COW VINTAGE
www.wearecow.com
www.facebook.com/wearecow
www.instagram.com/wearecow
www.twitter.com/wearecow
www.wearecow.tumblr.com
'Cow Vintage offer a wonderful and vast selection of affordable vintage and retro mens and womenswear. Each piece is a one off item and is personally chosen by our buyers who source everything from the USA and Europe and then shared between our large stores in Nottingham, Sheffield, Manchester and Birmingham. You can also expect to find original reworked collections which are all updated or handmade in each of our stores to keep an interesting and modern spin on vintage styles. We pride ourselves in being able to offer an exciting shopping experience in our stores with regular events and collaborations to maintain an exciting atmosphere for our customers and visitors!' via www.facebook.com/wearecow
This the store manifesto, it states that they pride themselves on the exciting shopping experince they produce for their customers therefore to make the website representative of this the site need to reflect their experince digitally.The site needs to communicate this experince digitally via elements on the site this for the user. The manifesto also discusses the handmade, affordable and vintage nature of their products, as well as modern spin on vintage styles these are aspect of the brand that need to be influence the site to express the same atmospheric experince of shopping that the brand sees as important.
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| current logo/branding style |
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| slogan from the website |
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| where the shops are situated |
Also as the target audience for the brand will have a heavy social media site connection as site like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter are very popular with this age group. The target audeince will mostly interact with Instagram due to the nature this photo heavy site is very visually based and will give them a platform to express they artist nature/ personal style. These site will infleunce the deisgn of the website
As the target audience of this brief will be heavily interested/involved on social media research into how and why the shop currently promotes on these mediums.The aim is so that this will show how the brand want to present itself to the audience as well as how they connect with the audeince. This research will explore the style of the shop on the different platforms to gain an idea of how the brand wants to be promoted and their current visual digital aesthetic as this can be applied to the website to allow it to flow more with the other sites.
Looking at the common features of all these site will show how the brand wants to present itself to the target market therefore will influence the design of the website, this is will compel the current digital portal of the brand which will need to fit with the website as this is currently a problem for the brand.
facebook-
The facebook site available for we are cow is very basic but has all the need information but is then visually heavy with its posts .The site included all the contact details for th shops, other soical media sites, links to the shop, link to how to buy products and images of the products. A benefits of this social media site is that We are Cow can be followed by the audeince or any potentional customers they given update and post relevant to the shop, for example so when they release new clothes or announcements they can be published in the audience news feed.
features -
shows how to style/wear clothes
wide range of different patterns
images from shoppers/in store images
bright,
bold,
creative,
vidvd,
appeal to target market due to fashion shown in the best way possible,
retro feel due to background photography,
non modern, patterned,
colourful,
textured,
sells clothes via engaging and appealing imagery/photography,
link to current events/day (world recycling day)
shops ethics of the company
instragram -
Instagram is a very popular visual photo site with a target audeince of 16-26, from current feedback is one of the most popular apps used by student and the target audience. Instagram is used heavily by blogger or smaller shops to promote/sell they products, this is as it allows many different images to be compiled with little text. This site is used by the brand to allow them to post picture from the store on a daily basis, as well as to post picture of outfits, offers, people visiting the store, repost other customer instagram pictures layout in a similar way the audience can scroll though easily. The images used by we are cow are selected to represent how the brand wants to appear to the audeince.It include images of both genders(slightly more female) to appeal and show their products to both gender of their target audeince.
lighthearted/fun imagery
bold,
casual
not high fashion
grudge influences
fashion heavy,
colourful,
retro style via forms/shapes,
bright which causes eye catching pictures,
unique/different to highstreet images,
high quality photography,
common house style/links to facebook page,
wide range of textures/fabrics,
block colours,
retro themes/link to old fashion styles,
shows how to wear outfits together,
image taken in the store (link to store look)
tumblr -
Tumblr is a photo sharing and blogging sites where the user can reblog or post imagery whih will then appear in a collection on their page on the site as well as on the dashboard of it users, this site is used mostly by teenage/young adult girls there we are cow uses this site as away to promote tot this audeince. As the target market is a artist/creative of this age group who heavily into social media as well as art/music this site is perfect for the brand to promote its style as this site where many people of this type will visit/use for creative inspiration or clothing inspiration.Tumblr also give the brand away to see any current trend or style popular on the site as they will often become popular in relailty later, this site if very useful in trend prediction and keeping up with how this audience connects/get inspired. The images we are cow uses on the site are aimed mostly/include mostly girls as the primary audience of this site is female, this is seen more on this than on the facebook or instagram pages due to the difference in audeince available/audience gender. The page is very strict to include no text in their posts, this is so they can express their brand as visual expressive shop but the imagery used here is from the company itself or items it sell instead it used to establish their style influences/brand/aesthetic on this media site.
features -
very colourful/contrast colours
bright range of colours
link to trends/style history/retro styles
no images of the clothes from the website
busy imagery
fun/lighthearted feel
aims at a more female audience
has non-binary gender context
has homosexual links
music influences
only partly fashion based
not expensive fashion trends
informal
rebellious style
grunge
bold
attention grabbing
shocking
no modern imagery, focus on the past
twitter -
Unlike the rest of the social media site twitter is used to sell the product via the imagery from the site, they use these imagery alot more than the other sites and these make up most of the imagery shared on the site. The site is only used to show imagery there is not text heavy or text only tweets, this fits with the idea on the other sites where they stick to visual keys to sell/attract the audience. Overall after comparing all the social media site its appears as this site is least used, the imagery shared is using the asme captions or text as the instagram page which as many hashtags or comments, theres less interaction with the audience on this site. This is made clear by the fact its followed a lot less than the other sites even though it has more posts.
features -
some of the same imagery, still bright ect
uses the more serious/functional photos taken from the site
used more to show the items via the website imagery
less popular than the other mediums
follows the same house style/imagery
has a briefer description due to work count limit
links to website/direct items
OVERALL FEATURES
These are the feature seen on or mostly one all of the social media sites for the brand, this is will give a slight guideline on how to portray the brand online/digital. These theme/features need to be experiment with to make sure the site works for the imagery and the style of the shop as these are thing seen on their current sites.
very colourful/contrast colours
bright range of colours
link to trends/style history/retro styles
links to website
busy imagery
fun/lighthearted feel
aims at a more female audience
has non-binary gender context
music influences
fashion based
not expensive fashion trends
informal
rebellious style
grunge
bold
attention grabbing
no modern imagery,
focus on the past
bright which causes eye catching pictures,
unique/different to highstreet images,
high quality photography,
common house style/links
wide range of textures/fabrics,
shows how to wear outfits together,
image taken in the store (link to store look)
Primary Visit to The Manchester Store
To see how many people visit the store, its target audience/customer base, the atmosphere, the layout and any other information about the store that can be gained via a primary visit rather than online as i stuggled to find much information online about the stores, i have visited the store in Manchester.
I stayed for about 3 hours and recorded the gender and age of the customers, as well as talked to the staff, shopped and took so primary photo for this brief. This was with the aim of getting the feeling of the shop so i could personally reflect this more in my work, make sure that i could understand the store i ws designing for to allow the online site to reflect it more accurately. Also this gave me primary images to use as the images via google aren't very strong.
SURVEY OF CUSTOMERS
(as i didn't want to directly as for the age of the customers as this could be seen as rude, i asked a age range, also gave an option for no-binary as i know the store supports LGBT heavily but there was none no-binary on the day i visited)
FEEDBACK -
male, 12-15
2
male, 16-18
4
male, 18-20
21
male, 21-23
32
male, 24-27
30
male, 28-30
12
male, 31- 33
3
male, 34-36
5
male, 36+
1
female, 12-15
4
female, 16-18
10
female, 18-20
27
female, 21-23
46
female, 24-27
32
female, 28-30
10
female, 31- 33
5
female, 34-36
3
female, 36+
5
results - TARGET AUDIENCE females slightly more than male, mostly between 18-27
IMAGERY
atmosphere/atheistic
-miss-matched
-imperfect
-messy
-mixture of styles/years
-decaying
-urban
-handmade signs
-post modern
-messy but pretty
-texture heavy
-sorted via patterns and texture
-genders mixed/people shop mixed
-not modern
-felt abit old
-bright
-colourfull
-organized mess
-dark colours
REFLECT THIS AS THIS IS WHAT APPEALS TO THE TARGET AUDIENCE
Also, from this visit it was made clear via the charity boxes at the checkouts and the box for donating tampons to the homeless at the door which gave the user 10% their purchase that the store wants to help homelessness in Manchester town center and is trying to encourage its customers to donate . As this is seen in store an idea for the site would be the reflect this on their site some home, see how this can be done as this is one of the unique feature of this shop not seen in commercial high-street stores.
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