Posts filed under 'Design Project Schedules'
I figure a good place to start talking about planning the Fall ’11 collection is to just start listing some of the things that I need to start getting together NOW and the things that I need to make sure stay on my radar the whole time.
Get it together
Literally – I want a collection that goes together. No matter how many styles I settle on for the final collection, they must be cohesive. Cohesiveness matters to more than just the look and feel of my collection- it matters to my overall brand building and my bottom line. If you are a small, just-starting-out business, then you are going to want to maximize your buying ability. You will want to use the same fabric in more than one style – this will help ensure you can ‘make the cut’ (meet the minimum yardage required by the supplier).
To get it together, I’m starting with a theme. I feel incredibly lucky to have been struck by a theme idea when I was doodling the other night. Right now, there is nothing solid behind my theme idea – but it gives me ideas for discovery. I’m starting with a combination of two keywords – those keywords are already inspiring me to look at fashions, cinema, movie posters, etc. from certain eras. They are basically a great starting point for exploring. Just an idea to kick-start your theme hunt – try random keywords together, jot down words that strike your fancy.
Plan, plan, plan
Right now – I’m gathering some discovery tools (sketchbooks, color books, reference books) and hashing out a broad time line for the production of my collection. From there, I can layer my marketing and sales plans on top of the production plan. To start your production plan, work backwards from your launch date (selling season for Fall collections is late Jan/early February through May; shipping starts end of July; of course, nothing is ever set in stone) and set at least the following milestone dates:
- Salesman’s samples complete
- Trade show booth (and/or marketing materials) complete
- Website/wholesale ordering information complete
- Sample (production or technical kits) dropped for assembly
- Sample fabrics ordered (I have a lot to share about sourcing in the next couple of weeks)
- Final patterns approved
- At least two cycles of: pattern design, test sample for fit, fit meetings, pattern edits, test sample for fit….etc.
- Technical Sketches complete
- Styles approved for pattern-making
- Final style meeting
- Fabrics sourced
- Logo, website, and stationary design underway
- Collection theme finalized
Keeping on my radar
So much goes into just developing a collection, that it’s easy for me to let a lot of the “launching a business” activities get pushed to the side. I will keep bookkeeping activities on my radar daily. Stay on top of your bookkeeping from the very beginning, if you can manage. In addition, I have to constantly and consistently work on your branding, pr, and marketing –>both the plans and implementation. We just wrapped up a new logo design today – I’ll need it on my hang tags and care labels, website and marketing materials, email signatures, social media site avatars, website, and on and on. This time around, I promise to keep the trade show booth design and trade show schedule on my radar from the beginning too. Also – supporting my sales rep by providing them with pre-launch information and sneak peeks at the collection.
Ok – enough to do right now and more than enough to keep on my radar, I think I just made myself dizzy!!
May 20th, 2010
“come go with me -oh wo oh – have no fear” – I’m pretty sure those are the right words to the song that’s playing in my head.
Here we are coming out of a recession. And I’ve been quieter than ever in the last few months because the sudden growth spurt almost killed us quicker than the recession did. All kinds of stuff fell apart at the same time, but really, it all boils down to the fact that I got in over my head. Looking back, I don’t know if there is much I could have done about it. And “it” isn’t really that bad. “It” is just falling way behind on a few orders..but there were a lot of root causes to those orders falling behind (sewing contractor falling off the face of the planet) that had me questioning our viability for awhile.
But bygones – we are here and a good half (okay more) of those customers have forgiven us and been patient during our delays. And now that we’re growing and getting out of the “keep-spending-beyond-tight” times, I see, finally, the possibility of growing our product lines. Which brings me back to “come go with me” – we’re launching a new collection for Fall ’11. I know a lot of you are in the design and development phase, so I’m hoping that if I share my design experiences for this collection, it will help move you through the steps too. And maybe I can keep you from making the numerous, costly, and very painful mistakes I made during my first round.
Sharing with you helps keep me on track, and I hope that you will join in the conversation often – I can not tell you how much it helps to hear from you, no matter where you are on your design journey. That means whether you have a question to ask or advice to give – please join in!
And I’ll find out if I can design a collection from scratch better and more efficient this time, knowing what I know now. So, this week we’re going to start planning and exploring potential themes. Come go with me – oh wo oh – have no fear….
May 14th, 2010
Oh bla dee – oh bla da, life goes on, la la la la life goes on. I’m sure that’s a trademarked phrase. We just got an email letting us know that Gerber® has trademark rights to the word “Onesies®”— we honestly had never even looked into it. So, we will be spending the next couple of days making sure that we are no longer infringing on their trademark. I can’t believe this is the first time we’ve been told that. I thought it was as generic as “t-shirt”, but nay.
Fall items are shipping
How in the world is everyone doing? Preparing to ship / already shipping your fall items? It’s already hard to find summer stuff in the stores around here. Well, I shouldn’t say hard, but there isn’t a huge selection. Stores are working on clearing out their summer items and bringing in new fall stuff.
Time to pitch gift guides
And in the PR arena, it’s gift guide pitching time. Remember to target your pitches to your audience. Visit magazine’s websites to find their editorial calendars. The editorial calendars will tell you the closing date and topics of upcoming issues. Magazines plan and complete their issues months ahead of the release date – so to get featured, your product / pitch has to be in their hands long before the closing, or completion, date.
Make re-ordering easy
Here’s a tip to increase business: make it easy for your customer’s to re-order. We just FINALLY created a wholesale quick order form. I love it! I love it! I love it! More importantly, all of our vendors were very excited to hear that we are making it easier for them to place their orders.
Have a great week!
July 20th, 2009
It’s the end of the year! Already? Yes, yes, yes – already. I’m looking forward to a NEW year. We’re getting deep into the annual planning for 2009. This will be the first time we’ve really done the nitty gritty planning, month by month – with personal goals for each of us.
It’s been really really good for me to work with my partner on creating the master goals (the big financial one). Now, we’re in the midst of working backwards through the year from December towards January. Starting with December enables us to see where we need to be on the path towards our goals each month. By working backwards, you can increment the steps and sub-goals realistically through the previous months.
Tip: Make sure you add important events to each month as you make your plan. Include monthly marketing / development / release plans if applicable. Also include what you should be pitching (july could show “make holiday / gift guide pitches”. You want a map of everything that needs to happen each month in order for you to reach your goal.
I personally feel more attached, committed, and engaged with my goals than ever before, because we’re down to the level of specifics I’ve never been at before. I’m good at the high-level goals “want x number of reps by x month” – but then I don’t do the follow-through and plan out the work and time it will take to reach that goal. Until now.
I feel so proud of us…
I’m also doing a lot of end-of-the-year cleanup and organizing so that we can truly hit the ground running towards our goals.
December 11th, 2008
My husband emailed me this link to Mind Tools-Essential Skills for an Excellent Career. Specifically, he sent me to the “Time Management” pages (I won’t get into whether or not that was a hint ! ha ha), which is the section I’ve gone through.
I found the site to be an incredibly great reminder of ways to ‘stay on track’. I’m already great about To-Do lists, but now, I’m applying the priorities and then re-writing the list so that only “Important” items are at the top. And then I work down the list.
What I saw immediately is that some of my most important tasks have stayed on my To-Do list the longest. By having them buried somewhere in the middle, I’m able to excuse them by not really ‘seeing’ them. Now these things are at the top and have to happen first. I can also see that I “skip” over them lightly because they are tasks I don’t like doing.
We’re working on tracking how long all of our tasks take, and that’s also a real eye-opener. I spend a lot more time dilly-dallying during the day than I thought I did. But this is good news (and not to be mistaken with IMPORTANT brain breaks and kid-time). It’s good news because it means I really DO have more time in the day to get stuff done. A lot of emails can be accomplished in a “found” 15 minutes.
The best by-product of this is that by the time I reach my night, my stress levels are down because I know I took care of the most important stuff for that day. If I keep working after the kids are in bed, it gets to be on some of my more enjoyable tasks – like DESIGNING!!!!
By the way – Project Runway is back on Wed. nights!!
November 30th, 2007
Little snippets of time. Everything in my life, and business, now happens in increments of time – specifically the amount of time between “events”. We had a cash-n-carry shopping event three weeks ago, which left us two weeks until Halloween events with the kids, which left us with a week and a half until the next shopping event. It’s been this way for a few months, since the ABC Show. I think I had a whole month of nothing before the ABC Show, but since then – one thing or another is looming on the horizon.
My daughter started kindergarten (Spanish immersion no less), and so now there are two schools worth of events and stuff to manage. And somehow, having so much “scheduled” is increasing our productivity and, dare I say, our sanity?
The semester that I made the Dean’s list in college was the semester that I was also working two jobs. Both almost full-time. Because the busier you are, the more time-crunched you are, and that’s just the right amount of pressure to kick you in gear. Knowing that I only had an hour between jobs made that hour precious.
This is also exactly why I have to get better at setting incremental deadlines for the business. Instead of just end-of-the-line pipe dream goals. In corporate life, I had to do the project schedules, breaking months and months worth of a project into biweekly deadlines. We can do this for ourselves too. It will help us to hold ourselves accountable and it will help me know where to ask for help more!!!
The more we can break down our project schedules, our business cycles, our to-do lists, the more we’re going to build up our business. Which is good, because our new BIG BROAD focus is taking it to the next level…
November 4th, 2007
I must say that even though we’re one slim week away from our next trade show, we’re much further than we’ve EVER been with our display at this point. We’re getting the mock display together. Previously, despite many grandiose plans, the furthest we got towards a mock up was chicken scratched plans on paper.
The difference between making a plan on paper and seeing the plan in real life is hUgE. We’ve changed our display ideas I don’t know how many times since we started actually building the display. Nothing compares to standing in front of the shelves or racks and seeing how wrong the paper plan feels.
At least chicken scratches on paper give you a starting point. Our first trade show was pretty much about showing up. The next were about incorporating signs and improving display. We’re finally to the point of trying to convey a mood, we’re working around a theme, which helps a lot for the planning. We’ve got the booth space taped out on the office floor and it’s coming together by the day.
Otherwise, everything is in go-go-go-go-and-then-go-some-more mode. I am very excited about the possibilities of my new line – it’s just about getting the samples in by show time. Oh, please, let it all come together by show time.
As an aside – this heat wave does not help my productivity levels and it’s only supposed to get worse. If my kids would only join me, I’d become a vampire – work by night, sleep by day. But the kids don’t play that way and will not sleep during the day. Ah well, I can live on little sleep for one week.
I hope all of you who are prepping for the show are doing better than I am! I wonder if I’ll ever get to the point where I’m a week away from a show and everything is already done and ready to go. But then, getting to that point could be a sign of a stagnant business…
August 28th, 2007
Right now, this is a catch-all post because I need to catch up…on everything (ha ha). Focus and vision, – have a vision, keep the focus. If I work on this long enough, someday I’ll get it.
My sample fabrics have arrived and I’m giddy with excitement. We’re definitely back in the usual “make it happen” mode – being only a month out from the trade show. If I can make this happen, I feel that we should be good for awhile, that we might get a good stable product line with a decent variety. I have to get to some point of sanity, and getting to a stable product line is a big one for me right now.
Oh please, oh please, grant me the late-night strength this is gonna take.
On a side note, one of you wonderful readers out there wrote me about organics suppliers and I don’t think I ever got back to you (apologies), but I have some info if you want to contact me – info@babyfabulous.com.
Speaking of suppliers I just had a longtime customer mention to us that she’s starting to see our most popular blanket fabric everywhere. I hate it, yes I hate it. Bad enough when I notice the same fabrics in boutiques, worse when customers notice. The problem is that we’ve gone with this fabric because it’s a big seller and also because it’s a fabric that the supplier keeps in-stock. Meaning, it’s not as limited edition as every other cool fabric from suppliers with low minimums (more than once our supplier has been sold out of the fabric we need when it’s time to place the production order). Since it’s a blanket that boutiques can have on display without worrying about the print selling out, we’ll stick with it a little while.
That’s the growing pains, if a supplier offers low minimums then it seems like everyone uses their fabrics – and they sell out quickly. Not so fun when you’re trying to break into a style industry. But we just have to make it through the startup phases, right? Which reminds me that a really cool graphic designer approached us this week, offering his services. He’s got some big-wig clients in his portfolio, so that’s flattering. It will be so nice to get to the point of our own print designs.
And to sign-off, I want to let those of you who’ve contacted me with questions recently know that I’ll be combing through my emails so I can answer your questions to the best of my knowledge.
August 4th, 2007
Okey Dokey – So we’re now what, 8 weeks out from the ABC Show? Eight weeks and there is far to go. No more lolly-gagging along. I’m going to have to weed down how many new designs I wanted, but I am still going to make this happen.
We have eight weeks to get a pattern, get the sample fabrics, and have our salesman’s samples made, not to mention pictures. I keep wanting to pretend I don’t have to make time for pictures and a catalog too.
I have to revise my previoulsy created project plan, drastically, and put everything into fast motion. On Monday, I need to set an appointment with the pattern maker and get the sample fabrics ordered. I can’t put it off any longer.
At the same time, I’m learning to have patience with my current product offering. Since we are still so relatively new, there will be a lot of retailers at the ABC Show who haven’t seen any of our stuff. I can take comfort in the fact that we have a decent product line as it is. We need to keep pushing branding and exposure.
This next two months now becomes “how to take a product from sketch to launch in 8 weeks”. My own personal eight week challenge. And this is after I wrote about being behind in the season – but we’re in business now. I don’t get to put off our official launch until I can make something real appear. Now, we have no choice but to make it happen.
Which isn’t to negate all of the legwork I’ve done for this season already, including committing to a theme, scouting suppliers, and hashing out the design basics. But, now we have to put the action behind the plans. And we can. We can, we can, we can.
July 6th, 2007
Starting the season off with a bang!!! Well, that was the plan anyways. Now, here I am, already falling behind schedule. I will give credit to the amount of designing I’ve done. Though you wouldn’t know it, because I have nothing to show for it. But I’ve given it a lot of thought and research and planning in my head. This is a lot of the design work, but definitely not all of it.
I need to get on the tech sketches and specs for my pattern maker. Today, I’m calling to order the sample cuts of fabrics that I need to test my theory and create my salesman’s samples. Those phone calls really need to happen today. A lot of phone calls need to happen today. Just 2 1/2 months until market, (is that right?) – a couple of weeks to work with patterns, a couple of weeks for prototypes, a couple of weeks for photography and finalizing the styles.
It’s do-able. Plus, I still have to define the number of styles.
Wouldn’t it be so great if that was all I had to do? Instead I have some crazy running around to do today for a special order and other mid-day things that will push off my productive hours. On the plus side, it’s 6:45 in the morning, the kids are waking, and I’ve already checked a number of items off today’s to-do list. We finally got ourselves an alarm clock with a snooze button – and we actually got up like we needed to this morning. And it feels SO good to have the stuff done already. So I can enjoy a few moments with my kids as the sun comes up.
June 12th, 2007
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