Proposal

As part of sense of place part 2; place making project, we have to come up with a proposal that will summaries our project. This should be delivered as a visually inspiring pitch; the proposal should be conceptual and tackle issues such as something that is missing in the city, something that is missing or something that needs promoting. 

Slowly my place project has gathered a flow towards people in place, pyscho-geography, anthropology, fashion in place, Leeds as cultural and dynamic city. Gathering up all my secondary and primary research I came up with these striking proposals; 

• create a magazine advertisement that represents the culture of Leeds (fashion,food,art) that highlights and promotes the diverse urban area. This will be given out as free magazine on public transport. 
• create a student fashion editorial that speaks to undergraduates at the Uni of Leeds that tackles the mis-interpreation of students in the area. The area will highlight upcoming fashion houses and any student discounting prices. 
• Create an advertising campaign that celebrates the diversity of culture in Leeds as I feel it is missing between the younger and older generation. This could be a "visit Leeds" campaign for example. 
• Create an identity for a fashion brand that is focused around styling young people in the Leeds area. This should highlight and promote the diversity of culture within the different urban areas through a new logo, brand, look-book and advertising campaign. 

After discussing it with my tutor I came up with a more finalised idea of my proposal: 

"My broad secondary and primary research has slowly gathered a narrative towards people within place and a very fashion-forward direction. The idea, starting part two of the research, was that I would look at how a place affects people and their culture. This is heavily delving into the psycho-geography theme within the brief. 

I really love branding and advertising, therefore, it was important for me to play up to my interests in part two. Therefore, I decided to research into modern fashion logo design and branding, Simplistic brand typefaces, exiting editorials and look-books, layout, colour, photography and merchandising. I also decided to look deeper into how artists and designers use anthropology in their work. I also decoded the area of Leeds, to break down the really cultural and exiting places within the large, diverse city. 

My proposal is to Create a brand identity for the Fashion Retailer MKI. MKI is a streetwear brand located in Leeds City Centre in the iconic Leeds Corn Exchange building. The new brand will have a new logo, typeface and colour scheme that will be implemented onto stock and advertising material. A new MKI Magazine will also be designed by which will replace their original online ‘blog’ by which news of the store will be advertised. This will be a free magazine that will be given out to customers who purchase from the Store. The main ethos of the new brand through the design, photography, merchandising and implementation will embody the brands place within the city and demonstrate how much Leeds plays a vital role in the culture and anthropology behind the customers who buy the clothes. The brand will also emphasise the beauty in simplicity, modern and minimalist design. This should highlight and promote the specialness of the city.

The audience of the new brand will be any shopper who shops in around the Corn Exchange building who will be influenced to come in and view the new identity; these people tend to be male and around 16-30 years of age (even though the brand is a unisex brand). The store is an independent clothing store and is stocked within other online suppliers, however the only store is located within the Leeds City Centre, and the brand was born there too - which is why it is extra important to embody the sense of place within the brand so that this message and theme is communicated."