Summary

During my time in this project, I felt as though I learnt quite a lot of things that I never knew or considered before this project began. Firstly whatever kind of business you decide to go into, its really important that research is done and the market is investigated, so you know what you are going up against in terms of competition as well as whether financially its worth the risk investing in your business. Secondly I think its crucial to go out there and start networking with people in the business you would like to get into. This will give you an insight into what’s required for your business to be competitive as well as how to run a business. Thirdly being organized and scheduling everything your going to plan to do is very valuable and beneficial because it will keep you on track with your deadlines and make you work that much more efficiently so you know that you are not wasting valuable time. Lastly believing in your business and persevering is crucial because during this tough economic time, I think its essential to have confidence and faith within your own company because if you don’t have that then I think the whole foundation of what your company has been built around will fall.

Evaluation with Linnea Dimitriou

We had an evaluation and summative assessment for our project Urbanize It. Me and my fellow team mate Leonard Onikoyi were present with two potential tutors that were going to assess us. The time for our summative assessment appointment was at 10.45am. Things ran a little late but eventually we began our assessment with the teacher Linnea.

Me and Leonard Onikoyi came prepared to the assessment, we had our t-shirt in hand and we also had a flyer as well as a powerpoint presentation slide for our pitch.

Linnea told us that our clothing brand 'Urbanize It' was really good and that there was lots of potential. We told her that we had difficulty in selling as much t-shirts as we could. We set out to sell intitally 12 t-shirts but in the end we sold 5 t-shirts. The majority of which was bought by family and friends and the starting price was around £15 which then changed to £12.

She said that we should over value our t-shirt so that it would give the perception that the t-shirt is something truly unique and that the consumer would have to buy. She said that if its expensive then the customer would assume that it must really good quality and popular. She said thats how we should approach our t-shirt and that kind of mind set. She told us that we should continue with this project after university because there was potential and that if we promote and market it as well as get the pricing right then this could go somewhere. She also offered to help us and continue to give us feedback after university finishes.

Selling online and Outside

In selling our t-shirts, i manage to gain valuable promotion through my dad's local corner shop. He allowed me to put up flyers as well as sell the t-shirts next to his shop. Although i didn't manage to sell that many t-shirts, just around 2 actually it was something and better than nothing. But promotion was valuable since i know a lot of my local people.

This is my dad signing the official Urbanize It consent form, there by giving us permission to sell and promote our t-shirt within his shop, all completely legitimately.

Marketing and Promotion

I was able to get some good feedback from a independent clothes retailer called Duvel's in stratford shopping centre. I asked the shop retailer if i could promote the t-shirts in his shop and he didn't say no but he didnt say yes either. He said that if we improve our t-shirts a little better in terms of design then he would be willing to promote and maybe even sell our t-shirts.

Promoting Urbanize It through social networking sites such as facebook and twitter.

This is the official website below and we promoted our t-shirt through this website. Plus it contains a link to another website which is gumtree. They would be able to purchase the t-shirt through that website.

Urbanize It being promoted through my twitter page in the pic below.

Final Printed 'Urbanize It' design T-shirt!

The final t-shirt design was printed and as you can see from the images below which includes a photo of me wearing it, the results of the t-shirt in a physical tangible form is quite satisfactory.

Purchasing tools and visiting print shops

We searched the net to find possible printing shops that we could print our t-shirts and we did come across a few but felt as though the prices were too high. Especially considering the other costs we had to cover.

These are the websites that we did check out.

http://www.clubrowcreations.co.uk/clothing/tshirtsblack.html

http://www.negs.co.uk/tshirt-printing1.html

We did print out one t-shirt through Negs as a test to see what the quality would be like.

Creating a consent form

Leonard and i decided to create a consent form. The consent form would be a sort of contract which would allow us to gain genuine permission from the individual or company that allows us to sell or promote our t-shirt within their sales environment. We felt this would make us look more professional and be taken more seriously.

Conducting an online survey

i created an online question survey using a website called www.surveymonkey.com

here is the link to the questionnaire created using the website.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/V5KHL6D

Here are the results to the survey.

T-Shirt Designs by me. Initial designs.

Research on starting up a clothing brand.

Concepts of Urbanize It Logo & Final Design

Coming up with a name for our clothing brand and creating the logo proved to be quite a challenge. I brainstormed lots of potential names for our clothing brand. We were looking fro name that was contemporary, youthful and meaningful.

After much deliberation and head scratching, my team mate Leonard Onikoyi came up with the name 'Urbanize It'. We both felt the name was perfect because it was easy to remember, the name itself had meaning and to top it all off we got fantastic feedback from our peers, teachers and the public.

The next phase was creating the logo and while gathering all the research in looking at other brands, Leonard took on the primary task in creating the logo. I did a few concept designs myself and had some input myself. Here are the concepts below.

Once a design of the logo was agreed on, Leonard went off to design the final image of the logo. And as you can see below, this is the final logo of Urbanize It. The other two images are promotional wallpaper images.

Final Logo Design! :)

Research on Brands

For the creation of the Urbanize It logo, it was important to research existing clothing brand logos. Because our clothing brand is aimed at a more younger consumer, the aim was to make the logo look fresh and cool. I researched various types of clothing brand logos. As you can see above, these are just some of the logos that i looked upon and also researching these logos will also influence how we design our logo for our t-shirt.

Research on T-Shirts

Research has been undertaken on this task because we needed to find out how to brand our company and since we are planning to design a website, it was a good idea to look at how established clothing companies like Nike and Adidas present and promote their brand through their website.

Chosen Business Idea & Proposal

After having read the brief, i had to decide whether i wanted to work alone or collaborate with someone. There was leeway in how we could work with people from other courses and outside of university. In the end i decided to work with Leonard Onikoyi, who is my fellow classmate. The next step was to brainstorm potential ideas for what we wanted to sell or what we wanted our product to be. In the end we decided to create a branded t-shirt design. We would create the t-shirt with logo brand and then we will sell it.

Enterprise & Entrepreneurship

Project Plan

Name of Enterprise

Urbanize It

Student Names

Leonard Onikoyi – Project Manager & Financial Manager

Shuhel Ahmed – Branding & Marketing Manager

Summary of Enterprise

The purpose of our enterprise is to sell specially designed t-shirts. The name of our t-shirt is called ‘Urbanize it’. This will be the name of our brand as well as the company. The reason why we decided on this business plan is because we want to expose and promote a t-shirt brand that we feel can offer something different and unique. The designs of the t-shirts will be urban and street style with a little bit of a techno and funk vibe added to it. The name of our brand will be the main logo as well the catalyst of what we are trying to promote and sell.

Measurable aims of Enterprise

Self Promotion of t-shirts – Online exposure via social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace.

Sell initially 12 t-shirts – Consisting of 3 three different designs. Male/female/Unisex and will amount to 4 t-shirts between the genders.

Keep within the minimum budget and try and reach maximum profit from sales.

Target Market

Our consumer target age will be between 16 to 30 years old. Specifically focusing on people from a student background as well as people who have interest in urban, grime, hip-hop and R&B music as well as art in the form of graffiti.

Promotion Strategy and Partnership

For promotion strategy we intend to promote our brand and product online through social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace. We will also be promoting and selling the t-shirts through bidding websites like Ebay. This will give us plenty of exposure since the Internet is a valuable and resourceful outlet for a more quicker and widespread awareness.

Action Plan

Budget

The minimum budget for our t-shirts will be £100 and the maximum £200.

The budget will be spent on acquiring the necessary tools and materials to create the t-shirts. Here is the list below of what we will need and how much it will cost.

Exit Strategy / Risk Management

The worst-case scenario is that we may not be able to shift and sell the t-shirts. And if we do manage to sell the t-shirts then there is a high possibility that we may not make a profit considering the fragile economic climate. If that happens where we are unable to make profit or sell the t-shirts within the time we have then its something we can continue within our own independent time, outside of the university and the actual assignment itself.

Project Brief

In the Level 3 project, you will come up with a business idea and carry out an enterprise. The enterprise can be based on a hobby / interest, based on a business opportunity you have stumbled upon or related to your course.

• There has to be actual trade- money switching hands or procurement agreement (/contract) signed- before summative assessment
• You are responsible for making sure you have the appropriate licenses, that your enterprise is legal, morally acceptable and in line with college regulations.
• Any monetary investments need to be discussed with a tutor and an exit strategy devised.

You will choose whether to work on your own or in a group, and whether to work with members of your own discipline or potentially to bring more varied expertise into the project by collaborating with people from different subject areas. You may choose to collaborate with someone outside of Ravensbourne.

There will be some suggestions of types of ventures you could pursue on Moodle (these have been supplied by your main tutors).

You will come up with an initial project plan including budget and action plan (Gantt chart) that will be handed in by the 28th of April. Throughout the unit you will be using your online learning (b)log to describe your research and learning, covering the process of launching your business including acquisition of skills, contacts and other resources. At the end of the unit you will analyse and review the project’s outcome and result in financial and other terms (we encourage using the ‘triple bottom line’ model). You are expected to analyse why there may be disparity between your initial forecast and the actual results and to tell us what lessons have been learned.

There will be a template on Moodle to use as a guide for writing the project plan and the end report.

AS mentioned above, each student will keep an online learning log and is required to submit a report and analysis of the learning journey (see below under assessable elements). Examples of what you should record in your learning (b)log:
- Any interesting material you stumble upon which has to do with your enterprise or topics covered in E&E
- Lecture notes
- Notes from independent learning on the VLE (Moodle)
- Research: findings along with critical evaluation of sources and methods used
- Motivation for or reasoning behind decisions made throughout the process
- Feedback: from friends, tutors, customers or whoever
- Visual: Sketches, storyboards, visualization of ideas, photographs of your progress
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Be aware of IP (copyright) and plagiarism. Do not cut and paste text into your blog other than as short citations clearly marked as such and make sure to reference where text and images are taken from. If using online material, there is generally no need to republish the material: instead write a description/summary and link to the original page.

We are working in compliance with the institution's group working policy. Guidelines for how to manage group work can be found on Moodle.