Design Thesis Research || ID Kit Research
What do you consider to be your medium, style, and services of choice? Describe why you feel that is the case.
My medium of choice is brand identity design and I am particularly inclined towards packaging, product, and print design. As for my style, I’m not entirely sure I’ve found my exact style or a style that I feel is completely consistent throughout all my work. Much of my design work, in projects that allow for it, I’ve told have been feminine in nature and very playful and colorful. Color is important to a lot of my work, and I have a penchant for choosing very bold and eye catching color combinations. While I do try to remain mostly neutral in my decide in regards to masculinity vs. femininity, I do believe that my style does often take on a, as perceived by most, feminine touch as I do value warmth and elegance in my work.
What kind of skills, aptitudes, and abilities are current jobs in your field requiring, and how do you think your skills align with them? Please include at least three job listings from anywhere in the United States.
Anthropology Junior Digital Designer
Kate Spade New York Digital Designer
All of the job listings I posted above are Graphic and Brand Design positions in the Fashion industry. All of them include the typical hard design skills of typography and solid visual design skills and design sense in addition to technical skills such as operating a variety of different design softwares such as products in the adobe sweet and other design and prototyping softwares. Additionally, they all require exceptional collaborative skills and the ability to work across disciplines in order to work with members from marketing, buying and other teams at the companies. As such communication is essential and the ability to facilitate projects within a team environment is important. This is an area where I feel I meet the necessary requirements, as I excel in team environments and have strong collaborative skills.
Another necessary skill to brand design as seen in the job listings I researched is the ability to “creatively tell stories”, a skill that is necessary to the creation of cohesive and captivating brand stories and customer connections. I believe this as well is an area that I do excel in as research is incredibly important to my design process, more so the process of understanding the heart of my design subject and the clients I’m designing for.
Some of these jobs were interested in strong UI/UX skills which is an area of design that I shy away from but which I feel I could benefit from improving in. Additionally, I looked at some product and clothing design positions, wherein I did possess several important skills such as a strong design sense, knowledge of brands and fashion trends, and experience in market research, I do lack a lot of the hard skills in clothing manufacturing such as draping, wovens and textiles.
Thinking about after you graduate, what would you (either as a freelancer, employee, or business owner) offer that no one else in your market can? What would be your brand's unique value proposition?
As discussed during my show and tell, I believe what I have to offer to the fashion industry and to any other branding project is a unique experience as a woman of color and an immigrant in the US, and while I am aware that I may not be the only individual with this background in design, I also know that there is a lack of it in an industry dominated by white men, and therefore there is a craving for more diversity in the field. Much of my work and my values are guided by my experience as a Filipino woman and much of this allows my design approach to be much more empathetic and open minded. My unique value proposition is a dedication to equity and diversity in the design industry, and a passion for impact driven initiatives geared toward these values.
Ideally, what kind of clients/industries would you like to serve and work with, and why? Please provide links to a few examples.
As stated above, I am interested in brand identity design and perhaps, with more schooling and experience, styling and clothing design. As such, I am mostly geared towards the fashion industry, as fashion has always been one of my greatest interests, specifically in the way individuals are able to shape their own identities and their relationships with the world through their clothing choices. Despite my love for fashion, I do take issue with the largely classist notion of fashion in addition to its inclination towards fatphobic, racist, and ableist ideals, in addition to the contributions of the fashion industry to climate change and environmental damage. As such, companies that place an emphasis on ethical clothing production and diversity are clients that I would prefer to work with.
Examples include:
Through your research create a list of the kinds of problems you are most interested in addressing after you graduate and why.
Current problems in the fashion industry that I would be interested in addressing in accordance to my personal values would be the issues of fast fashion, sustainable manufacturing processes, ethical production, lack of cultural diversity, in addition to orientalism, racism, fatphobia, and ableism in fashion. All of these are problems that speak to my passion for social justice and environmental responsibility and are all incredibly relevant to the state of the world today. There is a clear need for design solutions to address these problems, so my passion for these issues makes me a desirable asset in this market, in addition to being important to my individual values.
Based on your research, what attributes and services do you think you would need to offer to be competitive in your envisioned marketplace?
I have many of the skills and attributes needed to be competitive in the brand design market, but I believe that my skills in UI/UX development could be improved upon to make me more desirable and employable. In regards to my ambitions to find work in clothing design, it will be necessary for me to refine my manufacturing skills in textiles and my knowledge of material buying and fashion trends.