Easy To Get Fashion Dresses!

Hey all you fashion people! So I found something interesting that I was not very aware of. Even my friend was freaking out when I told her about it. But first, fashion marketing. It is like marketing for any other product out there. I did not know that there is so much that goes into it.

“Typical fashion marketing responsibilities include: attending fashion shows and visiting designer showrooms; placing orders for clothing and estimating the amount of inventory needed; arranging for the receiving, storage, and display of merchandise; pricing clothes; designing visual displays and ad campaigns and promotions; consulting with fashion designers and consumers; keeping tabs on profits and losses; maintaining the physical appearance of a store; and hiring and training new employees.”- Robyn Tellefsen

As this description that Tellefsen said in his article Fashion marketing merges psychology and style, it is almost as if running your own small business. They need to keep up with trends or even create the trend. The thing I like about fashion marketing is that they get to go to fashion shows and designer show rooms. I already love looking at clothes. It is another thing when buying them.

So where can we get cheap brand designer clothes? Yeah, there are going to swap meets, going to discount stores rummaging for those second-hand clothes, or bargain stores. But that takes a long time to find something really good and in your size. Besides, where are you going to keep all those clothes that you will barely wear? Also, how do you know those clothes are really legit and not just some knock-offs? (That is when you have to really inquire about their clothes and where they get them.) That is why I am glad I found this article about a website where you can Rent Designer Dresses without the Expensive Price Tag.

This website called Rent-the-Runway has a collection of designer dresses that you can wear to any event or gala. What other good way to also learn about other designers that you just can’t name or do not even know about?! The great thing about it that they send you two different sizes just to make sure the dress you chose fits just right! Jenny Fleiss, co-founder of Rent-the-Runway, said in the article Rent Designer Dresses without the Expensive Price Tag by Laura Jerpi, “There’s no guilt of spending money on something you’re only going to wear once. Everything is only 10% of cost, so you can wear 10 times the number of outfits.”  There are also accessories to rent with them! Because they are designer dresses that they rent out, there is a safety precaution of a $5 insurance fee in case something happens to the dress. So much better than saving a lot of money for a dress you might only wear once.

Now I love clothes, but I am not very familiar with designers because quite simply, I do not follow them or pay attention to them. But this website is like a great way to market for designers to show off their stuff that us lower class people cannot afford. What do I pay attention to? The style. I pay attention to the design and the quality of the materials used in the clothing. Whenever I go shopping, I just look for whatever clothes catches my eyes and fit my style. There are some clothes that I like, but I feel that they do not look good on me. It is okay because I know there are other clothes that are better out there and will fit me perfectly. It is like finding that perfect prom dress that will make you stand out and screams you!

Speaking of prom dresses; for those of you in high school, are you short on money and can’t afford that dress you want?  Well, there is a program that occurs yearly. This program is called the Princess Project. They provide free prom dresses that have been donated by random people who are not in need of them anymore. These dresses are usually new or nearly new, barely used at all. Also, the fun thing is that they prepare goodie bags for you to use to carry your things as you browse. I know this because I have volunteered to prepare for the Princess Project in San Francisco. Too bad I did not get a chance to work with the dresses and browse them.

Now there you have it folks! A couple ways to find dresses you need for that important event you need to attend and looking exceptionally fabulous! Happy browsing and wearing!

Need a Job Career? Don't Know Where to Start? Here's A Few Ways You Can

There are multiple ways to land the job or career you want. But how do you start? Where do you even begin? For starters, you are already doing it. How you might ask? Well, simply by the friends you are making. You are already making connections with people who may or may not have your career job. Those that who do not have your career job may know someone who does and that is what is important. This is called networking. But networking is not that simple. You can meet someone and make acquaintances, but you also need to keep in touch with them. They have information you may want and vice versa. If you want to network outside of friends, there is also talking to random people within your school -- even your professors, going to job fairs, or networking online! Also, there is applying for internships.

A professor related to your field of study is one of the best ways to network. Why? They have had experience in the job! They have already made connections with people in the career or possibly a company you are interested in. Your professor is already a great source of information to help you learn about a certain type of business, description of a type of job you want, and giving you advice about a career choice in general. Professors are easy to talk to because not only are they there to help and guide you, they want you to succeed and they know what it is like career hunting; that is why they are there to at least help you land an internship. Applying and getting the job at the company you want takes your own effort and hard work. The battle is all yours and it depends on you where you want to take that battle.

Getting an internship is one of the best ways to land a job in the company you desire. Your school may help provide you in getting an internship. It helps you get a feel of what the company is like and you get to network with the people there. Also, you are getting experience into the real business world besides learning it in class. Because you are interning, you gain experience and the knowledge of the company that when you apply for a position it is almost a sure win getting the job. Don't think about whether you are getting paid or not because that's not what is important, it's the experience and knowledge of the company workings. This is what happened to a friend of mine. He was interning at pretty good company and when his term was up, he applied for a position that just so happened to open up because a high-level worker retired. Upon applying, he got the job because he already knew how the company functions by interning.

Job fairs is another great way to network and possibly get a job. At a job fair you can look at the different companies that are out there; there may be companies you have never heard of and take interest in. This is a chance to get to know more people and learn about the companies and what kind of people they are looking for. It is like a pre-interview. You are getting out there letting people know who you are and showing your interest in them. Like with online networking, you put yourself online with a professional image.

With online networking, you let people know you are interested in a certain job career. You talk with people and let people find you. There are sights you can join like LinkedIn, Monster.com, or CraigsList. There are always people looking for someone to fill a position. LinkedIn and Monster lets you look for job openings and for people to find you who think you may be right for the position. All you have to do is sign up. As for CraigsList, it is one of the cheapest ways to advertise a job opening; all you have to do is look under the jobs sections. You’d be surprised at what kinds of jobs you may find.

These are actually fairly simple things to do, what you need to keep in mind is to keep up to date with what your networks are doing and talking with them, even about something random. You simply want to be on their good side and give them a positive and professional impression of yourself. Most importantly, don’t be fake, be yourself but also respectful.

Good Luck!

Better Understanding With Classes

Before attending San Francisco State University, I attended Skyline Community College. As mentioned before, I took a Career Planning course that helped me decide to major in Business. Since then I have been taking the required classes to transfer into S.F. State, besides my general education classes, such as Financial and Managerial Accounting, Micro and Macro Economics, Business Math Analysis, Statistics, and Introduction to Business Information Systems. These classes were like the background of the parts that create the business world.

The Accounting classes were like budgeting the money and the allocation of money, while the Economic classes were about trading whether it be within our own country or outside in the world to other countries. For the Math classes, they were means of analyzing raw data of samples from a population. As for the Business Information Systems class, it was about learning how to use Excel to organize information – creating tables, charts, graphs, etc.; and we also had a little lesson on how to create a basic website using different softwares like Adobe Dreamweaver. All these classes helped to prepare me for my core classes at S.F. State because in each of the classes I have taken at S.F. State utilized what I have previously learned.

The main classes I have been able to utilize my learning at S.F. State were Information Systems for Management, International Business and Multicultural Relations, and Marketing Research. In my Information Systems class I learned to create a business plan for an application with a team using the Excel program. With the data in the Excel program, we transferred that data into the Access program to create relationships between the different categories in our application. This application is like a mini database for ease of use. For my International Business class, it was like Economics but expanded with more details for working outside one’s home country. With my Marketing Research class, statistics is being used to determine if a certain product or good is successful for a target market and analyzing its effects on a population. I am currently working on a Marketing Research project, trying to solve a problem on how to strengthen a certain company to better compete.

Now, all these classes that I have taken and currently taking translates into one other class that I am currently taking which is Advertising Theory and Practice. I am also working on another project for this class with a team acting as an Account Planner. The project is practically like my Marketing Research project, but more about advertising and helping to create an ad. The Account Planner does not exactly create the ad, but sets up on what the ad should contain for the Creative Team to design and execute to reach a target audience.

The Art Director is part of the Creative Team. In my previous blog I already mentioned what an art director does. How each of these classes help toward a possible career in art direction, is learning how to reach a target audience. The details that market researchers and account planners do help to make a sort of layout for an ad, to stand out amongst thousands and draw people to it. All the other business classes relate to every field in business and is not so specific to just one career – learning to communicate with others, working with a team, reaching outside the home country, using similar programs to organize data, etc. The business world is mostly full of critical thinking and reaching out to a target audience.

Types of Reading & Writing for an Art Director

When it comes to reading and writing in business, there are various forms like memos, e-mail, mail, magazines, newspapers, etc. Why do business people read and write these sorts of things? Well how else will they be informed about their career field and what is going on in the world that affects them. Also, when it comes to writing, it has to be formal and not casual or else people will not take you seriously. For Mr. X, in my previous blog post, he mostly reads e-mails, magazines, and postings online to look for an art directing job since he is a freelancer.

The first thing he reads when he starts business with a new company, is researching about who his employers are and what they are about. Learn about “what companies they are similar to or who they are competing with.” Knowing a company’s background is a nice insight to know because it helps decide if you really want to work with them or not. Next are the contracts, so as not to violate anything. It as an agreement between two people to compromise on what will be promised and what a person can and cannot do.

Other readings that he does are magazines like Seventeen or Thrasher to try n keep up with the designs and how they advertise their apparel. He tries to learn from them and apply it to his type of advertising to help promote Fresh apparel and what they stand for; creating that unique image for them.

.

E-mailing is one of Mr. X’s main means of communications for his job. This is where he contacts his team to discuss a few things like about the design of the ad, what critiques can be made to better the ad. He said that the thing about e-mails is that “you have to be specific.” Besides being specific, he mentioned approaching it in a friendly matter and also in kind of a formal tone. “You can’t be like ‘Hey what’s up dude…’ because you have to have that professionalism so that they can take you a lot more seriously.” This shows that you have the knowledge of what you are doing and you know what is best for the company. It is good to start off with a sort of compliment because the employer or team member took the time to do this and that, which takes a lot of effort. Also, it helps to kind of ease into a type of negotiation that can be discussed.

There are different ways to write a professional business e-mail because there is a certain etiquette to it. The person on the receiving end has to read and understand what is going on in the e-mail so he or she won’t get lost. Along with being specific, it is good to have the e-mail short and almost to the point because otherwise if it is too long, who would want to read it. The person receiving the e-mail may not have that much time on his or her hand to read such a long email. 

To learn a little more here is a website you can go to learn how to write a professional business e-mail: http://grammar.about.com/od/developingessays/a/profemails.htm

Or you can watch this YouTube video

Art Directors... What They Do

For a while now, I have been contemplating on what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go in Marketing. I knew I wanted to be in the Advertising section, but I was not sure what was entailed in advertising, i.e.  like who does what or what are all the possible positions for a Marketing major. In my Advertising Theory and Practice class, I started to learn the different positions that create an advertisement. This is where I heard about an Art Director, which I thought to believe were the artsy folks who do all the art works in an ad. Art Directors work with copywriters, who create the text for ads, to create the layout for an ad.  I thought this was perfect since I like putting things together to look pretty, something that is “inviting” to see. Now I am not a very artsy person, but I like taking photos and making random collages when I feel like it. I guess you can say the organization of things is what intrigues my interests and that is what kind of drew my art directing.

To learn more about art directing and what it is like to work in that career, I recently interviewed an art director of a small company. Because he does not want his name to be used, I will call him Mr. X. He is a freelancer who has been working as an art director for about a couple years now. It was in high school when he first got interested in graphic design because of a friend. After graduating, he was then surrounded by many more artists who shared his interest and it eventually led him to becoming an art director.

How Mr. X usually starts off his day is by having an agenda and taking care of the most important part of the task done first, which is usually finding the right picture or image for the ad. I asked him why the picture is the most important part and he said, “it sets the mood of the viewer. Then after that you put the font on there, but it has to be the right font… Because a picture means a thousand words and you set the mood for what the ad is all about.” Now because he is currently working for a small clothing company, Fresh, his job overlaps a little into other areas like finding companies and comparing their prices for flyers. This is how he ends his day. He looks into who has the cheapest prices for the biggest quantities, but also has the best material.

There are days when work just gets too hard to handle and he just wants to quit, but “you just think about the future and not the present day. Basically life has its ups and downs, but in order to get through your rough times, you have to learn from it and what you are doing wrong. Then later on when you actually do come across the same problem, you know what to do.” The main problem that usually occurs is trying to get the design on time. He said for small businesses there are quarter systems and the design has to get in before Fall, for example, because it’s the back-to-school sale; everyone is buying and if you don’t make that deadline, you won’t make money.

I tend to handle difficulties differently. When there is an important deadline I have to meet for school, I usually try to set a time specifically for that task so I don’t have to worry about it and can just touch it up near the deadline. But, being a student there are times when I just procrastinate because I simply just don’t want to think about it or do anything. When the deadline approaches, of course I get frustrated and start to kind of yell that I can’t think of anything to do with the task or know how to finish it. That is when I just take a break for however long it takes until the idea comes to me; I don’t even sleep until I know I can finish the task almost perfectly. During that break, I try to think about it, but I can’t stop so I keep thinking about what I can do. Eventually, an idea comes to mind and I get enthused with finishing the task. This may not work for some or most people, but it works for me just fine. I am really a stickler for getting things done on time and not flaking too much until the deadline.

When it comes to designing the ads for the small business, the focus was “having it be simple and presentable.” The reason being is because when there is so much going on in the background, viewers won’t know where to look, “like Apple and their billboards – product and their label and just a white background—it just goes directly to the subject and that’s what I try to do.” Because the clothing design is called Fresh, through the ads he tries to make it so that whoever wears the clothes they feel accepted, since it is catered to the teenage demographics. “Fresh is another meaning for cool… because people nowadays are absorbing negativity, wearing the Fresh apparel keeps your confidence high.” What he means is that it gives you a boost of confidence because Fresh is like saying “I don’t care what you say, I’m cool.” Also, what helps to sell the apparel is its unique smell right when you get it because immediately it smells Fresh.  

In essence, this is the kind of message the company is trying to get people aware of. It’s about the kind of message not just the company wants to get out there, but for the people, the consumers, to inherit with themselves and not just the brand. I didn’t realize it before until this interview, but when I was in 8^th Grade I was actually thought this. My class was assigned to create a brochure for the school as an art project and put facts in the brochure trying to persuade people why they should come to my school. I guess I had a little experience with art directing or creating a type of ad without knowing.

This is what art directing is about; creating a message that people can immediately associate with and catches their attention. It isn’t just a pretty picture and words; it’s the attitude it brings forth, that resonates within.

Now that I have learned a little more about Art Directing, I am still a bit interested in becoming one, but it seems like I would need to at least take a few art classes. Mr. X said that even though you don’t necessarily have to do the design, just be able to give critiques to fit the image. In order to do that you need a creative background, not exactly an art background because you mainly need to know who your consumers are. This puts me at ease a little, but because my drawing/designing is limited, I should take some art classes to learn a little something; although, I do have some creativity in me when putting pictures together to create something new. At the same time if this does not fall through, I will still look for other positions that I can fall back on.

Direction of My Blog

Since this blog is going to be about Marketing, I looked around online to find other Marketing blogs and what they talk about. It was difficult at first because all the blog posts I have been looking at seemed so random and like it can be a part of another genre besides Marketing. But at a closer look, it is still related to marketing because I saw reviews about new products, talks about social media, evolution on a certain part of Marketing due to the Internet, etc. Like I said in my previous, even though it may not seem like it but in some way Marketing will be the underlying theme.

Anyways, in one blog that I have come across is called Duct Tape Marketing by John Jantsch, his was for new people coming into the world of business, especially about Marketing. He gives tips and advises on how to do whatever it is you are trying to do. It is interesting that others can also create a blog post on his site. A couple titles I’ve come across when looking at the first page of his blog were What Internet Marketers Know That You Don’t and Clarity Makes the Best Strategy. It is interesting that. If you just read the first few lines from these posts, you can see that these blog posts are derived from real world experiences and therefore helpful in your future endeavors.

Another blog I found was HubSpot Blog, a site for inbound internet marketing. Inbound marketing is about getting people’s attention and not by buying their attention. This is why there are so many posts about social media and using search engines to optimize its utility to find whatever it is you are looking for. This is a site where one can network and possibly find future jobs; it is about getting known to others and keeping them engaged with the content you give to them.

Finally, I looked at one other blog by Scott Monty. His blog is focused on Social Media Marketing as is the title. He is the global head of social media for Ford Motor Company. Although he is a part of Ford, his blog talks about other social medias like Twitter, Pinterest, Foursquare, etc. These are all different kinds of social media, and I am not just talking about their names. They each have different attributes to their sites, but the main thing in common is their use for networking, making connections.

Now Mr. Monty’s site is kind of an example of how I want my blog to be; although his is more focused. He blogs about practically anything like marketing as long as there’s a related theme of social media. He shares his insights and perspectives about what he sees about these very different companies that interest him. This is what I want to do with my blog. I want to blog about things that interest me with Marketing as the theme. Because I do not have a focus on where I want to go with Marketing, I hope that with this blog I can find that focus.

Genres & Blogs

Blog (noun): a Web site containing the writer’s or group of writers own experiences, observations, opinions, etc., and often having images and links to other Web site (Dictionary.com)

Genre (noun): kind, category, or sort, esp of literary or artistic work (Dictionary.com)

What exactly is genre? As you can see from the definition given from Dictionary.com, genre means a category of a literary or artistic work. Genre acts like a guide. It helps you to decide what theme you want to go into or further explore. It is like a distributed network with similar topics. As you decide which book to read or what movie or television show to watch, you are looking into its genre; you are looking at why type you want to see or read whether it be action, comedy, romance, drama, etc. In this case, blogging in itself is a type of genre written online rather than in a notebook or manuscript of some sort. You can connect with others similar to your interest. But how do you know what genre you are blogging about?

Personally, when I think of trying to write into a certain genre it takes me forever to come up with a good idea. I usually go with what’s easy for me like writing a short story on romance or even about what would happen if I were in a certain television show. “There may be themes… and subtexts that explore a given idea, but usually when I begin a new novel – I’ve no idea where it will go and certainly no idea what genre slot it might be crammed uncomfortable into,” said David Rory O’Neill in his blog Abandon Genre?. In essence, there are so many genres that combine together and create a type of masterpiece for a person. Trying to stick to a genre before anything is written can be constricting. So,

“How much should we as writers allow concerns about genre to dictate how we write and what we write?... I would argue that even within these fairly clear genres, too, much concern about staying within prescribed boundaries limits the creative process and results in work that is less satisfying for reader and writer than it could be – if genre were not considered during the writing” (O’Neill).

Now what is blogging and how does genre relate? Well, blogging is a type of literary work but online. Believe it or not, I used to own another blog or two when I was younger on the notorious Xanga.com. I thought of it as an open diary or journal that everyone can see or who we chose to see it. My friends and I were always on it talking about our lives or even dedicated another blog to an actor. You can say it was an over-exemplified status that you post on Facebook or Twitter—with plenty of spelling and grammar errors. But why did we create a blog dedicated to talking about our lives even though to most it was boring and trivial?

As Paul Bradshaw put it in his blog An Attept To Define Blogging As A Genre:

            “Blogging, above all else is conversational. It is social. It is networked…

Blogging is also incomplete, open, and ongoing. It is about process, not product. It is about a shared space.

…it allows you to make a closer connection with readers, which in turn often helps build your understanding of the issues that matter to them. It allows you to be more transparent about the news production process, building trust and news literacy. And it allows you a space for reflection, if you choose to use it.”

In other words, blogging is a place where we can connect outside of school or work. We can even meet other bloggers. Even though my friends and I shared some of the same events, we read it and in a way lived it through each other’s perspectives. You can say it was part of a learning process in whatever way you can take from it just by reading.

Basically, blogging is free. You can write whatever you want. It takes its own form and becomes whatever it is (I am talking about genre). Blogging is never-ending. For this new blog that I have now created, it will be focusing on Marketing, but what is written may not necessarily be Marketing. Because it is such a broad topic that almost anything can go into it, I will relate the topic to Marketing in any way I can so that it will always be the underlying theme. This will be my way of connecting with other Marketing people or those related to Marketing. It will be easier for people to find me or I find them.

On another note, I’ve come across an interesting blog about apologizing called The Blog Apology: A Genre by Peter Kerry Powers. He talks about why bloggers always seem to apologize for being on hiatus. He said, “the blogger who apologizes but lets the reader know that he was really up to much more important or much more interesting things and that we are lucky he is back at all… I suspect this has something to do with the illusion of intimacy that is made possible by interactivity.” This in fact is true because I’ve done it myself once or twice and so have my friends in our old blogs. Like Powers mentioned about the “illusion of intimacy,” we imagine that we have a strong connection with whoever reads our blogs when in fact it is but one post out of millions posted out there. “As if their readers really cared… In fact, the apology is a bloggers plea. Hear me now. Confirm my existence as a writer of some sort or another by clicking on my blog anew” (Powers).

With that said, don’t apologize for not writing a blog post in a long time, because how many people really read each and every post you create? Some blogs may be of interest and some may not. You choose to write it, but the number of readers varies. It’s like choosing what movie or book to read; whatever peaks your interest.

If you'd like, you can take a look at my previous "blog": http://asianangelhottie.xanga.com/