Creative strategy

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Chloe Hughes

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Exhibition space at Jewish Contemporary Museum

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contents

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Synopsis

Chapter 1 - The Brand & BusinessStaff

Funding

Chapter 2 - The BookCustomer Profile

Book Cost

Chapter 3 - The EventLocation

Cost

Chapter 4 - Marketing & PR

Timeline

Summary

References

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“A wish to show the well-known through the un-known” AnneSofieMadsen

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synopsis

The creative concept brand ‘The Exhibition Space’s first launch is the ‘Danish Issue’.

Previous research into fashion exhibitions identified the potential of taking art and design outside of gallery spaces, and highlighted the benefits of making an exhibition as accessible as possible to the public.

The concept for ‘The Exhibition Space’ is to create the experiences of an exhibition within the covers of a book. A book that aims to make location, dates, or accessibility no longer an issue for the audience. The book will be a limited edition, and will be marketed as a piece of art, rather than a ‘coffee table book’. It will consist of various interactive elements, including fabrics and other materials for the readers to touch, and pull out tabs and laser cuttings for the readers to move and explore. Through ‘The Exhibition Space’ readers become participants, which contrasts with many gallery experiences in which the visitors are merely viewers.

The book will consist of various interactive elements, including materials for the readers to touch, and pull out tabs and laser cuttings for the readers to move and interact with. Within ‘The Exhibition Space’ the readers become participants, like how within a gallery settings, visitors become viewers.

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The idea of participation and engagement will also be an important aspect of the launch event for the book. This will be a temporary two week long pop up exhibition event, and will develop similar themes to that of the book. Taking place in London it will include displays of the work and collections of the artists and designers featured in the book. The aim will be to produce an up scaled version of the book and it will feature various interactive installations and themed rooms. The nature of ‘The Exhibition Space’, is essentially, commercial, therefore PR and marketing is integral to its success. All artists and designers who are participating within the exhibition book, are doing so with the aim of platforming their work to a UK audience and promoting current and upcoming work. Further information in regard to this is provided throughout this document.

The nature of ‘The Exhibition Space’, is, essentially, commercial, therefore PR and marketing is integral to its success. All artists and designers who are participating within the exhibition book, are doing so with the aim to have their work platofrmed to a UK audience, and to promote current and upcoming work. This will be explained further throughout this document.

The objective for ‘The Exhibition Space’ is to enable readers to own a beautiful, stylish and informative publication, which they can interact with. Those buying the book will receive an exhibition which they can interact with and experience in an individual and personal way, as if it is their own private gallery or exhibition space.

BrandIdentityThis image above shows the logo for the creative concept business, ‘The Exhibition Space’. The strong white font against the block black colour is designed for impact and to be memorable, whilst keeping the brand image stylishly minimal and ‘mature’. The design is also intended to be adaptable and suitable for different themes of books. For example, the first issue is ‘The Danish Issue’, however a later version, for example, could be ‘The Paper Issue’.

CommercialThe nature of the book is primarily commercial, so it is important for the design and concepts within the book not to distract viewers away from key images or important text on pages. The designers and artists images, along with details about collections and works will be the primary focus.

USPThe USP of the book, and ‘The Exhibition Space’ brand itself, is the interactive interchange between reader and creative talents showcased in the book. Different methods and features used on the pages will enable the readers to feel like they are visitors within an exhibition.

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chapter 1

the brand and Business11

Publishers

The publishers are integral to not only the creation, but also the branding of ‘The Exhibition Space’. They will protect the brand when it comes to legal matters, and also help platform the book in terms of sales. The publishers for ‘The Exhibition Space’ series will be Thames & Hudson.

Thames & Hudson’s mission statement suggests that its

“books should reveal the world of art to the general public, to create a ‘museum without walls’ and to make accessible to a broad, non-specialist reading public, at prices it could afford, the research and the findings of top scholars and academics”.

This statement identifies how they will be appropriate in terms of values and philosophy to publish ‘The Exhibition Space’, and the phrase ‘museum without walls’ seems especially fitting. Furthermore, as a publisher it will be beneficial that they publish books with similar target markets to ‘The Exhibition Space: The Danish Issue’. For example, the new Dorothea Gundtoft book, ‘Fashion Scandinavia’s’ , publishers is also Thames & Hudson. The thematic relationship to this book could potentially increase interest and boost sales of ‘The Exhibition Space; Danish Issue’.

staff

The staff required for the initial start up of ‘The Exhibition Space’ are;

1 Creative Director – (Chloe Hughes) 2 Graphic Designers (at least one with expertise in printing on different materials) 1 Journalist 2 Photographers 1 Editorial Layout Designer - (Chloe Hughes) 1 Curator

All positions will be freelance until the business is established. It is possible that in the long term the brand maybe able to offer some full time contracts. This is something that could happen in perhaps three issues down the line, however because of the nature of the concept and the need for original input on different themes it is likely that much of the work will be commissioned issue by issue and will depend on need.

For a publication, a professional curator may not be considered a necessary role, however, to ensure that ‘The Exhibition Space’ is experienced as an exhibition, their knowledge, skills and experience will provide different perspective.The book should feel planned, with a narrative strongly resembling a real exhibition, which is a skill the curator could bring to the table.

There is potential for the team to grow, as demand for future issues increases. There is also the potential to take on interns, ideally those who are studying a creative subject at degree level. Ideal intern candidates would be studying a degree similar to Fashion Communication, or Visual Communication. Regarding office spaces, these won’t be necessary until the business is more substantial and successful. Until then, all team members will work freelance, with regular meetings in temporary meeting rooms.

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As with most creative start ups, funding will be an issue. However, as a creative project the ‘Exhibition Space’ can potentially apply to the Princes Trust, the National Lottery grants, or request a meeting with the British Art’s Council to discuss other funding opportunities. There are also regional business grants available and Business Link could be approached for guidance in regards to these. Although the funding may be in the form of a loan, it will still be incredibly useful for ‘The Exhibition Space’ to have a large start up sum, as this will enable the deign of book to be as experimental as possible.

For ‘The Danish Issue’, the Danish embassy is a priority for involvement. The benefits the book will bring to the country, in the form of promotion of their arts and talents will be emphasised. The Danish embassy will be approached to sponsor the book, and will help with the cost of development, in return for clear promotion within the pages and during the launch event.

funding

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Gotham Gallery Space

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In summary, the brand ‘The Exhibition Space’ is a highly conceptual business, creating a series of limited edition, design lead, interactive books, acting as and presented as a gallery space. The brand aims to offer an alternative , accessible and personal interactive experiences of fashion and design work.

chapter 2

The books main aim is to interact with readers, and turn them into participants, encouraging them to take home the exhibition, do as they like with it, and be as im-

aginative as they want to be.

the book16

Example of heat sensitive ink being used for commercial use

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Simon is a 40 year old art director, working for a high end fashion and lifestyle magazine. He owns his own home in London, and regularly visits art galleries in his time off.

He is an avid collector of beautiful, stylish coffee table books, and appreciates photography. He is someone who is always interested in finding out what the ‘new’ thing is, and always keeps up with the new technologies.

He is in a non committed relationship, and has disposable income which he spends on his hobbies and gifts for himself.

He appreciates craftsmanship and hates the concept of fast fashion.

customer profile

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The first issue of ‘The Exhibition Space’ will be called ‘The Danish Issue’. The book will be separated into to two sections.The first will focus on Danish fashion design talents, which will include showcase images of the collections, materials, and skills used. It will also contain interviews with the designers, and other relevant information.

Importantly, it will contain contact information, along with details of where the collection is available for purchasing and web addresses for them to browse online stores. This is integral to the concept and the commercial nature of the book.

The second section of the book will focus on Danish artists, again demonstrating and displaying their work, and informing the readers of any upcoming exhibitions in the UK, or links to see more work. The fashion designers featured in the book are Anne Sofie Madsen, Stine Goya, Wood Wood and Henrik Vibskov. They have been contacted and are all interesting in the book and happy to help out. They have also agreed to interviews. The artists being featured are Peter Callesen, Tommy Støckel and Jeppe Hein. They have all also agreed to participate and for interviews to take place.

All people and brands featured within the book have agreed on a no fee basis, as they are aware of the benefits that could result. The promotion and brand awareness will cost them nothing, and it will act as a type of free PR. In some ways, ‘The Fashion Space’, as a business, could be considered as PR work.

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Creating 3D images on Photoshop of existing images is a cost friendly alternative to holograms. Another option is lenticular

images.

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MakingitThe design and construction of the book will need a lot of input from fashion communicators, freelance visual communication specialists and graphic designers. Input in terms of format and production will be needed from Thames & Hudson.

Different pages and sections within the book will be printed on different types and thickness of paper. There will also be text and images printed on elastic, plastic, lenticular paper, and various other materials. Therefore, the book will need to be printed onto individual pages, then glued and perfect bound.

Initially, some images for the book were going to be turned into holograms, however after further research, the high cost of this would have made the RRP of the book financially unfeasible. A professional holographer advised :“Beyond the holograms and their costs, you would need to have the actual live models in for the shoots which also would be expensive as you would want stylists, hair and makeup. Add to that your travel fees, and you have a shoot that only corporate money could pay for”. As ‘The Exhibition Space’ is currently only a start up business, this is not something that is feasible. Furthermore, ideally there would have been more than one hologram in the book, potentially one for each creative person or brand that the book was featuring. This creates an even bigger cost.

SourcingtheimagesOne obstacles that ‘The Exhibition Space’ will have to over come is the difficulty of accessing some of the art work and collections, it may not be possible for it to be brought into a studio setting. Therefore as many images as possible will be sourced directly from the designers and artists.

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Lenticular sheets

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LenticularThe holographer recommended using a lenticular. “While not a true hologram, it is only a few hundred dollars (US) to create an original and not the thousands you would spend on a hologram. Additionally they can be made from flat photographs which do not work for holograms. The colours are normal unlike holograms. Images can change from one to another in a single piece which would tend to be useful in telling a story”.

BindingWith regards to putting together the creative and ambitious pages, the publishers, Thames & Hudson, are restricted to how much input they can have. When it comes to binding methods, due to the varied amount of different types of paper and materials, and their different thicknesses, it will have to be perfect bound. This will be done by Henry Mills Ltd, Birmingham. This is a bookbinding and print finishing company, and have quoted a project like this to be roughly £20 per book. A bulk amount will vary.

Programs The software used to produce the book will be Photoshop CS5 and Adobe InDesign CS5.5.

SponsorshipSome components of the book will be sponsored by companies. For example, the paper used has been sponsored by paper company GF Smith, and fabric samples and various trend materials have been sponsored by Pantone. These high profile brands have agreed to sponsorship because their brands are proud to support innovative concepts within the creative industry, and because they will have their company names printed clearly on the book. This will of course act as a method of promotion to them and this may be reciprocal. It will also be a great benefit to the book, as ‘The Exhibition Space has little in the way of a start up budget, and by having these high profile names associated with it, it will potentially attract more customers.

PhotigraphyAlthough there will be a lot of images sourced directly from the designers and the artists themselves (and their PR), there will be also be some images taken by ‘The Exhibition Space’. For this, photography company Radcliffe will be used. For this commercial job they will charge £750 a day for the photography, £250 for digital processing, travel expenses and hair and “makeup can start from around £500.” Radcliffe own their own studio and all of the lighting equipment, so this is an additional cost that doesn’t need to be factored in. A lot of the photography will involve either pieces of art, or close up shots of garments, so a model won’t be needed.

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The above table demonstrates costs to create the exhibition book. The overall sum is quite large, being £1603.53. How-ever, this is including the cost of the photography, which will be one of the highest costs. The table hasn’t taken into account that this will only need to be done once for all of the books, so overall, when considering that there will be 150 copies of the book printed altogether, this brings the cost down.

book cost

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chapter 3

An event planned and designed by ‘The Exhibition Space’ will start the week before the book is released, to launch and promote the concept and the finished book. The event will last for two weeks, with a VIP evening on the opening night. The objective for the launch event is to emphasise the experiences that the book offers to the guests, by showing some of them in real life. In the book, each designer or artist will be given their own page to demonstrate their talent, whereas in this launch event, they will be given a physical space.

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This is the floor plan to Somerset House, showing where the event will be held.

WhereThe event will take place in Somerset house, in the Portico Rooms. In total there will be twelve rooms, one for each designer and artist. In each room, working closely with the individuals, ‘The Exhibition Space’ will curate an interactive, highly sensory exhibit. For example when viewing the work of Henrik Vibskov, visitors to the event will have to walk through foam tubing, resembling the designers’ 2011 catwalk show. -

The capacity of the Portico Rooms is 200 standing guests- The portico rooms – day event 9am-5am £3,000 +VAT- Day & evening - £6000

EventsCompanyThe Big Cat events company will be producing the launch event. They will be responsible for all lighting, rigging, setting up and supplying all members of staff to man the event, as well at arranging suitable catering.

TheAudienceInvited to the launch of the event will be high profile members of the fashion and art industry, along with editors, PR executives, and powerful buyers. Once these people have completed the journey through the rooms of Somerset House, and have experienced the different works and interactive elements, they will be handed a complimentary copy of the book. After this night, the event will remain open for members of the public who will be able to purchase a copy of the book should they wish.

location

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TheIdeaThe event intends to give a real life taster of the book to the visitors. Invited to the launch of the event will be high profile members of the fashion and art industry, along with editors, PR executives, and powerful buyers. Once these people have completed the course through the rooms of Somerset House, and have experienced the different works and interactive elements, they will be handed a complimentary copy of the book. After this night, the event will be kept open for a month. In this duration, members of the public will be invited, and able to purchase a copy of the book once finished.

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Somerset House during LFW

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cost

The cost of the event is relatively high mainly because of the high fee for the ideal venue, however, it is integral to the success of the book. The quote was given to ‘The Exhibition Space’ as an estimate, more detailed information may result in a different costing. By having such a high profile venue, the event will attract more visitors, and has the potential to improve the public’s awareness of initial reactions to ‘The Exhibition Space’. Another high cost is that of using The Big Cat Events Company. Again, this is integral to the success of the event, as ‘The Exhibition Space’ team has little experience within this field. The reason for selecting this particular events company is their previous experience with similar events, and their passion for out of the ordinary concepts. The quote for the interior designer and decorator came from a Newcastle firm, called Abercrombies. Again, this is a company which has had a lot of experience working with fashion brands, and claim to work to a high quality level.

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BerthramsPRThe Exhibition Space’ will be working closely with Berthrams PR whilst creating ‘The Danish Issue’, they will be handling all public relations issues.

Berthrams is a company that deals exclusively with Danish fashion and jewellery brands. The founder describes the idea behind the PR company as “inspiring the people I work with and doing things a bit differently... The concept of Berthram’s was born – and with it, the launch of some amazing brands, that we absolutely love!”.

Designer Anne Sofie Madsen is on their books, which will be incredibly useful as this means access to archived material and press that could be used within ‘The Exhibition Space’ book. Other clients include; designers Stine Goya, Maria Black, Aiayu, 5 Preview, Hofmann and Falling Whistles. All being Danish brands, who will also have small features in the exhibition book.

Berthrams PR representing Anne Sofie Madsen & Stine Goya at LFW 13

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chapter 4

Online PresenceBerthram’s will be responsible for all of the social networking regarding the exhibition book and the launch event. There will also be a website designed for ‘The Exhibition Space’. This will offer users to view a virtual exhibition, on a screen,

It will be designed to look like a building, and by clicking on different parts, you are able to navigate your way around, and discover various pieces of information. This will be designed by Class, in Birmingham. Along with this there will be an App, available for download on iTunes, and therefore usable on all Apple products. It will have a similar layout to the website, however it will also feature up to date news feed, regarding the brand, the book, the event, and also any artists and designers featured in the book, who may have work or events coming up. Both of these internet out reaches will promote all the brands being featured inside the book, to add to the commercial element, and to complete the books mission; to platform Danish designers. Both aspects will be managed by Berthrams PR.

GiftsDuring the launch of the book, copies will be distributed to various high profile members of the fashion industry, from PR company directors, to magazine editors. These will be clearly sent as gifts, but with the intention of promotion.

Selling the BookThe retailing of the book will be targeted at high end galler-ies and book stores. It will also be sold online, and partici-pants of the book, i.e. designers and artists, will promote the sale of the book via their own online media, for example their websites and social networking sites.

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time line

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Generating the Gantt Chart and Cost Tables, identified feasible deadlines and cost efficient methods of creating the book. The strategies outlined may alter, depending on different topics of the book. However, for ‘The Danish Issue’, the main aim of the book is to be as experimental and design led as possible.

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For future issues of ‘The Exhibition Space’, there is the potential to be more adventurous, and use different methods and techniques within the book.

Due to cost constraints, this is not possible for the launch issue. Regarding the event, Berthram’s PR could conduct market research regarding whether visitors are responding well to it, as a venue.

In conclusion, the strategic implimentation for ‘The Exhibition Space’ is ambitious, yet achievable. It is a concept which is highly dependant on the backing of various creative bodies, such as, for ‘The Danish Issue’, the Danish Embassy, and the British Arts Council.

For what may seem a costly book and event, could be the start of an innovative and immersive experiential idea, and the idea that it could be adapted to suit many different topics, makes it work.

summary

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references

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1. Exhibition Space. Source: www.archdaily.com2. Anne Sofie Madsen, Cherrilee Lookbook. Source: Margaret Sowa, Marketing Director, Anne Sofie Madsen3. Own image: Fashion Scandinavia, Somerset House - Feb 134. Henrik Vibskov, AW 08 Collection. Source: www.styleguru.com5. Gotham Gallery Space. Source: www.gothamgallerycph.com6. Heat sensitive ink example. Source: blog.reformcreative.co.uk7. Henrik Vibskov AW 13 show. Source: Agency V (Henrik Viskov’s PR)8. 3D editorial. Source: Dress to Kill magazine9. Lenticular Sheets. Source: petlenticular.en 10. Own image: Fashion Scandinavia, Somerset House - Feb 1311. Somerset House. Source: fashionbite.co.uk12. Own image: Fashion Scandinavia, Somerset House - Feb 1313. Own image: Fashion Scandinavia, Somerset House - Feb 13

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