OUGD401 - Study Task 8 - Practical Explorations Festival Research

'Festivals are big and getting even bigger – in terms of the number being held each year, the size of the festivals and the number of people attending them. In fact, recent research* carried out for us shows that 14 million UK adults plan on attending a festival this year. And nearly three in 10 of these say they’ll attend more than one. With the average ticket price being over £200 for the major music festivals in the UK, that’ll be a fair few pounds flowing into the festival organisers’ coffers – a rough estimate being £2.3bn! And, if all those who say they’re attending a festival this year actually do it, it’ll represent a doubling of festival attendance in just three years!

Unsurprisingly, the keenest to attend are the younger generations, with just under half of both 18-24 and 25-34 year-olds saying they intend to purchase tickets for festivals this year. This is probably because camping is less appealing for older music fans, as they may not want to spend a few days stuck in a muddy tent.

And why has festivalling become such a big thing? Adrian North, director of psychology at Herriott Watt University offers up an explanation, “For some, membership of a tribe gives them self-esteem. If you are with people you think are cool it reaffirms your own lifestyle choices – you're basically patting yourself on the back."'

Quote from ThinkMoney.co.uk

10,000 units spread across the UK at £100 = £1,000,000

0.0007% of people attending a festival would need to purchase the product to sell out

Predicted 10,000,000 are target audience meaning that 1 in every 100,000 would need to purchase the product nationwide in order to meet product figures set

These ideal products are not being marketed towards the right target audience. Festival advertisement and product placement within the right stores would increase the sales of this product massively. This gap in the market can surely be exploited by any company willing to fill it. Much like timberlands asking the question "why can't work boots be incorporated into fashion?", the industry is calling out for someone to step in with another bold statement on practical fashionable footwear. Hunter wellies for women are the only competitor brand however, this is heavily linked with the female market and is in no way advertised towards the festival audience.

OUGD401 - Colour Theory - Lecture

There is no way to be sure that an apple is red, this is because of the relationship that we perceive colour. Spectral colour is a colour that is evoked by a single wavelength of light within a visible spectrum. In order to perceive colour, light needs to be present. What happens when we see a blue sky, it is a reflection of short white light wave lengths. The diagram below shows the spectrum of white light in relation to their wave length. Because the blue wave lengths are so light, the sunlight bounces off and reflects off them.

Our eyes can interpret red, green and blue however, when our green and blue cones are simultaneously stimulated, we can perceive other colours. Additive colour light is referred to as RGB whereas subtractive colour CMY. When we deal with RGB we are dealing with screens, when we deal with CMY we are working with printing.

Chromatic value = Hue + tone + saturation

Rods convey shades of black white and grey

Cones allow the brain to perceive colour

The first thing we recognise when perceiving colour is rods acknowledging tone. We can then see the contrast of hue which is determined by the distance between colours on the colour wheel which in turn creates contrast. The third element which makes up the chromatic value of a colour is saturation.

The contrast of temperature is assigned to the idea that a colour can be perceived as temperature.

OUGD401 - Study Task 8 - Practical Explorations

I also recently came across this piece of design below which started to spark my ideas on a more contextual piece of design. Using influence from the part of my essay on branding cattle with a branding iron, I have came up with the concept of possibly using primary source photography of someones back or forehead. I would then manipulate the image to look as though someone has burned a clothing brand onto the skin with a branding iron.

OUGD401 - Study Task 8 - Practical Explorations

In Study Task 6, I explored the concept to re brand an existing product towards a new customer market to boost sales and expand their target audience. I then began exploring potential untouched abilities and target audiences within products to redirect the sales to a new type of customer and to find a new direction for an existing product.

After searching the internet for a while, I discovered that there are no advertisements for welly companies during festival season. I could use photography such as the image below and overlay colour text and brand to create an advertisement aimed towards 16 - 25 year olds for wellies. Lights, music, bright colour and atmosphere are a few of the many elements of a festival which need to be clearly represented in the advertisement in order to grab the attention of young viewers. The final outcomes could then be produced into posters or mocked up on billboards in order to showcase the concept.

I could then develop this idea by moving onto welly packaging or possibly collaborating with fashion designers to produce some unique branded festival wellies. To really push the concept I could approach shops with the target audience of 16 - 25 year olds such as Foot Asylum, Foot Locker, JD and Scotts and present my prototype for possible development.