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.
