NEW BEAUTY ITEMS

A peek at some new beauty products that I've been loving recently.

Graphic Design x FCP ft. Little Box of Fragrances

We collaborated with 2nd year students studying Graphic Design, pitching our brand and packaging ideas for them to create a mock up. We created a booklet of our brand which I spoke about, here. Here are the results from our collaboration:

Little Box of Fragrances Website Home Page

Little Box of Fragrances website home page I designed and created on Photoshop.

Little Box of Fragrances Double Page Spread Advert

Little Box of Fragrances double page spread advert I designed and created on Photoshop.

Little Box of Fragrances Mobile Site

Little Box of Fragrances mobile site I designed and created on Photoshop.

Little Box of Fragrances App

Little Box of Fragrances app I designed and created on Photoshop.

Group work reflection

I would say group work is like Marmite. But you don't really find many lovers of it, do you? As a whole, group work is despised by many. There's always the fear that one won't pull their weight and be a bit of a let down. Or worse, more than one person.

Snapchat wit

Fragrance adverts are often wonderful and weird. To sell a fancy bottle of coloured liquid does take some doing, which is why there is often a narrative or story behind it. A few weeks ago we had to analyse a range of ads in a "Snapchat wit" frame of mind. To begin with, it was quite tough and I almost felt bad for ripping an advert apart, trying not to think of the real story or al of the hard work taken to achieve it. For example, I captioned the beautiful photograph of Natalie Portman for the Miss Dior perfume with "Waiting for bae". Once the first few were out of the way, it became much easier and we let our imagination run wild.

Fragrance Packaging Design Booklet

Wow. What a morning!

After possibly the most stressful morning ever, I am so happy I could bounce to the moon.

There is truly nothing like holding your (or a group's) publication just after it has been printed for the first time.

As a team we had to create an A4 12 page spiral/wire bound booklet for a briefing session with second year Graphic Design students. The booklet had 4 sections where we had to discuss our concept, consumer, competition and then the bottle and packaging.

As one member of our team was away on a trip, we designed the booklet as a group, whilst each focusing on a particular section.

I'm so proud of our booklet and the briefing session went down like a storm! After working on our concept and brand for so long now, we finally had it down to a T and I felt so passionate and enthusiastic selling our idea to our designers. I can't wait to see what they come up with!

I've uploaded the team booklet to ISSU:

issuu.com/jemmaheathfield

Fragrance Trend Booklet - feedback

In today's seminar we presented our fragrance trend booklets we had created to small groups on the tables we were sat at. It was really interesting to see everyone's creations and the variety in design and themes people had selected.

My booklet was selected as one of the best three on my table which I was really pleased with, as I'd really enjoyed designing it and was proud of the end result.

We have feedback on post-it notes and were all given three positive comments and three comments that suggested improvements.

we like
1. nice frames in good colours that fit the trends
2. good choice of fonts and names for your trends
3. nice choice of images/good quality

improvements
1. more text/info - descriptions
2. experiment with alternative layouts - minimalistic for example
3. try not to use more than 3 different fonts

The whole booklet has been uploaded it to ISSUU:

issuu.com/jemmaheathfield

Unnecessary brand ambassadors

Brands and their use of celebrity ambassadors can be a hit or miss. Whilst some work superbly and really communicate the ethos of the brand, others simply flunk. Sometimes that specific celebrity doesn't really fit in and other times one simply isn't needed. That's how I feel about Balenciaga's choice with Kristen Stewart as the face of the FloraBotanica fragrance.

I'm not the biggest fan of the Twilight star, and I can remember being quite surprised when I first saw this advertising campaign. I feel that a celebrity was not needed for this campaign and the use of an unknown model would have worked much better.

The actress, known for her often expressionless face does not bring anything to the brand or fragrance advert in my opinion, and I don't see the connection between her and the brand at all.

Fragrance Trend Booklet

To see the whole booklet, I've uploaded it to ISSUU where you can see it as a publication:

issuu.com/jemmaheathfield

Our brief was to plan, design and create a booklet on InDesign depicting four key trends for fragrance in 2016 that we had identified from looking at 2014 and 2015 advertising campaigns etc. The 12 page A5 double sided booklet was to be staple bound and we were only given just over two weeks to create it.

We had to select a theme for each of our trends, and I decided to look into:

Decoding fragrance adverts

Fragrance adverts are found in dozens of magazines, you just have to flick through Vogue or ELLE and you're bombarded with them, and often whizzed past as you search for an article. However it wasn't until today's seminar that I really focused on the adverts, placing them into categories and discussing the messages they hold.

BBC Perfume Documentary

To help prepare us and give an insight into the industry we will be studying in the next module, we were told to watch a BBC documentary on perfume in our reading week. Despite owning many different fragrances and seeing dozens of adverts in magazines and on the television, I didn't know an awful lot about the fragrance industry. With the next module in sight and after learning about the creation of a scent in New York at FIT, I was looking forward to seeing the industry behind the scenes.

There's something in the air... fragrance

Whilst in New York we went to a lecture at the FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology) where we were given a brilliant background and history of fragrance. With the next module being on fragrance, where we create our own perfume and promotional materials, it was great to learn some of the key fragrances and learn about the different notes and ingredients that are used in some of the most famous perfumes.