BackStitch
The first iteration of the BackStitch hero image: Jeremy Prapavessis, Lena Perkins & Kaleigh Matherus
Cross-Cultural Design and Business Capstone Project
Backstitch is still a work in progress as we are on week 9 of 12. We have been doing bi-monthly sprint videos to show where we are so far in the design process. Over the next two weeks, we will be in our prototyping phase.
Type: System and Service Design, research
Role: System Designer, Service Designer, Business Strategy, Content Collection, Personal Relations and marketing
Timeline: 12 weeks
Problem Statement: How might we use circular design principles to innovate the way we produce, use and access everyday clothing items?
Design Sprints
Design Sprint 1
Week 1 & 2: We independently reviewed all of the RSA briefs and chose briefs that we felt passionate about to research further. I did a deep dive circular fashion and healthy routs and brought my research on the topics the following week.
Role: Research
Design Sprint 2
Week 3 & 4: As a team, we shared our research and opinions on each brief. Collectively we agreed on tackling the making fashion circular design brief. We then took a deep-dive into researching the fashion industry as a whole. We outlined a stakeholder map to see how the process connected. In week 4, we focussed on researching consumers to understand their wants, needs, and motivations. We also interviewed local vintage and second-hand stores to see what initiatives are already being done. We talked about what brought these individuals into the industry, their business model, industry changes, and future trends.
Role: Personal relations, research, interviewing, and content collection
Design Sprint 3
Week 5 & 6: We started ideating based on research and insights from interviews and documentaries. We furthered our research by going on service safari’s and watching more documentaries that opened our eyes on issues in the fashion industry. Based on these findings we identified gaps and niches to target potential consumer segments within the post-production. Based on my relations and network, I set up a meeting and tour of Barbarian Sportswear. Through this meeting, we gained insights on the biggest areas of wastes that are accumulated within the manufacturing process.
Role : Personal Relations, Networking, Ideation, And Content Collection
Design Sprint 4
Week 7 & 8: We did a deep-dive into the first iteration of our system, finding the exact niche we would fit into. We researched our target users, related business models, consumer behaviour, and if this is scalable. We found that our solution would be a business-to-business model and split our users into two groups; those we would get waste textiles from, and those who would purchase our recycled products. From there we outlined the current disposal and purchasing systems these users use. We were able to see where our solution would bridge the gap in the industry, and began the branding process for our solution. We focused on branding by choosing the components of our initial brand identity and creating our hero image.
Role: Personal Relations, Networking, Ideation, Research, and Content Collection
5 minute-Pitch
As part of our design process, we presented a five-minute pitch to be critiqued. We then used this for our first iteration of prototyping and presenting our pitch to Barbarian Sportswear. We also had our contact John fill out an intake form as part of our user testing.
Role: Presenter of the Proposal & Key Users, and Business Model
Next Steps
Create our RSA Boards
Finalize our Business Model Canvas
Create/test prototypes
Tighten up marketing