-shirts proved popular on the Instagram, we also wanted to show the screen printing process on the Instagram so we took photos of that too. We set up a Depop which will only display the t-shirts for sale.

Overall I have enjoyed creating Bootees and it is a brand that we are looking to develop after uni as we both have a love for bold clothes. I wish we started this brief earlier in the year so the photo-shoots could be more organized and less last minute, also I would of liked more time screen printing, it is a long process, something I have got faster at but we both wanted to be incredibly careful when printing. Hopefully Bootees will still continue after university, I wont have an exposure unit after uni however I am looking to develop the paper screen printing technique that we experimented with at the start of Bootees. Working with Hollie has been a pleasure, the work load was spread evenly, Hollie focusing on the fashion shoots and me on the branding and designs for Bootees.