Final year - Lola's life Interviews

The above images are the two interviews that i carried out for my launch website. The above image of the laptop is the screen which links them together and is where users can discover the interviews. The idea is that they are featured within Lola's inbox as if she had been interviewing them via e-mail, which is what i did. 

The interviews were with blogger Susie Bubble and illustrator Niki Pilkington, who actually produced an illustration of 'Lola'. I think that by interviewing people such as these, they are relative to the young girls who would visit Lola's life, and would be of interest to them. 

Final year - Lola's life website

To see more of Lola please visit;

www.lolaslife.co.uk

Final Year - Lola's life homepage

This is the initial homepage bedroom space which provides the starting point for users to navigate thought to discover different features. The wardrobe links to fashion, celebrity style, shopping and trends; the mirror to photoshoots; laptop to interviews; make - up to beauty; and the i-pod to music. 

Final year - FMP Lola's life

For my final major project i produced a website called Lola's life.

Lola's life is a unique interactive online space where young girls can discover up to date fashion, beauty and lifestyle features. By distancing itself from the normal editorial print based and online magazines, Lola's life is a fun and exciting way to get young females interested in fashion. By creating a persona and a intimate bedroom space, users get the chance to explore and discover the space by navigating their way around, getting an insight into Lola's lifestyle as they go.

The website is aged for 13 -18 year olds and is essentially a new format to consume fashion information. I wanted to create this online medium as i feel that today many young girls magazines are either patronising or to mature for their years. I wanted to create something that featured catwalk and high fashion influences with high street and affordable equivalents, like many current print and online mags do, but keep the element of youth there and not glam and sex it up to make it all glossy and sophisticated. 

I chose the online bedroom space as i feel that this interesting way is exciting for the consumer and let's them be in control of what they want to view and where they want to  navigate first. The immature style of illustration and colour schemes keeps it youthful and girlie and let's teenagers be teenagers without having to conform to the mass media. 

The idea of creating a persona came to me after researching bloggers and online social networking. I think that with the fast and increasing pace of brands moving online, it is the only way to successfully reach a hard to connect with age group. During research i discovered that bloggers were so popular because of the personal and realistic approach they take on life subjects, including fashion. It is these real people that the audience connect an build a relationship with. That's why i thought by creating the character 'Lola', consumers would feel that they were getting told information by a peer member rather than being 'told' by the mass media. 

The website includes a number of interesting features for young girls to enjoy. Some are more light hearted and fun articles which provide easy reading for the consumer, and other articles such as the interviews, are slightly more in depth and have more reading material to them. I didn't want to content to be too text heavy as i think that it is important the users remain interest and their concentration spam as otherwise within minutes of seeing a big piece of text they will probably being doing something else on the net. 

Final year - Ted Baker Competition

In the 3rd year we produced some competition work as small project to run alongside our final major project. These images were for a Ted Baker window display competition based around the autumn/winter season. The theme of my piece was to highlight the strength of Ted Baker as a Great British brand, and to reflect this by using something else which is Great British, i.e the weather! Normally everyone you ask will see the autumn/winter weather to be very cold, rainy and somewhat depressing. I wanted to show the fact that although it might be bad weather, the upside to this is the fact that you can wear your 'Great British armour' in the form of the Ted Baker A/W clothing. 

To illustrate my idea  I chose to base the window display around a rainy winter's day were everyday people are siting at the bus stop. The rain clouds with thoughts in them were then supposed to represent what the individuals were thinking highlighting things about the brand and also the range of diverse customers which shop at Ted Baker. It shows and everyday activity the commute and how this can be made better just by the clothing which you are wearing. Ted Baker will make everything better protecting you from the weather elements. 

the second image would be the second of the window displays, as the design was based around one of the larger of the stores where there would be room for two main areas. The second would be vinyl on the window with the red circle showing the london travel symbol and the mannequins to be placed within the middle of this highlighting the seasons collection. 

First year work - Editorial Exhibition review

As another part to the journalism project i produced an exhibition review on the Vanity Fair photography exhibition which i went to visit. This had to be produced in a broadsheet format so the tone and style of the piece had to be slightly more mature and serious than just the general chatty style of writing which i sometimes produce. I found the exhibition very interesting and thought provoking and i really got stuck in to writing this piece and enjoyed it. The Vanity fair photographs really got me thinking about today's celebrity obsessed culture and the way in which many of the photo's featured were shot in a surreal and magical way, almost as if they were mocking themselves and the whole idea of what they are about. The tone of my piece has a very analytical edge to it and it discusses the theme of celebrity culture in realtion to the exhibition itself. 

First year work - Editorial Travel Guide

This was one of three pieces i produced as a first year journalism project. We had to produce a city guide to feature in a magazine, and after recently visiting New york during the course of this project, i decided to use this amazing city to base my feature on! I was in ore of this beautiful place and fell in love with the fact that the city that never sleeps offers such a wide range of activities to suit an tourists taste! I designed the layout to be a bit hectic and scatty to reflect the lively nature of the city and used 'New york' colours throughout.