Summary on my Retail project.
For the retail project, firstly, as per the lecture we had to research on a brand, so that the book would consist of everything related to the brand. The brand that I chose was “Prada”, which is one of the biggest luxury fashion houses in Italy. Since we were supposed to do a lot of work on this, I divided the research into few categories, such as; history, present and future. With these headings, I researched all about Prada. By spending a lot of time on this, I gained a lot of relevant information which I never knew before and day by day it was getting interesting to know more about Prada. Prada’s main motive is to be the luxuries product seller.
Prada opened various of its boutiques in Spain, Kuala Lumpur and one of Prada’s largest boutiques was made in Dubai in 2012. Going through these boutiques it’s obvious that the architects designs and the way that have come up with their ideas are very different and they managed to make gorgeous boutiques with an amazing attractive interior design in all the shops. Even though, they have business issues inside, they managed to increase their profit every year. Their products are advertised in the most exclusive magazines, TV shows and other social medias. After spending a week on this research, I gained and wrote all the information about their products, their staff, the customers that mostly purchase their items, how the business run and how it used to run when the business first started out to this day onward and how the whole business started out in the first place.
A lot of time was spent in order to make the book, and a lot of research was needed to complete all forty-five pages, and even though I wasn’t able to do all the pages for this project, and wasn’t able to reflect my best work, I have learned a lot and hopefully I will fix all the mistakes I have done in this assignment.
Secondly, while doing the research I also had to concentrate on making the model that we were assigned to do related to the brand that we have chosen, like; “Prada”. The location which was given to us was part of our college building and is located right next to it. This place; which is called “Island Craft” located next to AOD was not a big place, the place could be seen physically, and the measurements of the building and the interior was easy for us to get access to, which was a huge plus point for me and all my colleagues while working on the model and designing the interior. Even though we had these advantages, making the model by cutting the boards precisely to all measurements proved out to be a much harder task than drawing out the plans for the building. I was working on ground floor first and then the upper floor. Due to the scale 1:50, the measurements turned out to be incredibly small which turned out to be extremely difficult to cut small pieces within short period of time it happened to be really tough to give too much details to the model and the interior. Using hard boards in order to make the model, which consisted of more than one staircases and floors turned out to be an incredible challenge for all of us. Every piece had to be cut precisely and one piece had to be cut to the exact same measurement over and over again in order to bring out the perfectly made model. I don’t know how many times I have cut my fingers while using the blade. May be for the next project I will be able to be quick and much experienced for the models like this.
Thirdly, I had to make a concept model by choosing a concept idea. The concept that I chose was freedom. The reason that I chose Freedom as a concept for Prada is due to the fact that Prada is one of the places which thrives to give their customers a wide range of opportunities in making decisions with their products. Concentrating on this factor, I managed to create an idea for the concept model, which was; Roads to Freedom. Making the concept model turned out to be whole lot easier compared to the other factors of the project. I kept the concept for the last, and I made the model with the clay making a huge mountain and roads all around the mountain with sand papers, so that the model would indicate the message of the concept that I was trying to show by using this model. it really looked natural and in my opinion is one of my best work so far in this assignment. The idea was to show there are many roads to go, any roads can be chosen, since Prada also give out so many opportunities and ideas.
In addition, to this I also had to make a presentation board which was about a small introduction about Prada what I have done for the project, a little about the concept model and all of this is related to my model and its interior. Both the floor plan was shown and how I made the interior also was shown in this presentation board. Moreover, this shows the materials which I used in the interior such as, red wood, cloths, marbles and leather.
To conclude, I would say for the first experience it was difficult but in time I managed everything and in the future, will be able to manage time efficiently and get done everything perfectly. While doing this project I mastered a lot of things and gained knowledge about the importance of the lectures review and feedback for the project. At times having negative feedback makes me disappointed on my work but with the help of friends and lecture, their advice inspired me more and for each mistake I have done, made it right and a good job the second time.
