After the summative

Got some really good feedback from the summative on things beyond the enterprise last friday.
Unfortunately Clym was running late so I had to present alone but I showed the assessors some examples of what we had been selling and went into details about finance, promotion, target market and future strategies.

Lorna (one of the assessors) suggested that rather than stick to my usual manga style i should return to my original style (which I've only recently developed, an example of which i had with me in the form of a business card) and gave me the advice about going into illustrating children's products which is actually exactly what I want to do!
I'm going to start emailing Lorna as she said she will try and give me some helpful advice on how to get started, her being in illustrating herself.
The assessors also suggested i try and continue this business just to bring in a little revenue for myself as it doesnt cost too much to maintain and it could be a hit, it is something I will think about over the coming weeks once I am looking for a job, definately :D

So that's the end of E&E for now!

Have sold all my bookmarks, there are only 4 badges left and about ten keyrings which I will still try and sell (probably to friends in my class next week) but have gained some very valuable knowledge and experience from this unit.

7th June - Selling Day

Right!! We had our selling day yesterday and it went very well, take a look at some of the photos;


Overall the day was a success. Had some initial difficulty setting up the stall but that was it. We sold our items with Steve Pender's Ravensbourne Wristbands business and Emma Wyton and Mariluz Noto's facepainting business. We also had some help from fellow classmates Marios Economides and Laura Haile who drew in customers and sold if we were ever away from the table.

I've also worked out an end statement of the budget for myself;

Have spent £136.79 in total for this.. although the business cards and banner will be useful in any future business plans so I'm not sure if I will count that towards the project here.
As far as the merchandise is solely concerned, I've managed to make a profit. I've also sold £17 worth of things to friends online, just need to wait til the end of the month til that goes through and then I can finish the business :)

Ready to Sell

Our day of production is tomorrow! Everything is completed now, Clym made the badges and I made the keyrings and bookmarks and have notified the college of what we're doing.
I've made a little money off of them already. I took my items to an anime club I go to yesterday and managed to make £20 ^^ I have also taken a few online orders which should amount to another £10 and anything left over tomorrow my Dad says he will take to work with him since there are people interested in buying there.
I hope to make at least £60 over all to break even and cover the cost of making everything..

Will write again then and include photos too :D

Keyrings Complete!

Thanks to help from my friend and sister I completed my keyrings :D So those are complete and ready to sell, the only thing I'm slightly worried about is that i holepunched a couple of thema litle too close to the edge and am worried they might break easily but apart from that they look good ^^
Now just have to go into college and guilloting the rest of the keyrings and bookmarks and we'll be done! We also need to finish updating the website so people can buy everything online and I can start advertising it on things like my website and deviantART account.

running into trouble

okaaaayyyy spent £12 or so on printing credits at college to get everything printed but ran into SO MANY problems. Must also remember that Clym has paid me £20 back)

First of all we couldn't get any of the printers to work (was our first time using them this year) so we had to ask the IT guy and he explained about swiping in and putting money on our passes..
then we couldnt get the matt printer to work.. so we had to ask for help again and the problem was because we were trying to print portrait rather than landscape.. seems the bigger printers dont like portrait.
and then the printer ran out of pages and we spent ages trying to work out how to reload it but we had to call the IT guy again. Took 2 hours altogether to get it done!

Next, today I had to get a laminator off of my friend and I won't bore you with the problems there but what should have been a 40minute bus journey climbed to 2 hours... more time wasted!

but anyway, the biggest problem so far has just emerged.
Today I laminated everything - the bookmarks and the keyrings (clym is making the badges) and it was going great.

But the keychains we ordered don't work with the printouts! Basically the hole is too small to let the laminated paper go through..

(keychain on its own)



(and here is what it looks like if we leave it. the keyring has to be attached to the bigger loop as the other hole is too small)


So my sister came up with the idea of cuting off that loose end half of the keychain but the new problem from that is that there is no room between the keychain and the keyring which means the plastic might bend a lot easier and get in the way!
Although it is a solution and this way doesn't look as stupid..
Next time need to remember - buy beaded keychains!!

The only remaining problem is that cutting laminated paper with scissors really hurts my hand.. It's okay for the bookmarks as we're going to use the guillotine at college but I have to cut my keyrings in different shapes!


Can't really afford to spend anymore on this project :(

working on quantity

We are going to make;

100 keyrings
100 bookmarks
74 badges

Rough prices (may change);
Bookmarks- £1
Keyrings- £1.50
Badges- £0.50
Commissions- £3-5

We will print everything tomorrow!

Keeping track of spendings..

Thought i'd write down here what I'd spent so I can sort it out with clym and work out if we make any profit later XD

£21.74 - badge maker
£13.98 - 2 badge refill sets..
£6.25 - 100 lamination pouches
£1.50 - practising buying a bookmark from the site

= 43.47
wooooahhh.. really need to make that back haha! i know clym has also spent some money on the keychains so we will need to discuss how to pay this all later XD

I also spent money on business cards and the banner but they are for my own persona use so i don't have to worry about that.. roughly that amounts to £60 though >< (350 business cards, plus holder, plus the banner)

am having a skype meeting with him at 2pm today so should write more on that soon~
he also fixed the paypal thing on the website and added postage and packaging..
oh! and i worked out i can borrow my friends laminator on friday so the rush now is to print everything on thursday and over the weekend prepare it all to be sold! wish us luck will be a busy few days!

other things to think about;
sending an email round the college
putting up posters to advertise
whether we're selling on the same day as anyone else for networking

evil lamination problems

Okay.. we are having a sliiight setback in that the laminator we were going to use is unavailable.. my friend thought she had one but it turned out she didnt.. so we have to find another method.

I posted on facebook asking if there was a place that sold laminators cheaply and got the suggestion of trying rymans which has this product which looks good.. but then again we are already over budget and £26 is a lot!
http://www.ryman.co.uk/1228059160/Texet-A4-Value-Pack-Laminator-Trimmer-and-50-Laminating-Pouches/Product

Sooooo.. we were thinking of trying stickyback plastic instead, but as Clym and some others have pointed out its quite fiddly and if it goes wrong you cant change it. Here is a video we found demonstrating that;
http://youtu.be/wB-NQsHZUzE

so we are thinking of a way round that..

in the meantime, clym created an awesome website for us! So people overseas can buy our stuff;
http://twoartistsinacorner.carbonmade.com/
and the paypal place;
http://artistspaypal.blogspot.com/

minor setbacks but we hope to go ahead with our plan to sell on monday!!
the facebook page is also going well..

Facebook Page

We now have a facebook page for our product!!

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Two-Artists-In-A-Corner/116904221729035?sk=wall

Just quickly set it up this evening, but this should promote our business a little better! Over the coming days we will add all of our products available and also do a bit of market research - posting a 'question' about what people will prefer to buy which they can then vote for.

Let's hope we are a success! We need to break even.

Formative

Me and Clym had our formative assessment on Tuesday and we have plenty to think about!

Advertising ideas;
-putting posters in the elevators... around the entrance to the college and random other places people will see them like bathrooms!
-sending an email round a few days before to advertise
-creating a facebook group to promote our business
-selling on the same day as other students on our course to draw more attention to all of us. This could also really help with networking :)

Refreshing our minds on the schedule;

I am ahead of schedule for most things.. Have draw everything and purchased everything (except the laminator and the frames... have scrapped the cakes idea) so things are going well and after we make some more should be on track to sell :D

Having a slight problem with the lamination though.. The college doesnt have a laminator! So me and Clym are going to see if we can find one elsewhere, and if not I'm going to check out amazon and see if I can buy one for us!

Also my banner arrived!! it is HUGE.. 2 meters tall!! It looks like this;

Tried to make the colours bright and eye-catching to attract attention.. and it really works hehe :D this will be better than putting up posters but i want to advertise it as much as possible all the same ^^ It can also stand up on its own so won't have to worry about ruining any walls or using bluetack.


REMINDER TO SELF - SCAN AND UPLOAD FORMATIVE FORM HERE! then email to robert~

Finished Drawing :O

Here are the finished result of the things I want to sell! Just got to work out where to print and laminate them :)

Bookmarks;

Keyrings and Badges;


Might be a good idea to print them off and for advertising research see if anyone is actually interested in buying them, and which ones are the most popular! Since that way we can make more of those ones... I'm quite happy with them, will try and have a prototype of each ready next week or the beginning of the week after.

Updates

More progress!

Have bought a badge maker here;

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bandai-Badge-It-Maker/dp/B0000BX8AU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1304116560&sr=8-1
and it should arrive tomorrow! We just need to finish making our badges and order some more.

We are making;
-5 badges each
-5 keyrings each
-5 bookmarks each
-50-250 business cards each (not sure yet)
and I've got my banner which should also arrive tomorrow.

I've already spent about 40-50 pounds on this project but I know in the long run it will be very useful.
So far I have;
done about half of the badges, half of one bookmark, half of a keyring, sent off for my banner and business cards and am looking into ordering key chains now.

We are making progress.. I hope to at least finish all the badges and half the bookmarks by Friday if not more! So much to do, it should be fun..
Also need to consider posters and sending round an email to the college before we have our stall!

Till next time...

p.s. am not going to post any of my designs here in case there are thieves about =p
here are some examples I am basing the designs and sizes on though;

So expect stuff like that but with my original characters XD

keyring ref;


bookmark ref;


badges ref;

Changes

Since the last post a lot of changes have happened.

I am now in a group with Clym since we decided with the others that our individual ideas were too different for us to be able to work together. But I am still planning to set up a stall inside Ravensbourne with Clym and sell buttons, keyrings, bookmarks and sketch commissions.

As for the progress..

I have made myself a business card and have sent off 100 of them in time for the stall in approx 2-3 weeks and also made a banner which I can hang behind us to promote my art and which I will also be able to use in future events. Just have to wait for the shipping to come through!
Here is what it will look like;


I'm having a meeting with Clym on Skype tomorrow morning to sort out the project plan, our job roles and the name but I think we're sorted and ready :D

Am going to go and buy a button maker at some point and also work out how I'm going to print and laminate the keyrings and bookmarks! Hopefully Ravensbourne has some good facilities that we can use :D

Our schedule!


And by the way... our group name is 'Two Artists In A Corner'. Expect more soon!

Banners and Cards

Just got a reply from my friend who set up a stall before;

'Ellooo!

Banner stands are absolutely NECESSARY! And they're pretty cheap to get now. When I got mine I ended up paying about £80 for it and the quality was pretty shockingly bad. However, I got a new one from these guys and it's amazing! Great price, great quality, quick delivery. Can't fault 'em.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/BANNER-STAND-roll-up-display-/140490378145?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item20b5e10ba1#ht_2436wt_905

Business cards are also pretty essential, but you don't need to shell out loads of money for some high quality ones, especially if you're going to just give them out to anyone that asks (and trust me, pretty much everyone asks, even if they're not going to do anything with them). So a company like Vistaprint is fine. Good-ish quality, cheap, and relatively quick if you don't mind paying a little bit for delivery.

Good luck!! Hope you do well :)

which is greatly helpful! now just gotta design the banner and business cards, but want to talk to my group before i go ahead with that.. It might be we only need to buy one or two but I definately want one and dont mind paying for it myself since ill probably use it again at the expo.

Researching My Idea

In October this year, myself and a friend of mine are planning on setting up an artist table at the London MCM Expo, and so we already started some research into this kind of business.

6 Must Dos To Sell Yourself At A Convention
and while Ravensbourne isn't a convention it gave me some things to think about;
-Business Cards
-Advertising

I have just emailed a friend about where the best place is to set up business cards and will probably try to design and buy my own this week but as for advertising and drawing attention to our stall..
keyrings would look like this;

flat images laminated :D

I'm thinking it would be good to place it on the 4th floor since this is where most students go for lunch or to have a break. If I can grab a few tables for myself and my friends we could set up there and then get a board put up behind up showing things like sample commissions, buttons etc. facepainting photos, maybe a bit like this;


Might be good to send an email round the college about it the day before and put some posters up round the ground floor to get attention.

I think I will try and design my business card this week and also think about pictures I've drawn that I can turn into things like bookmarks etc. and even if people at rave would be interested by asking around on facebook.

Skype Meeting

Had a Skype meeting with my group at 9-11.30pm last night on the project.

and we all have a variety of ideas so we're going to go away for a few days, research our own ones then come together again on sunday night and decide on what to do. Emma is thinking about facepainting, Steve wants to hold an SU event and Clym is interested in creating an art book. We can sell more than one product or do more than one thing, and I want everyone to have fun so it would be great if we could each sell a service/product together.

I still want to sell bookmarks/keyrings and buttons if possible, as well as on the spot commissions, so did a bit of research into things people are most likely to buy from artist tables using my website on deviantart to see how popular that idea is;

The URL to this poll is HERE

I'll also ask some more people on facebook later and find out how to get this stuff made..

Laminating Research

We are most interested in pursuing a business venture that involves selling our art among other things, so I asked a friend of mine from outside college Kelly Kimber, who has sold her art at expos and other conventions for advice on how to go about laminating artwork and the best and cheapest way to do so!

Correspondece;
Michelle wrote;
'hiya kelly!

hope you can help me, having a problem with a college project..

I need to start up a business with a group and we thought we would sell bookmarks/keyrings and buttons for it.. but were wondering, where can we get pictures laminated, where is the ideal place to print them and how much for? since you have a lot of experience do you think you could give us some tips? we're going to sell them at the entrance to our college in a couple of weeks...'

Kelly wrote;
'Hmmm well when i laminated pictures i used the laminator from my mums workplace and bought the laminator sheets from poundland..... if you like i can borrow it again (if im allowed and you can come down and use it... or i can come to you XD) Staples do fairly cheap printing depending on the paper thickness. but the one in croydon printed really dark.'

A good start then :D
We must also keep in mind that if we include cartoon characters they should be original as it is not legal to sell those containing a copyrighted characters likeness.

Day One

Had our first E&E meeting today!

We started by learning about what is expected for the unit and some valuable tips.
We have roughly 5 weeks to form a group, plan and create a business then sell our product and record how we market it.
I decided to get into a group with like-minded classmates - Emma Wyton, Steve Pender and Clym Smith.

So far the ideas we have come up with are;
-Selling our art
(buttons, keyrings, prints, on the spot commissions, posters etc.)
-Facepainting
-Selling 3D models of our characters using ones we've made in the 3D program 'Maya' and our college software which enables us to turn them into real models.
-Selling T-Shirts with cool designs on them.

We would like to do something we can all enjoy however so we are going to meet up on Skype later in the week to discuss further.

Other things we learned today to remember;
-You have to spend money to make money
-Capitalism has given us too much choice, aim for a niche market and be in it for the long haul rather than the quick fix (the tutors likened this to music and the success of X Factor albums compared to the longer success of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon album)
-Who on Earth knows how to make a pencil? No one person creates a product, we must rely on others for help.
-'premium models' - selling the first product for free to gain more business and renown.

We will also need to start by asking some of our friends if they will buy our product once we make it and how we will go about making and marketing it.
Will write more soon!