Voila! My first official pattern. It’s been quite the ride. While this pattern is finished and it will produce a functional top as designed, it definitely can be improved. In my opinion, it isn’t quite at the standard where I would feel comfortable setting it up for a retail sale. Nevertheless, it meets the intended goal of this directed project and I can confidently call it a win!
View Pattern Here
So, what’s next?
As this project progressed, my level of appreciation for designers has grown immensely. As an aspiring entrepreneur, I wanted to find supporting documentation of the impacts blogging can positively provide for a business. I believe the pros far outweigh any cons. Blogging is an excellent approach for self-promotion and personal branding (Mohr, 2016). In a reflective case study, Griffey blogged daily for a year to launch her successful online artisan business (2014). There are cultural, social and economic resources and influences that make blogging a highly attractive and powerful marketing tool (Pedroni, 2015). Additionally, social media and digitization has opened novel roads into the fashion system, and aspiring fashion designers must understand the power those tools can provide to their success (Laurell, 2017). This blog was originally chosen as the platform for my semester directed project, but overwhelming positive research on businesses that implement blogs has given me much food for thought as to its future.
References
Griffey, J. (2014). Daily blogging for a year: A “lean” pathway to launching a web-based business. Artivate: A Journal of Entrepreneurship in the Arts, 3(2), 39-50.
Laurell, C. (2017). When bloggers become designers: On the role of professions in a fashion system undergoing change. Fashion Practice: The Journal of Design, Creative Process & the Fashion Industry, 9(3), 310-328. https://doi.org/10.1080/17569370.2017.1358420
Mohr, I. (2016). Determinants of Blog Success. Journal of Applied Business & Economics, 18(1), 25-31.
Pedroni, M. (2015). “Stumbling on the heels of my blog”: Career, forms of capital, and strategies in the (sub)field of fashion blogging. Fashion Theory, 19(2), 179-200. https://doi.org/10.2752/175174115X14168357992355