Visiting Blackpool

Today me and my group met up in Blackpool. I only live 10 minutes from the town center so I met the rest of my group at Blackpool train station. We first headed to the Tower Ballroom to see if this would be a good place for our photo shoot location and although it really is a stunning place, we felt that the space was too big and the colours weren't right. We wanted bright fun colours and the ballroom was too gold and grand and had an old feel about it. So we headed to a few arcades on the prom and surprisingly, we were told by the managers that there is no way we would be aloud to do a photo shoot in there! 

Next we headed to the pier and we felt that this could be the perfect place for our shoot, it had the fun, vintage, retro and bright feel that we are going for! We then hopped on a tram to the pleasure beach to look at the Alice and wonderland ride and tea cups to tie in with Strictly Cupcakes vintage tea room theme. Victoria in my group emailed the marketing manager of the Pleasure Beach while we were there to tell her about our plans to shoot there and amazingly, she emailed back on Victoria's train home to say she was really interested in our project and she was happy to give as many free passes we need for us and photographer etc! So we are now all feeling really positive and excited and our next step will be to ask Dave the uni photographer to help out. :)

Meet & Greet

So me and my group met up on Thursday to chat more about our cupcake project and brainstormed ideas for our photo shoot we have to plan for the store. Before meeting up I researched shoots that I thought would be good references. My first thought was WILDFOX! I love Wildfox and all there shoots, they are such a good site to go to for inspiration! Every shoot is fun and cheeky, which is what we would like to convey with our cupcake shoot. Jordan in my group had also looked at Wildfox too, so I was glad to know we were on the same page in terms of ideas, as that can be the trickiest part of working in a group!

I think we had all thought at first that we would go down the root of creating a Wildfox like shoot with some sort of fun tea party like the images above, but after speaking to Nicola, we realized we needed to think a bit deeper and think more about a different location that represents fun and vintage. So we decided that we would take a trip to one of England most popular and fun sea side resorts- Blackpool! 

We're going to look in the tower ballroom to see if we could include dance in our shoot as Strictly Cupcakes also own Strictly Dancing. We're also going to look at arcades, the pier, the beach and the pleasure beach fun fair as this would be the perfect backdrop for a really fun shoot and cupcake shop!

We've arranged to meet in Blackpool on Monday at 10.

After meeting up in class, we visited our store- Strictly Cupcakes to chat to the owner and get a feel of the store and brand. We met the owner Joanne who in all honesty, didn't seem too interested in what we are doing! We were all polite and introduced ourselves and explained the project and all she had to say was- 'OK, well someones done this before from UCLan, and flyers and posters don't work!'

Despite not getting a great vibe from the owner, we had a look round the store to get some ideas and we really loved how bright and colourful the store is! We can't wait to represent this in our shoot!

First week back at Uni!

This week has been my first week beginning my final year studying fashion promotion! I feel quite scared knowing this is my fourth and final year, but after having a year in industry for my placement year, I'm excited to be back on campus and get stuck in to some exciting projects! 

I have already received my first project and I'm really happy with it! It's a group project and each group in my class has been given an independent retailer in Preston to promote. In class, one person from each group had to pick the retailer out of an envelope. I was really nervous because I was the one asked to pick out of the envelope for my group and I didn't want to pick a shop that me and my group wouldn't enjoy promoting! 

So when I picked vintage cupcake and tea room shop- 'Strictly Cupcakes', I was so relieved and my group was too! My style has always been quite girly, so this project should really suit my style! :)

For now my group has agree'd to research the brand individually and meet up again on Thursday to talk about our next steps in researching the brand and planning our photo shoot!