Final Major Project: The S.O.O.T.S Clothing

Basic Brief and Outcomes

In essence, this project is the creation and marketing launch of a cult fashion label. As part of this, I will create a homogenous brand identity and strict look for the line. I will also produce a selection of four prototype garments, consisting of t-shirts, as well as a fully functional online store and the production of promotional marketing tools such as pin badges and bumper stickers.

Shirts are sold via an online store:

CLICK HERE TO VISIT ONLINE STORE

The brand keeps 'fans' posted and generates interest via a facebook page:

CLICK HERE TO VIEW OUR FACEBOOK PAGE

About our brand

‘The Secret Order of The Streets’ brand is based upon our beliefs in world peace, charity, ethics, morality, third world rights as well as opposition to forces of power within society, be it in government, large monopoly companies or through the media systems. As part of our belief system and code of conduct, we have a huge obsession within our brand with current affairs, history, war, conspiracy theories, secret societies, religion and culture. All of our products, as well as their designs are hugely influenced by some or all of these themes.

Due to our belief in opposition to powers within society, our brand identity is modelled not as a fashion label but as a secret society for those that share similar values and beliefs as us. Therefore, all garments produced will be modelled as uniforms for the society. The website will also be modelled as a members website for the secret society, with the ‘members’ being people who affiliate themselves with the brands identity. The brand will be marketed with the intention of it having a cult following rather becoming popular within the mainstream. It will be marketed via stickers and badges at venues such as universities, art galleries, protests and demonstrations, notable fashion outlet areas, as well as through social networking, with the hope that it will spread through word of mouth.

Despite the strong focus on content, we will also be producing garments of high quality and design as we are primarily a fashion label. To keep interests high, and to build up a customer base, all garments will also be exclusive and of limited quantity. In keeping to our belief system, all garments will also be sweatshop free and produced using as much recycled resources where possible.

Uni Project: Self Initiated Project

For this project, i had the chance to produce anything i wanted in whatever medium that i want. I decided to choose the medium of 'print' and produce a movie poster for a non-existent documentary film which portrayed the reality of youth crime and drug culture in East London, UK.

Below is my final poster design (CLICK TO ENLARGE):

Uni Project: A5 Almanac

For this project i had to make a "16 page A5 landscape" almanac displaying me and my work through the look of a fictional company. It also had to have a "green" theme and printed and presented using recycled materials.

Below are the spreads for the final design (CLICK TO ENLARGE):

Uni Project: Alpha-Bet

"Design your own alphabet by investigating the vernacular form of your spoken & written language(s). How is it influenced by the lettering and layout you see, hear and use everyday? Using your research sketch/draw then digitize your alphabet."

For this project, I decided to created a typeface by incorporating by written handwriting with the Bengali typeset.

This is my handwriting: (CLICK TO ENLARGE)THIS IS THE BENGALI TYPEFACE:

The following is the typeface that i came up with and that i digitized. I named it "Bengal Scribble". (CLICK TO ENLARGE)
Below are Pangrams to show my designs in use: (CLICK TO ENLARGE)

Uni Project: Rhythm & Rhyme

For this project, I had to:
"create both a printed and visual version of a magazine/newspaper and blog space of words relating to music. ie. lyrics, poetry, nursery rhymes.etc..."

I decide to base this project on the stories of the Holy Qur'an and re-interpret it for children in Primary School. I decided to create the first in a mock series comprising of 6 parts. This would be 6 monthly flyer handouts with a particular story from the Qur'an as well as an accompanying cartoon that could be viewed on the web for that particular story.

The flyer that I created for this project is the first in the series and an example of what the series would actually look like. I have also created a mock website for the cartoons and this could viewed by clicking the link below:

CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE 'ADVENTURES OF AISHA' WEBSITE

Front page of first cover: (CLICK TO ENLARGE)

Here is the Inside: (CLICK TO ENLARGE)

Uni Project: Virtual Presence - Fashion Victims

In this project, we had to basically select fashion victim(s) and critique their styles with our own opinions before presenting it in a real or virtual method. For this, i decided to make an iPhone application with a large focus and influence on celebrities such as Kanye West, Lady GaGa, Lupe Fiasco, Andre 3000, Gwen Stefani and Pharell and their fashion styles. Its targeted mainly to the urban/street/indie/geek-chic crossover market, delivering up-to-date fashion posts from various well established fashion blogs such as Hypebeast and UrbanPromoter as well as some of the respective mentioned celebrities blogs. The application also takes advantage of iPhone's Google Maps capabilities by having a 'store finder' which allows users to search and find nearby stores.

The application that i have designed is called 'Swaggerlikeus' in reference to the song 'Swagga Like Us' by T.I, Jay-Z, Kanye West and Lil Wayne, and this is our companies logo:


The layout for our application design is based on the Facebook design and this was due to its ease of use as well as being user-friendly. Below are the designs for our 'home screen button' and various screenshots from the softwares menu:

CLICK BELOW TO ENLARGE AND VIEW IN DETAIL

Uni Project: Impressions of London

We as individuals have different views of the city, so for this project we had to create eight A6 postcards portraying our viewpoint with an accompanying diary to support the evidence. At first, with the thought of the 'diary' in my head, i decided that i would do a timeline based postcard series of my events through 24 hours since i was planning to go shopping in Central London that day. Then i realised that would not be very realistic of my viewpoint, and decided to base it all completely in my local area as that is where i am for most of my time. I also wanted to show people the "real" side to London, rather than what they see on the television, i wanted them to see how "my" London- East London, really is, and how life is, in a council estate.

Below are the eight "raw" photographs that i have taken, before being edited into postcards for the presentation, so that they can be seen in all their detail. The "diary" has now been interpreted as the accompanying text with each photo to explain what it is and a similar caption text will be at the back of each postcard aswell.

The first picture is a 'stencil graffiti' sprayed onto a council flat wall by a Banksy wannabe, who has cheekily labelled my area 'Safe', with the obvious intended irony that it really isnt. I thought this was both clever and funny at the same time.


The next picture is that of my local underground station, first of all, because it represents my local area, aswell as the fact that it is the exact station replaced with that of 'Walford East' in the East End based TV Series 'Eastenders'.


The following two have been chosen because i believe the "London Underground train" and the "Black cab" are both symbols of London, and since they can both be found in my area, they simply CANNOT be left out.


I have decided to photograph the "Black cab" next to its neighbouring trash trolley so as to not give it a sense of romanticism but a sense of realism, if that makes sense? :S loll


The next picture is the closest i could to taking a birds-eye view of a typical council estate and i tried to capture as much of the happenings as i possibly could. In this picture, you could see the residential housing, School, playground, football pitch as well as various construction works in progress.


This picture is a more detailed view of the residential housing that can be found in a council estate.


This is one of the many pieces of graffiti found on my estate, and i have chosen this because it has been on the wall for at least 15 years and has become a symbol of my estate, and it also shows the multiculturalism found within London.


Market stalls are part and parcal of life in the East End, so i decided to include a photograph of one. This is at the end because i want the viewer to finish off with a bright a cheerful picture of East London ;D haha

Uni Project: Photographer's Signature

We were each given the name of a random photographer and told to make an 'A3 historical evidence and critical opinion', interpreting that however we may. Not knowing anything about photography or photographers, i was very nervous going into this project. However, this all changed when i started researching my photographer, W. Eugene Smith, who specialised in war photography and was in the front line with the US Army in Japan in World War II. He was a character that i found very interesting, and whose pictures i thought spoke a thousand words.

To help me make my A3 poster, i started researching and taking a look at as many of his photographs that i could find. Seeing as he was most famous for his pictures of war, i decided to make a tribute poster in his style, by making a photographic war poster based on the wars going on in the world today. I also decided to make it as a "spoof" of one of his non-war pictures entitled "three genrations of miners", therefore taking inspiration from both his war and non-war work.

Below is my piece, that i entitled "two generations of dickheads", once again making reference to the title of that of W. Eugene Smith. It is folowed by Smiths piece, from which it took inspiration.

"Two generations of dickheads" (CLICK TO ENLARGE)

"Three generations of miners" by W. Eugene Smith

Uni Project: The World's A Stage

For this, we had to create a photographic visual style as part of a corporate identity for "Piddock & Puddock" estate agents in our own interpretation, for which i decided to completely rebrand the company!!

"Piddock & Puddock" Estate agents, specialists in banquesting suites and wedding halls to cater for the South Asian community have been re-branded as 'Pritam & Patak"!!! :D

This is our logo:

Our photographic styles tend to show both scenes from venues aswell as asian wedding scenes to try and put as much of the probable final outcome of a wedding into the minds of the target market audience during advert placements.

Below is an example of an advert placement in a newspaper (Click to enlarge):

Below are designs for several more adverts (Click to enlarge):

Summer 2008: Cancun video diary

I went Cancun for 8 days last July, and as requested by Pete Nevin.. i made a video diary.. leave comments :P (press Full Screen 2 view properly)

Uni Project: Typographic Self Portrait

A project that i did for 1st Year Graphic Design.

"make a typographic self portrait"

I decided to make a male figure similar to those found on toilet signs, in the same height as my body... and create it using typography in English and Bengali to represent both of my cultures.

Both read "My name is Abdul Aleem".. CLICK TO ENLARGE: