The Zenith Unit allows us to use the skills we learned from Freestyle to create self-directed projects based on our own passions. I decided to create my own swimsuit brand.
Creating my own brand took several steps: coming up with a logo, designing and brainstorming ideas for the brand, creating the packaging, sewing the swimsuit, and photographing the final product. This was an entirely passion driven project and I loved creating it because it has been something that I have been wanting to do for a while, and I felt like I finally had the skills to be able to create something that I’m proud of.
Logo Creation
It took me some time to decide on what logo/name I liked the best. I decided on “Three Skies” because it has the most personal meaning to me.
Swimsuit Creation
Packaging
Reflection
For my Zenith project, I decided to create my own swimsuit brand. I had two main reasons for creating this project: I really wanted to learn how to sow swimsuits and I have been wanting to create my own brand for a while. I always talk to my friends about how I want to create my own clothing brand so I thought the zenith project would be the perfect opportunity for me to get started on it. I dedicated a lot of time to this project and I want to keep working on it in the future to possibly make this brand into a real one! I started my project by brainstorming ideas for a name. After a while of just letting the ideas marinate in my head, I decided to stick with the name “Three Skies”. The name is inspired by my fascination with clouds, which became a major component of the graphics, and by the phrase “for the eyes so wide and curious, they fill up three skies.” I’m a very curious person and I want this encouragement for nonconformity and curiosity to be the underlying message of my brand Three Skies. I also made sure to make everything environmentally friendly; I used reusable bags for the packaging, recycled packaging tissue paper, and ordered swimsuit fabrics from a small, eco-friendly business on Etsy. I created the logo and brand design on Illustrator, as well as stickers, the tag for the swimsuit, and thank you cards to put in the hypothetical orders from hypothetical customers. I also hand painted the packaging tissue paper with flowers and painted a reusable tote bag with the brand name. The most difficult part of this project was definitely creating the swimsuit itself. I completely underestimated how difficult sowing such slippery, fragile material would be. There was a lot of trial and error, but after a few frustrating nights of sitting by my sewing machine for hours on end, I finally had a bikini top that I was happy with. I had a lot of fun taking cool photos of my swimsuit and creating an aesthetic for the brand. I learned a lot from this project and it was definitely by far my favorite project from Freestyle that I have done. I was able to put my Illustrator skills that I learned in my Design class to use for this project, while also growing my sewing and crafting skills. While I am already proud of what I created in the past three months, I feel inspired to keep developing this brand in the future. The zenith unit gave me total creative freedom and the ability to express my own passion and put my skills and creativity to use into a really cool project.