SIP by Stephanie Ip

5 Essential Steps in the Product Development Process

stephanieip.comAugust 29, 2018March 7, 20192017, Design + Development, Fashion + Soft GoodsDesign + Development, Product Design

Thinking about our other post on Fashion Design + Development Process, the idea behind product development is rather similar. In fact, they may just be about the same, especially if the product you plan on developing falls in the category of soft goods.

Regardless of what you are planning to develop and bring into the marketplace, make sure to present the purpose, reason, and vision behind the product.

So, what are the steps?
They are as simple as follow:

5 Essential Steps in the Product Development Process — Case study of CozyPhones

1// Who are you designing for?
2// What are you planning to offer to your targeted audience?
3// When do you plan to launch?
4// Where are you going to launch?
5// Why should your targeted audience buy from you, and not all the other existing brands out there?
6// How are you going to convince your “who” of “why” when executing steps 2 and 4 by step 3?

Basically, have a plan.
Even better, a business plan.

Sometimes you may not know where to start and how to obtain the information you need. You probably wish there’s a step-by-step guide to take you from point A to Z. Although, this post isn’t intended to give you that quick shortcut, it’s here to guide you into the right direction. Eventually, it will be your ultimate decisions on every step along the way before your baby is born, so a shortcut won’t do you and your business any good when building a foundation.

Once you know your who, what, when, where, why, and how, you are mostly likely ready to hire experts to help you get to your end goal quicker than learning and doing everything yourself. You will want to work with someone who can translate your ideas into a reality.

If you are looking for some guidance to start or real assistance for your young business, send us an inquiry! We would love to help you reach your goals.

Check out our case study on how we
helped CozyPhones turn their ideas
into a reality product!

// Stephanie Ip

Stephanie is a Creative Director and Consultant, providing creative strategy development support to small and large scale businesses in the industries of Fashion and Soft Goods. She specializes in Design and Development. Learn more about her here.

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5 Essential Steps in the Print Pattern Development Process

Are you passionate about anything in repeats? I used to dislike print patterns on clothing, thinking they made the wearer look old and boring. That was probably back in the 90’s, when I didn’t have much appreciation of anything but simple, plain, minimalistic designs. Print patterns have evolved tremendously over the past 30 years. With the advanced designing tools, designers have much more opportunity to experiment and discover new design techniques.

In today’s post, I am going to walk you through the 5 steps I took in making the Under the Water group in #100PrintsByStephanieIp – a creative challenge I set up to encourage myself and other fellow creative individuals to create everyday. You can see more on the related tag on my Instagram page @SIPbyStephanieIp!

5 Essential Steps in the Print Pattern Development Process

1// Pick a Theme

The print(s) you plan on applying onto your product(s) should have a theme that will stand out and complement your product design styles. Under a set of design considerations, you want to choose a targeted season, a color palette that makes sense, and materials you plan to print on.

2// Illustrate and Pull Together Design Elements

This is one of the most fun parts! You get to play and be creative with the types of elements you want to incorporate into the design. For #100PrintsByStephanieIp, I was exploring watercolor design elements, which gave me the opportunity to try out different watercolor painting techniques. For more defined elements, I like to sketch by pencil first, then trace with Adobe Illustrator. In this part, make sure to illustrate each element separately on a large scale to display the element’s quality.

3// Digitize Design Elements

Once you have all the elements down on paper, you’ll want to scan them onto your computer. To preserve the quality of the elements, you want to be sure to scan using at least 300dpi resolution. Then, with Photoshop, clean up the scans, adjust the coloration, and make sure each of the elements are separated for easy composition.

Another fun part of this process is putting together the artwork! Now, with the clean elements, you can play with composition and arrangements. Have fun!

4// Repeat Artwork

Generally, I use Photoshop and Illustrator to create the repeats of my prints. Photoshop is better when the artwork is composed of photo-based elements. Illustrator is more for vector-based elements. For this post, I won’t be going into the details on how to repeat a piece of artwork. If you want to learn more, stay tuned! It will be coming up soon.

5// Factory Artwork

A factory artwork is fairly similar to a tech pack, except the information to include is less complex. On the factory artwork, you will have to include print method requirement, scale, Pantone colors, and print # for the factory to prepare the first sample for your review before production.

While there are more details to consider in these 5 steps, this post is to give you a general idea of what’s needed to get you started!

Need some custom print patterns?
Send us an inquiry to get started!

// Stephanie Ip

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5 Essential Steps in the Fashion Design + Development Process

stephanieip.comAugust 15, 2018March 8, 20192018, Design + Development, Fashion + Soft GoodsDesign + Development, fashion design

Creating clothing is not rocket science. Unless you plan on pitching a collection of space suits to NASA, then you will definitely want to study more about that space. But still, no matter what you are planning to design, there should be a purpose, reason, and vision behind it.

Now, what are the steps?
They are as simple as the following:

5 Essential Steps in the Fashion Design + Development Process

1// Who are you designing for?
2// What are you planning to offer to your targeted audience?
3// When do you plan to launch?
4// Where are you going to launch?
5// Why should your targeted audience buy from you, and not all the other existing brands out there?
6// How are you going to convince your why to the who when executing steps 2 and 4 by step 3?

Basically, have a plan.
Even better, a business plan.

Sorry to tell you, this post won’t be able to give you a shortcut. Ultimately every decision leading up to your baby being born is a critical one, so cut out the shortcuts when building the foundation.

Once you know your who, what, when, where, why, and how, you may need some expert help to translate those ideas into a tangible product line. If you are looking for some guidance to start or real assistance for your young business, send us an inquiry! We would love to help you reach your goals.

Want to learn more?
Check out our Samples to see
how we built designs for our clients!

// Stephanie Ip

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Style Guide 101

stephanieip.comAugust 8, 2018March 8, 20192018, Branding + PackagingLogo, Style Guide

You probably have heard the term “Style Guide” in your lifetime.

Wait… you haven’t? It’s fine, no sweat! A Style Guide is not Facebook, it’s not Twitter, it’s not Snapchat, it’s not LinkedIn, so it’s okay if you haven’t heard about it. But, believe it or not, it does have everything to do with Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and LinkedIn!

How so?

A Style Guide is basically a catalog that’s all about a company’s brand image. Every company has a unique set of colors they use to represent their brand. It is a passageway to assist the company to stand out in the crowded marketplace we all live in today. A successful brand image should have the ability to build a connection with their target customers through the products or services it sells.

Every company has an unique set of colors they use to represent their brand.

Imagine there are 5 different types of plain white sneakers in front of you without any brand names. What is your immediate reaction to them?

Now, how about 5 different types of colored sneakers from various brands? What are your initial feelings?

In the world we live today, there are tremendous amounts of stimuli that provoke our senses – sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. Each and every one of these senses connects to our brain (Well, duh!), translating into feelings. Feelings are great for our health, as they indicate to us what makes us happy, sad, and angry.

5 Sensories – sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch

The purpose of a Style Guide is to promote a recognizable image a brand wishes to be perceived in the marketplace. Different types of companies focus on their brand image differently. A product-based company that designs, produces and sells goods in the marketplace often focuses heavily on its brand image, while a service-based company may focus more on the value provided to their customers.

20 to 30 years ago, it may have been fine not to have a full-blown brand image. However, things have evolved over time. A cohesive looking brand image is as important as delivering a great product and/or service.

The purpose of a Style Guide is to promote a recognizable image a brand wish to be perceived in the marketplace.

So when do you need a Style Guide?

Right off the bat when one starts to develop a company!
A Style Guide usually contains a few important things:
1// Company Mission and Value Proposition
2// Logo + Iconography
3// Slogan
4// Company Colors

Look at a Style Guide as a CV/Resume. A 30-year-old company brand style guide should not be compared to a start-up company brand style guide. Why? Because they have different amounts of brand presence in the marketplace! However, the 30-year-old company would definitely have more content in the Style Guide than a younger company – a heavier catalog that holds a longer timeline.

Treat Style Guide as a CV/Resume.

Where would the Style Guide come into play?

With the importance of online presence in today’s world, it’s expected that a company be easily found online. If you want to start a business, you need a well-thought-out brand image. Not having a well-thought-out brand image is like living without a backbone – you don’t want to end up with a floppy business!

Note that you don’t need a 100-page Style Guide when you are just starting your business; you just need a basic 10-page Style Guide that tells the company story.

Ready to make something awesome?

// Stephanie Ip

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5 Essential Steps in Logo Development Process

stephanieip.comAugust 1, 2018March 8, 20192018, Branding + PackagingLogo, Style Guide

Are you looking to start a business?
Do you need to freshen up your brand image?
Did your company just expanded, and need a comprehensive style guide?

Let me guess… you are looking to start a business.
Bingo! Yes.

If you are reading this, you are probably curious to know how to quickly develop a logo for your company-to-be, or existing company that’s looking to be even more awesome! Well, as simple as it sounds, first I need to know: what does a logo mean to you and your company? If you are looking to just get some logo ideas and slap it onto a product you are going to pour your heart and soul in, then please head onto FIVERR. The platform is great for crowd sourcing logo art.

No? A logo means more than just slapping a logo onto my product!

Bravo! Now we’re talking here, and I’m here to walk you through what I think are the important steps in logo development.
Ready? Take out a piece of paper or open a blank Word document.

1// Define your value proposition that comes with a dollar amount, a few colors, and shapes.

If a logo means something greater than FIVERR to you, then you probably know your value proposition. I am not saying that those who chose FIVERR don’t have one; they just overall seem to lack some important ingredient in their value prop. Ideally, your value proposition should speak to your target audiences in rainbows language. To convince is to first understand your folks, in all ways, speak their language, show them your company embraces colors and shapes that are targeted to their wants and needs. Need some help on defining your value proposition? This article may be a great one for you.

To convince is to first understand your folks.

2// Plan for a target launch date that’s not yesterday or tomorrow.

If your target launch date was yesterday, I don’t know why you are still reading. If it is tomorrow, you should really head over to FIVERR! Seriously.

Plan for a target launch date that’s at least 2 months in advance. Now, this target launch date is for the announcement of the brand/company that’s about to enter the marketplace. It’s NOT the target launch date of your product line of 20 styles. Technically, you can have the same launch date, but ideally, a brand image should come first, then everything follows.

3// Locate a space for the launch that people can get to.

These days, a lot of new business owners sell online first, and gradually grow into a department store space as the company expands. Whether you are selling online or retail, you need to consider how your brand is going to be presented. Knowing all the possible selling channels up front will be helpful to the process of developing your logo and so forth.

4// Be ready to tell your company story at least 100 times in the first year.

Part of launching a brand is building a brand presence in the crazy noisy marketplace. You can’t stand out unless you know who you’re speaking to, and often times that requires repeating yourself to your targeted audience 100x times before someone takes notice of your brand. You’ve got to love what you are providing before you can convince your audience of the product you believe in so much!

Part of launching a brand is building a brand presence in the crazy noisy marketplace.

5// Work with a brand strategist to help compile the data from point 1-4 in one place.

Ready to get started on developing your new awesome logo? Depending on your company size and position, you will want to work with a brand designer/strategist/builder/consultant to execute the right set of materials that will get you started/ready for the launch.

At SIP by Stephanie Ip, we help companies get started on their brand building by first understanding their rainbow language. From there, we develop the brand image around the given set of guidelines and criteria. Finally, we apply the brand new image onto marketing collaterals to assist and enhance company promotions and loyalty.

Want to learn more?
Send us an inquiry to get started!

// Stephanie Ip

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So, what are the steps? They are as simple as follow:

Basically, have a plan.Even better, a business plan.

Check out our case study on how wehelped CozyPhones turn their ideasinto a reality product!

// Stephanie Ip

1// Pick a Theme

2// Illustrate and Pull Together Design Elements

3// Digitize Design Elements

4// Repeat Artwork

5// Factory Artwork

Need some custom print patterns?Send us an inquiry to get started!

// Stephanie Ip

Now, what are the steps? They are as simple as the following:

Basically, have a plan.Even better, a business plan.

Want to learn more? Check out our Samples to seehow we built designs for our clients!

// Stephanie Ip

Every company has an unique set of colors they use to represent their brand.

The purpose of a Style Guide is to promote a recognizable image a brand wish to be perceived in the marketplace.

So when do you need a Style Guide?

Treat Style Guide as a CV/Resume.

Where would the Style Guide come into play?

Ready to make something awesome?

// Stephanie Ip

1// Define your value proposition that comes with a dollar amount, a few colors, and shapes.

To convince is to first understand your folks.

2// Plan for a target launch date that’s not yesterday or tomorrow.

3// Locate a space for the launch that people can get to.

4// Be ready to tell your company story at least 100 times in the first year.

Part of launching a brand is building a brand presence in the crazy noisy marketplace.

5// Work with a brand strategist to help compile the data from point 1-4 in one place.

Want to learn more? Send us an inquiry to get started!

// Stephanie Ip

So, what are the steps?
They are as simple as follow:

Basically, have a plan.
Even better, a business plan.

Check out our case study on how we
helped CozyPhones turn their ideas
into a reality product!

Need some custom print patterns?
Send us an inquiry to get started!

Now, what are the steps?
They are as simple as the following:

Basically, have a plan.
Even better, a business plan.

Want to learn more?
Check out our Samples to see
how we built designs for our clients!

Want to learn more?
Send us an inquiry to get started!