LINK

www.facebook.com/orbitclothing HERES A LINK TO THE FACEBOOK PAGE IF YOU WISH TO LIKE IT!!!!

COSTING SO FAR

we plan to keep everything we spend written down so we are aware of whats going where as our bank account is yet to go live, so here is our costing so far... - FABRICS 5 metres at £3.50 p/m = £17.50 - TSHIRTS x2 at £2.50 p/tshirt = £5.00 - spray paint x2 at £3.95 p/can = £7.90 -fabric paint x1 at 33.49 p/tube = £3.49 TOTAL = £33.89 SO BASED ON JUST FABRIC AND EQUPIMENT IT WOULD WORK OUT AS £6.78 PER T/SHIRT WITHOUT ADDING ADDITIONAL CHARGES FOR LABOUR.

EDITED IMAGES

Here are the images of each t-shirt we'd chosen as our favourite and we decided to lightly edit them to make the quality a little better. i think these pictures have turned out really well and we are pleased with the outcome of our first batch of t-shirts.

EVALUATION

I think for the past 4 weeks we have produced quite alot, considering we went from an idea to a product and all that in-between. i am happy with our final product despite the fact we have not finsihed designing and plan to continue and improve and better what we already have. Im feeling eager and enthusiasitc about the way things are going and hopefully things will continue to progress positively. We have had a couple of set-backs along the way, we'd had a mis-hap with a technician over use of products and equipment that sent us a little off-course mid-way, which was confusing as we didnt see the issue at all, as far as we were aware we were allowed to use the equipment we had been given a tutorial on and we pay our fee's so should be allowed to use resources. However once relevant emails were sent we wera able to crack on and in a short amount of time have managed to produce some work we are quite proud of, given the chance to start over, i think we could have organised our time better, also its important for us to assign roles within the company so the weight of work doesnt fall on one persons shoulders because i do feel as though certain people have done more within the business than others and this is something we aim to work on and fix, we also could have been a lot more prepared for our bank meeting, none of us had any idea the extent of information that would be needed, however we hadnt discussed this with any tutors prior to the meeting so we un-aware of the expanse of knowlegde we'd need, yet we managed to get through it. Again, with the chance to do it over, id like to have put more ideas onto paper, and perhaps done more experiments with several different types of medias, to find which would be most suitable and what we liked best. That said i am very pleased with the out-come of the print-screened garments we have produced, and from here we plan to expand and continue designing and creating and then eventually selling, so all in all i think this is the start of something good.

IMAGES FROM SHOOT

Here are some more images i took on the photo shoot with molly.

IMAGES FROM SHOOT

Here are some of the un-edited photo's from our first photo-shoot. im quite happy with how these have turned out considering how we had to at last minute change location due to bad weather. i think the simplicity of location works successfully for these images and am pleased with the turn-out.

ON PHOTOSHOOT

throughout the photoshoot we wanted Molly, our model to be quite relaxed and casual, as to reflect the design and make of the garments, I took several photos of her naturally just chilling out and then a few that were staged however still quite natural looking. We had molly dress in quite plain clothing so the interest would be taken from the tshirt/vest she was wearing, she had on just some plain black leggings and plain shoes and was accessorised with the odd necklace and jacket depending on the style of the tshirt/vest she was modelling at the time. I used a SLR digital camera and used a exaggerated light setting for the photos as the weather wasn’t as nice as we’d anticipated, I think the quality of these were quite good despite it being dull outside, and for the inisde shots I added a flash so we would see all of the detail on the garments.

CREATING

once we'd had our practice runs with print screening it was time to use the screens and designs we'd made and put them onto actual garments. we'd used vests we'd made and t-shirts we had purchased... we were careful to print as neatly as possibly for the first try then decided we didnt want the designs to look so clean so varied the amount of dye we'd apply to make some prints look a little more fac=ded than others, i feel as though this gave a nice effect and thus making none of the designs look the same as i think individuality within a garment is important and a good reflection on what we want to do as a company. the out-come of our prints i was very pleased with considering our first go wasnt a massive success, i really like the faded designs and the scattered symbol design is my favourite. i think the symbols work well both in large and small print as they are detailed but bold enough to attract attention of the eye.

LOCATION

we originally wanted to shoot the photos at a skate park and had organised a model who could skate to come along so we could get some good looks, however on the day we’d aranged for the shoot the weather wasn’t as good as we’d wanted and was quite wet and over-cast, rather than post-pone the shoot we decided a change of location would work best and luckily we new somewhere close to the area we were that would work. We decided on a derelict building near-by that we thought would be a suitable back-drop for the shoot. Whilst it was still a bit dull outside we tried to make the best of it. The building was run-down to an extent we couldn’t go inside, which is probably best as the floors were non-existent and probably would have caused an accident so we remained outside. the style of the vests and t-shirts are quite casual and relaxed so we wanted that reflected via the images taken, so we didn’t use and particular poses or anything that looked too staged. For the first shot we did, we remained outside the derelict building, and the images I took looked good against the plain walls and painted walls. After taking several here we then moved onto another run-down old garage, getting into the garage was a bit of a mission in itself as the gates were locked but the fences looked to have been pulled down, so had to climb over barbed wire fences, this may have been trespassing, we cant be sure. Once inside the gargae though we were happy to see that the interior was perfect for the look we wanted to benefit the garments. The walls were all spray painted with various designs and tags, a lot of the make-up of the building was broken down so looked effective also. We had to be particularly careful when working in this building as we noticed an array of used seringes lay amongst the debris on the floor so we were anxious as to what the building was previously used for, however we carried on. We began against a plain wall first as we didn’t want the backgroud to over-stage the prints on the garment, then throughout changes in the garments we moved from wall to wall. There were also several places in which the model, Molly could climb or be on a higher level making the shots more interesting.

here are a few images taken on location.

PHOTOSHOOT

for the garments we plan to do a photshoot outside, at a skate park, we chose a skate park for our location because we thought it was a place to relax and chill out and we wanted that to be the type of idea people would get from our designs and garments. I have chosen my friend molly to model for us as she looks like the type of person we'd descibed earlier in out customer profile, whilst the garments are predominently unisex on this occassion we are using a female model, in the near future we hope to use a male model to show diversity and versatility within the garments.

MEETING

our third meeting with Claudia we were a little disapointed with, simply because we had not been able to produce the expanse of work she'd had expected from us so we were a little dis-heartened after this meeting. We had had alot of idea pervious to this meeting so alot was expected of us and on this occasion i dont think we delievered, we had under-gone a few set backs due to mis-communication within staff and we werent able to have the access we required to work as effieciently as we'd liked so we think this kind of bought us to a stand still and we hadnt moved forward, however after the meeting with Claudia and Alison we did all feel a bit more positive and felt as though we were able to get back on track and we made a list of things for us each to do to get us back to the pace we were at previously.

FINAL DESIGNS

here are the final designs on fabric we made...

this one was a vest we had handmade and the writing on it was also hand-done by me. we used a simple fabric marker, i think it turned out quite well.

this is another print-screened symbol on a vest we handmade, its the symbol for neptune. i really like this vest i think the faded effect on the symbol looks unique.

this is the earth symbol, again on a hand-made vest. I like this print too, again with the slightly faded print i think it makes the vest look more casual.

this is another neptune symbol print but this time on a purchased t-shirt. although we bought the tshirt, i decided i wanted the sleeves slightly shorter so hemmed those myself to style it to how we wanted it to look.

this is the last of the designs for the first batch, and by far my favourite. again printed on a purchased tshirt which i customised myself by shortening the sleeves. i really like the scattered symbol effect on this tshirt and think the print is interesting and eye-catching and again unique and individual. overall we are very happy with these first designs and are going to continue to create more similar.

ENTREPRUNUERSHIP SCHEME

once we had begun discussing our idea for the business with our tutors we were suggested to have a look at an entreprunuership scheme ran by the university, myself and abby went to kedleston road campus to talk to someone about it and were given leaflets on how to apply, we later filled in the neccassary forms and sent off for an application for funding and support for the small business to get it up and running, as yet we are waiting on a reply to see if the application was successful.

PRACTICING DETAILS

Although we had decided we mainly wanted to print text and images through the process of print screen and spray paint we also decided to play around with other techniques which bought us to laser cutting, which i think is an effective way of getting the desired pattern or design onto various fabrics. Abby and myself had been given a tutorial on how touse the laser cutting machine prior to this idea but got shown again as we were still unsure so did a practice piece on some vinyl, we liked the outcome however didnt think it would work so well on thinner and more delicate fabrics like the jersery we'd like to use.

SOURCING GARMENTS

When deciding on what sort of garments we wanted to print on, whilst we can make t-shirts and vests of various shapes and sizes for simple prints and graphics it makes sense to buy in bulk the tshirts and vests you need, so we looked online for the best deal and most sites seemed to have a similar price range and approxx. £0.90 per t-shirt if you bought over 100 at a time. We also decided to look at ordering in labels aswel as whilst capable of creating them oursevles it would be very time- consuming and the outcome may not have been as great as that had we ordered them online and had them properly made. When decided on what t-shirts to order we also had to consider quality as several sites offered cheaper value t-shirts but the quality wasnt so great and the tshirts were so thin after a few washes would start to discintergrate.

PRINT SCREENING

At the beginning of the first year we all had a four week workshop in the printing sheds learning how to screen print and transfer print. As this was such a long time ago I was unsure on actually how to screen print so as a result I researched it on youtube... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFM_tBfyjM0 I found this really useful and it really re-jogged my memory. Firstly we had to choose the image we wanted and print it off in black and white. Then we had to choose a screen from the rack which is a suitable size for our picture. Next we had to cover the screen in emulation (this is a chemical that is light sensitive), and leave it in the dark drying cupboard to dry. This takes about 20 minuets. When it was completely dry we took it over to the light box and laid the image upright and the screen on top of it. We then closed the light box and turned the vacuum on. When all the rubber top was sucked tight we then turned on the light. It has been set to 160.. which is about four minuets. This counts itself down and will then automatically turn itself off. We then needed to turn the vacuum off and take the screen out. After this process we then needed to clean off the rest on the emulsion which is done in the washing room. When washing any of the screens, you need to but the helmet and jacket on. This is because it is very loud and the emulsion can spray back at you. When the screen in cleaned it needs to go back in the drying cupboard. While this is drying it is a good opportunity to mix up the pigment dyes. When the dyes are made up and the screen is dry it is time to begin printing. You need to stretch you piece of fabric as tight as possible on the printing table and then place the screen on top of the fabric, put a bit of pigment dye at the top and then squegy the ink down the screen. After the is done slowly remove the screen and you are left with your print. You can then either continue to print onto other fabrics or you can go and wash the screen off. When you are completely finished with your screen you need to clean the whole screen to get all the emulsion off so somebody else can use that screen to print.

PRINT SCREENING

here are a few images i took whilst completely the print-screening process.

SOCIAL MEDIA

To advertise most successfully nowadays everything seems to be done online, so we decided to create several pages inwhich we could advertise our business effectively. Personally i think social media is the best way of advertising because of the vast magnitude of the audience you have the potential to reach, so after some research decided the best thing to do would be to create pages and blogs for the company. i took it upon myself to create a blog for the company aswel as facebook page, twitter profile, tumblr profile and look to create a flickr once some images have been processed of the garments.

FABRICS/ TSHIRTS

Although we had decided we would like to purchase the tshirts we wanted to use for ease, we also decided it would do no harm to make a few of our own, as we wanted to add changes to just the basic t-shirt so we bought several metres of jersey fabric and made 45 vests. these turned out quite well and were quick and simple to make

WASHING AND TESTING

After practising several types of media including spray paint, inks, print screen, pen etc we thought it would be a gtood idea to test the quality of the medias against the general washing of the garment so for each practice sheet we washed at 30 degrees on the same spin cycle to see how each would turn out. i think this was a good idea as we then got to see which media would work best on items of clothing that would be worn and washed regularly.

MEETING

We had another meeting with Claudia, in this meeting we had a chance to discuss how we'd progressed with our ideas, how we'd changed our name and the log from before, and how we'd changed a few ideas. Claudia liked our ideas and gave us some advice on how to move forward.

SHOP REPORT

FIRST PRINTS ON FABRIC

We'd decided between us the sort of logo's and prints we liked... between us we'd discovered we liked the same sorts of ideas, images and symbols that related to the earth, space, nature etc seemed to be popular with all 3 of us. So with these ideas intact we decided to find an image online, just to test out several medias to see what worked best, we used fabric paints, pens, spray paint, inks, transfer print, print screening, and laser cutting all to see which media would get an image or text best displayed on an item of clothing.

EXPERIMENTING

while deciding on the types of media we wanted to use for our garments we practiced with several different types, for example spray paint, ink. fabric pen and paint, laser-cutting and print screening, here are a few we tried out...

IDEAS

We had decided who our customer demographic was and who we wanted our target audience to be, so i then decided to look at several designs of and creators of the type of prints/grsphic t-shirts we hoped to be similar to... i started by looking in shops and at the style of the type of people we'd hoped to sell to, this gave me insight into the kind of thing vertain people liked to wear. i then decided to go to nottingham to do a shop report, i later did the same in birmingham just to see the diverse range of print, graphics text etc that was already being printed on vests and t-shirts and finding out what we could do that would work the same but be different, where the gap in the market was. once i had these ideas i could begin with the design ideas on paper.

BANK MEETING

So we went to HSBC because after some light research we discovered this would be the best bank to set up with as they have a team of advisors that help with small business ventures. Our meeting probably didnt go aswel as it could have, doing it again we probably should have been more prepared. We discussed everything from the business plan, 1year, 3year and 5year plans, revenue, initial ideas, longterm ideas etc. Had we had known we were going to go into such detail about every aspect we could of had more information prepared, regardless of our lack of experience and preparation in this area i think the meeting was somewhat successful, our advisor Simon has agreed to allow us a business account, with cards issued to the 3 of us for independent use. we plan to put equal amounts of money in this account and only use it for purchases relevant to the business, just so we are all aware of whats being spent and where our money is going.

WEBSITES

Whilst deciding on who our customer would be and who our target audience was, i also took some time to look at the types of places our garments could be sold, and where we would like them to be sold, so i looked at several websites which i thought our garments would fit: www.asos.com www.topshop.com www.bigcartel.com www.urbanoutfitters.com www.illustratedpeople.com www.longclothing.com www.sunkenclothing.com www.pulp.com www.bbc/icecream.com

NAME/LOGO IDEAS

Initially we'd decided between us that WKW, as in using letters from our names Keira Kay, Abby Wilson and Emma Wilson, for the name of the company would work best, however later on we thought it would maybe make the label seem to personal and perhaps not relevant to everybody so we discussed ways inwhich to change and improve this. I liked the idea of the out of space theme we'd had for some of the prints and thought it would work well to incooporate this into the name so we decided upon 'ORBIT' clothing, beneath that sub-labels for menswear, womenswear and unisex wear which would be mars, venus and uranus, with symbols to match.

out of the above symbols we picked upon the ones we most liked and which ones were more asthetically pleasing to the eye and decided we'd use these symbols further for printing.