Short version
During our 4th year in Design school we had an academic project to simulate the creation of a startup in 4 months. This meant creating everything from the product we were going to sell, producing and refining it, to the communication, the business model and our online presence.
Longer version
Project background
This academic project was one of the reason that had motivated me to choose the master in Canada for it was a new occasion to learn about entrepreneurship, experience it first hand and developp a project that had meaning for us.
To give some context
This is one of the oldest project organized by our school in the Montreal master, so it is well rounded.
We have 2 great teacher supporting and guiding us through all the steps, allowing us to be very creative while staying on tracks.
We were 4 designers : 2 Ui/Ux, 1 Graphic and 1 Industrial.
This was a good balance to work on all the different aspects of this project.
What was the problem ?
For once it was a project for which we could decide which problem we wanted to resolve or at least try to.
With the team we chose to work on the menstruation taboo, which to us just shouldn't be, because it is all natural and if half the population is constituted by women then half the population is confronted to it in their life.
What did I do ?
Once we had chosen our problem to work on we needed to start designing the product as it is the center of our startup.
We all participated in this task to help nourrish the brainstorm, and after several iterations, we decided to go with a design for a case that could be worn as a genuine fashion accessory.
The idea behind this was to create an accessory that would be a statement against this taboo.
We kept iterating the design of the product throughout the whole project to get to the best version of it.
At the same time we started working on the brand identity : we defined our values, created a logo and chose a color palette. We kept the idea of statement for this poduct and so it is reflected throughout the whole brand such as bold colors and logo.
We wanted our brand to fell like a big sister giving advice and sharing her clothes and accessories, someone you flet comfortable with.
And then we started working on the more technical side, we needed to think about how to mail our product so that it could fit in a mailbox. We also had to create technical documents such as the Tech pack in which there are all the details about the product and fabrication (dimension, process, materials…). And the same for the business pack to centralise the informations about the business model (monthly expenses, variable costs, machinery).
Finally we started to prepare the final deliverables : posters and a video ad. After finding which style we wanted, we decided to go and shoot those on the streets mostly with the four of us.
We wanted to tell a story with our video, something about sisterhood and helping one another without shame and carrying it proudly.
What was the outcome ?
We delivered the whole project on time, being happy with everything we had created. We were especially happy with the product, our brand identity and the video.
The final pitch was well received by the jury, who praised the consistency of the whole project and quality of the deliverables. We were really proud of what we had achieved as a team, with really good cohesion and valuation of everyone's input.
We are also considering to pursue this project further.
Want to see some more ?
Here's our final presentation file.
