We made a profit!

To conclude this business module experience, I can honestly say that my group made and sold a successful product. Taking into account the financial costs, which were just the chains because we did not have to pay for the stall, and the acrylic was left over scraps, we did make a profit. We made £130 in total which meant after costs it was a £97 profit. I feel we did very well but that we would do a better job next time. Taking things into account such as the actual day of sale, the promotional aspect and also controlling the number of people behind the stall are all major factors we could improve. Overall I feel the teamwork, production, and potential to improve this product would be a big success.

Working on the stall!

As for the workforce and management of the stall, it was strong. All members of the group had turned up ready for the sale, even though we realised afterwards it would have probably been much more efficient to stick to a rota system. However we all worked together when it came to selling the jewellery with one person making the chain, another wrapping and the third taking the money. The only problem I think there may have been is the fact we were with all the other groups, such as swap-a-top which meant there was a lot of us stood behind the stalls. I think this could have been daunting to possible student buyers with us all stood together, as at times there were more of us than customers.

A laser cut result!!!!

The designs have been laser cut, and almost worryingly everything now seems to be coming together really well. We have all contributed designs, and with Hannah we spent Friday afternoon and Monday sorting out and preparing the designs on photoshop and illustrator. As well as this we worked out which colour the designs will be produced in, and also the issue of what size they should be. To overcome this problem, and considering we just has acrylic scraps from Kath, we did a trial laser cut from paper so we could see for real how they would turn out. Once happy with the paper we gave the go ahead for the acrylic to be cut, which we have all seen today and the group response was positive! More chain has been ordered as we realised 10 meters of chain for 80 designs would not be enough. the new posters with the new date - Wednesday 25th March - are now up and around the uni campus! Monday at 4 is when we will be chaining up the designs, we should then be ready for sale, selling them for around £2 - £3 each!!

These are a few of my original designs that i think may work best when laser cut.

Good news, Bad news

After two weeks off from Wednesdays lesson due to a mix up at the new arranged time and a trip to New York, it was a good day catching up on the pregression of mine and the other groups. Unfortunately we all seem to be running behind, with swap a top not receiving many t-shirts to swap, and our group not having the acrylic with us today and the designs not in the correct format to be laser cut, we have therefore changed the previous date to sell on the 16th to the 25th of March.
The good news is that the acrylic has arrived, bad news is one of our group members is really ill (hope you get well soon Mia!!!!) and has the acrylic. Fortunately we have a back up plan to use Kaths (UCLANs textile technician) spare acrylic scraps she has lying around! The acrylic is in red, white, black and mirrored, a theme we all thought went great with the red nose day! We will then have to decide which designs are to be which colour. Four sheets of acrylic means that based on the size of the designs, hopefully we could fit 20 designs onto one acrylic sheet, giving us 80 acrylic shapes!
The designs should, fingers crossed, be prepared on photoshop and illustrator by this friday 13/03/09 and given to Kath to be laser cut. These should all then be cut by Wednesday which leaves us a week to prepare them onto chain, before selling! The group all really likes the idea of using this black chainhttp://cgi.ebay.co.uk/10m-Black-Continuous-Trace-Chain-Jewellery-Findings_W0QQitemZ350169145291QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Crafts_JewelleryMaking_GL?hash=item350169145291&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72:168366:265:1239:1240:1318#ht_2709wt_907
which alongside clasps to fasten, we shall be ordering on friday.!

POSTER TIME!!

This is the poster that has been produced to advertise our necklaces!! The date is now having to be changed from the 16th to the 25th of March!

Materials

With the charity chosen and the group agreed on our product, we need the materials. What we are wanting and need for these necklaces are sheets of acrylic, the sheets should be able to go in the laser cutter so our designs can be cut out easily. We also need chain of some sort to hold our designs. This chain has been causing problems as it is coming across that it would be very expensive, so ribbon has been mentioned as an alternative. I personally think ribbon wouldn’t look that odd and as long as it suits the design it is carrying I think it could work! If the chain doesn’t happen for us I don’t see why we couldn’t take our designs and produce them with ribbon, or even an alternative to the necklaces such as bracelets, (Hannah is fab at these) or even key rings, these could probably sell just as well amongst our target audience which is the student and tutor population. Market research would let us know these details, and the more ideas we have to show the better, I think anyways!

Comic Relief is the Charity!

The chosen charity that any profits we make (fingers crossed) will go to is Comic Relief. As we are alongside another group hopefully we will all come together and have a reasonable amount to donate!
Using this charity will also enable us to tell our target audience, who will respond as it is hugely recognisable. It also ties in very well with the dates on our creative business elective.

Acrylic Necklaces are the idea!

We have decided as a group that we will be producing acrylic necklaces. This has been decided after the initial idea to produce laptop bags had to many problems. Such as us possibly being responsible for breaking laptops if the bag was not made effectively, which we did not feel comfortable with if that happened. Also the materials and how we would make them were also issues. Therefore, after a successful group session we decided acrylic necklaces were the answer!
These Acrylic necklaces will be successful because the materials we need should be easy to get hold of and hopefully pretty cheap!! Also with the help of the laser cutter we should be able to mass produce the designs we want for our necklaces, after producing a prototype to begin with and then be able to get them out quickly and efficiently!! The brilliance of this idea is that Hannah already makes amazing jewellery pieces, and this is a huge benefit to our group.
During our discussions we have chosen to work alongside another group who's project is "Swap a Top" which is a brill idea, and we will be selling our necklaces alongside this group. The aim of our necklaces is to be kitsch, which seems to be selling well at the moment. Overall this idea seems to good to be true, if it works as we want it to! we will see....

During the two hour lessons with Ruth , discussing and learning about the creative buisness world and now that we have our groups, we are preparing for our own buisness venture!!

The Textile Innovation girls out for some good old fashioned fun!

Blog up and running!

WayHey,
Creative Buisness reflective learning blog is up and running!
Well i think so, and was easier than i thought it would be, just still not to sure about this blogging thing, but giving it a go and playing around!!