last set of logs!

Monday: 10 hours; e-mailed all school, e-mailed chris photos, made tonight driftwear facebook default, edited photos, tried to fix website, wrote a journal entry
Tuesday:  2.5 hours; made shirts, processed orders, updated QuickBooks, ordered more shirts,
Wednesday:  5 hours; printing shirts, ironing, printing labels & business cards, packaging
Thursday: 1 hour; printing packaging shirts, journal entry, delivering shirts, processed orders
Friday: 35 minutes; rethought business cards
Saturday: 3 hours; printed shirts, ironed, packaged
Sunday: 2 hours; printed shirts

10PM Nightmare

week #9 entry #1 04/12-04/19: personal journal

(source: here)

My shop was supposed to open tonight at 10:00PM. I cannot put into words my frustration as the clock ticks to 10:54.  This morning, Chris finished the site.  I was so excited after being woken up at 5:20 from him asking for more pictures.  The adrenaline rushed through me as I uploaded pictures for Chris.  I couldn’t fall back asleep.  Around 10:30AM my site was up and running, but not on purpose.  Chris did an amazing job and I was so excited.  I disabled the site for a bit.  Then around the middle of the day, friends told me that my site was up.  This was news to me, as I thought I had disabled it.  So I tried my hand at disabling it again this afternoon.  That is when I royally screwed up the site.  Somehow one host site mixed with another and driftwear.com was nothing but a page of godaddy scams.  It was only about 4 minutes to 10 when I realized that my site wouldn’t work.  I tried not to panic and calmly tried to forward the host to driftwear, but this was not working and was processing.  I franticly texted Chris and he couldn’t figure out the source of the problem.  After a phone call with GoDaddy, he informed me that it could take up to 48 hours for the real site to be fordwarded to the driftwear.com URL.

I am so disappointed.  I updated my facebook status and the driftwear status with: “due to technical difficulties the driftwear site will be temporarily hosted at http://mysite.verizon.net/bizs6vp3/drift/index.html“ That is what the site looks like and everyone who saw it loved it, but it still stinks.  I had about 15 people text/IM/e-mail me that the page wasn’t working.  I felt like I had not only let down myself, but my friends and supporters as well.  I know it will all work out fine and the website will work, but I have been leading up to this day for so long and I have gained excitement from supporters, and I don’t want to mess it up now.

Tomorrow I think I'll sleep in.  I only got 5 hours of sleep last night because of FOCUS.  I also need to print a few shirts, because I got some orders tonight. I'd be nice to deliver some on Wednesday.  Plus, I have to order some more Small mens and womens tees.  Hopefully things will pick up before next time. I know they will.

logs

 (source: here)

Week Nine

Senior Focus Field Work Log Dates: April 12th-April 19th

Name: Isabella Whitney

Monday: 2.5 hours; sorting through photo-shoot pictures, washing & ironing shirts, indie biz,
Tuesday: 4 hours; drew the driftwear & .com font on bristol board, read non-fiction tee's descriptions, looked at different examples of t-shirt descriptions on Etsy, read an article about product descriptions on Etsy, looked at Urban Outfitters t-shirt product descriptions, talked to Ms. Diaz about a possible giveaway, E-mailed models about pre-launch offer, got sales, packaged sales, made shipping labels and business cards
Wednesday: 2.5 hours; screening shirts
Thursday/Friday: 30 minutes; designing website ideas, (college trip)
Saturday: 1 hour; designed all the mock up website pages
Sunday: 10 hours; added "driftwear, Photo by Harrison Co" on like 60 photos for facebook, printed shirts, made a sizing chart and looked at other sizing charts on etsy,

Whoops! & logs

week #8 entry #2 04/05-04/12: personal journal

(source: here)

The amount of progress driftwear has made in the last two weeks is remarkable.  This past weekend, my focus has been the driftwear photo shoot.  I spent the prior week creating silk-screens and printing shirts.  I thought I had my whole week planned so well until something went terribly wrong…

Over break I had created the driftwear t-shirt designs to print.  I initially wanted to create five shirts, however I decided because of time restraints I would only create three.  I wanted three different shirts that I really loved so that it would be easy for me to sell them.  As I learned during my first semester project, it is hard to sell something you don’t love and believe in.  Thus, I picked my three favorite shirts that were most well liked from the public and printed the designs on transparencies.  Monday, I set a time with my dean and teacher Mr. Emery so that he could help me through the silk-screen process.  He had some emulsion that we coated the screens with and we waited for the emulsion to dry until Wednesday afternoon.  By Wednesday the screens had dried in the dark and we were ready to place the transparencies over the coated screens and to make the screens.  But something went wrong.  After the screens had sat under the light for seven minutes, the emulsion wouldn’t wash out of the designs. 

Mr. Emery scrubbed vigorously at the designs with no luck, he finally created a big blob of uncoated screen where my design was.  I was so frustrated.  I didn’t know what had gone wrong with my screen.  We did everything right.  Mr. Emery and I came up with a few theories on why the screens did not work. A) Someone opened the dark cabinet where the transparencies were placed; subjecting the light-sensitive emulsion to light B) the emulsion was old and did not work properly anymore. And C) My printed did not print out the transparencies in dark enough black ink.

Aggravated, I washed the emulsion out of the screens and went home.  Mr. Emery promised me that he would help recoat the screens and that I could re-try making the screens Thursday.  When I came in Thursday, I arrived in the art room with a blessing.  My three designs had been transformed into screens thanks to Mr. Emery.  I started printing screens that day and worked over Friday with help from Royce, Allison, and Mr. Emery to print twenty shirts.  With their help I got all the shirts printed that I needed for the Friday/Saturday driftwear photo shoot.  Everything worked out!  I am so lucky to have the help and support of so many FOCUS students and my art teachers.

Friday and Saturday were so much fun.  Harrison Co, a talented photographer peer of mine, agreed to be the photographer for my photo shoot.  (Check out his Flickr!)  I asked 15 DE students to be models and many of them eagerly agreed. Friday, I drove two models that couldn’t make the Saturday shoot to the Englewood boat basin with Harrison.  I briefly styled the girls and we found a few beautiful locations to shoot as the sun lit up the George Washington Bridge.  I was surprised to see that it took two hours to shoot only two girls, but the photographs turned out brilliantly.  Saturday, Harrison and I came back with 12 more models.  Royce G., a focus peer of mine, stylized each model.  Royce and I had talked the week before about inspiration for the shoot and what vibe I wanted to convey.  David V., another focus student working on public service announcements, came to the shoot as well.  David had dreamed up and awesome idea for a brand video for driftwear and I put him in charge of directing the brand video.  He worked with models who weren’t shooting to get some footage.  After a little over six hours, the shoot came to a close.  It was so much fun to work with fellow students and to get more DE students involved in driftwear.  Photos of that to come!

driftwear opens April 19th!

Over break logs:
3/30: 3 hours; drawing logos and getting feedback
4/1: 2 hours; making brand video
4/2: 5 hours; drawing designs, scanning them, making brand video
4/3: 4 hours; work on brand video, draw new logo, e-mailed cults, band
4/4: 4.5 hours; editing video, uploading icons, video, and bios on vimeo & youtube,  worked on mission statement, edited blogger logo, updated flickr, made vimeo account,

Week Eight

Senior Focus Field Work Log Dates: April 5th-April 12th

Name: Isabella Whitney

Monday: 5.5 hours; invited friends to drift group, mission statement, coated screens with emulsion for silkscreens, edited website, hung up boats, photographed boats,
Tuesday: 2 hours, uploaded photos from The Paper Boat Project, printed designs on transparencies,
Wednesday: 2 hours, coated silk-screens, e-mailed faculty about boat project,
Thursday: 4 hours; practiced silk-screening on newsprint, decided on hairstyles for models and printed inspiration for photo-shoot, printed first shirt, wrote journal entry, updated flickr with pictures from today's silk-screening, edited photos,
Friday: 5 hours; silk-screening shirts, shot two models, sending Chris a package,
Saturday: 7 hours; photoshoot, ironing shirts, getting props together, styling models, packing up, driving to boat basin,
Sunday: 1.5 hours; journal entry & planning for next week, updated quickbooks,

logs

 I freakin' love succulents. (source: here)

Week Seven

Senior Focus Field Work Log Dates: March 14th-March 21st

Name: Isabella Whitney

Monday: 7 hours; printed out survey, photographed survey, posted survey on blog & flickr; indie business 2.0 two lessons, made my etsy a shop (www.driftwear.etsy.com), edited Etsy shop, researched bigcartel and other shop hosts, made and purchased font, video-chatted with mentor, prepared for pull-out day presentation,
Tuesday: 5 hours; check blog, wrote journal entry, researched brand videos, checked out wix.com to make my own site, made bigcartel store, 
Wednesday: 4 hour; researched best prices on organic t-shirts, ordered samples of guys and girls white organic t-shirts, researched prices on t-shirts from popular apparel companies, looked for photo shoot locations in alpine and englewood, talked to lower classmen about effortless girls for modeling, emailed models, talked to my aunt (who worked in design) about it, she thinks the boat has all positive references, easy to reproduce, simple, yet has nice lines, powerful from a distance, 
Thursday: 1 hour; blogged, received t-shirts, indie biz, made quickbooks 
Friday:  0 hours
Saturday:  1.5 hours; blog-hopped, wrote journal entry

Sunday: 1.5 hour; uploaded Photoshop and Illustrator, decide on hairstyles for models photoshoots

P.S. I am currently in new Orlenes and will be back soon to update some great architecture and inspiration.

logs

 (source: here)

Week Six 

Senior Focus Field Work Log Dates: March 7th-March 15th 

Name: Isabella Whitney

Monday: 2 hours; designing, surveying favorite shirt designs, indie business lesson,
Tuesday: 3 hours; designing shirts, indie business lesson, made a drift e-mail and etsy account, edited proposal and e-mailed adviser, (driftwear@verizon.net & www.driftwear.etsy.com)
Wednesday: 1 hour; talked to mentor, indie business lesson,
Thursday: 1.5 hours; made a driftwear flickr, decided on models, blog-hopped, got Bristol board,
Friday:  1 hour; blog-hopped, inspiration hopped (J.Crew, win!)
Saturday:  3.5 hours; edited flickr, took photos of designs, wrote journal entries, bought silk-screens and searched for ideas for backdrops for fashion show,
Sunday: 1 hour; made survey for shirt-cuts for men & women, saw rodarte exhibit at cooper-hewitt,

(source: here)

logs

Week Five

Senior Focus Field Work Log Dates: Feb 28st- March 7th
Name: Isabella Whitney

Monday: 2 hours; worked on inspo board, looked for possible URLs and e-mailed mentors for advice, researching typography,
Tuesday:  1.5 hours; drew, finished inspiration board, made a list of stuff to do for coming week,

Wednesday: 3 hours; secured my url! (YEAHHHH!), drew and drew and drew, made brand blog, updated my "clubindie" page, innovative design class presentation on advertising,

Thursday: 0 hours; nothing, busy, busy, busy
Friday: 1 hour; blogging,
Saturday:1 hour; buddy assignment, t-shirt design, reviewed business guide
Sunday: 3 hours, blogging, designing shirts, buddy assignment #2

logs

 

Oh, Mr. Van Gogh, I wish I could paint like you.

(source: http://www.vincentvangoghart.net/van-gogh-Irises-2.html)

Week Four

Senior Focus Field Work Log Dates: Feb 21st-28th
Name: Isabella Whitney

Monday: 2 hours; blog entry, read Handmade Nation, blog-hopped,
Tuesday: 1 hour; finished The Handmade Nation, blog-hopped,
Wednesday: 5 hours; read bios of class teachers, researched names, look-up Etsy history, create names, drew logos, hopped around Etsy, blog-hopped, edited blog, worked on journal #1,
Thursday: 7 hours; blog-hopping, messing around with HTML on the blog and searching for a new layout that I can edit, drew logos, finished and posted first journal, commented on other blogs, interviewed Aliza (1.5 hours!), worked on inspiration board
Friday: 1 hour; worked on inspiration board, blog-hopped,

Saturday:1 hour; read Why We Buy, read bio for teacher of Indie Business,

Sunday: 3 hours, wrote journal entry, read why we buy, video chatted with chris, blog-hopped, read course outline, and teacher's story,

logs

For my independent project, I am required to keep logs of my work. Here are logs from the past 2.5 weeks.

Week One
Senior Focus Field Work Log Dates: Feb 1st-7th
Name: Isabella Whitney

Monday: ~2.5 hours; senior focus meeting, blog-hopping for inspiration
Tuesday: 2 hours; writing first journal entry & blog-hopping
Wednesday: 1 hour; blog-hopping for ideas for names/designs/what's popular
Thursday: 0; none
Friday: 0; none
Saturday: 3 hours; researching for how-to books, reading how-to books at Barns and Noble, blog-hopping, talked to mentor
Sunday: 2 hours; e-mailed Mrs. DeVito's daughter, wrote 2nd journal entry, blog-hopped,

Week Two
Senior Focus Field Work Log Dates: Feb 7st-14th
Name: Isabella Whitney

Monday: 1.5 hours; senior focus meeting, blog-hopping
Tuesday: 2 hours; reading & blog-hopping
Wednesday: 2 hours; reading & blog-hopping
Thursday: 1 hour; reading
Friday: 0; none
Saturday: 1 hours; read read read
Sunday: 2 hours; read, wrote journal entries, blog-hopped

Week Three
Senior Focus Field Work Log Dates: Feb 14st-21th
Name: Isabella Whitney

Monday: 1 hour; blog-hopping
Tuesday: 2 hours; reading & blog-hopping
Wednesday: 2.5 hours; working on my inspiration book, came up with lots of great ideas about the philosophy of my brand,
Thursday: 1 hour; reading
Friday: 3 hours; reading, writing, commenting on other blogs, getting inspiration, revamping the look of my blog,
Saturday: 2 hours; blog-hopping, buddy assignment
Sunday: 3 hours; buddy assignment, reading, clearing up space, making calendar