Week 1 - Feedback from my proposal

"I love that you have chosen to combine your passion for the stray dogs with your love of makeup. I think you have started to outline a really good plan to launch your business, but you are attempting to do a lot! You will just need to plan really thoroughly when and how you will be doing everything to ensure you are consistent on each platform. 

Your proposal showcases a good amount of research and your work into target markets is good and aligns what you are doing with a relevant audience, well done. 

Your instagram research is good and shows critical analysis but there is room for deeper analysis on your competitor/ inspiration pages. Why do you find Lisa Eldridge’s website horrendous? Links to some of your references here would be beneficial. 

There were a couple of typos throughout, just be careful to proof your work. Overall you have a clear vision and plan for your FMP - I think you now need to start working on a strategy, particularly for social media. What time of day will you post, what types of post are most popular with your audience etc. You have started to do this but I think start speaking to your target audience in regards to cruelty free makeup. I think you also need to start filming yourself and practising the video side. I’d be interested to learn more about the products that you will use, as well as more examples of your portfolio style imagery. Will they be a similar style to your social content? Overall I think the idea is great and you have put together a good proposal with a fair amount of research, well done. 

Second marker: I agree with the comments above. K.V.

Please present your Bibliography and List of Images in an appropriate format using Harvard Referencing."

I realise now that when I planned my proposal back in November, I did not really estimate correctly the time I will need to engage with all these aspects of my business. I don't think I will actually have time to start a successful GoFundMe for the dogs shelter I wanted to help, and even if I will start it, upon further research I have discovered that If I don't hit a certain set sum of money I will probably not be able to donate the money to the charity and will probably lose them. I think I should leave this initiative to the side for now and focus on the aspects of the project, but I will keep it in mind, as I really want to do something about this problem. But I think, especially after the feedback, that I am probably attempting to do too much than I can handle for now. 

I do need to revise the plan and make a separate one for social media posts... this is going to be hard work and I already don't know how I am going to manage to do it all but we shall see. 

I need to explore more examples of websites to get a better picture of how I will want my one to look like. Also, I need to update the budget I have for this project as of now, as things have not worked according to the initial plan, and some obstacles might appear. 

Week 1 - Initial thoughts and feelings

This week we had our introductory lecture about our final major projects and how we should write the journal and evaluation. We were advised to start writing as soon as possible, even about today, write about how we feel. I did not write it on the day but I kept a few short notes about my thoughts and feelings all along this journey to be later discussed in this journal.

In my notes I wrote that:
"After the lecture I feel more stressed and confused than before. I think it's because in my FMP proposal I was supposed to start the project earlier on, so I can actually have time to build more followers on social media, but I've struggled to post frequently. I should definitely re-do the project schedule"

In the following weeks I will have to do a mini presentation of my project progress and also starting next week I should have a revised schedule.

Apart from feeling a bit under pressure, I am also excited about what's to come! If everything goes to plan, by the end of University I will have the plan for my future business already started and a clearer vision about what I want to do.

I have technically started my project already because I have been creating some new content for social media, and have gotten more engagement on these than ever before on my professional instagram. Here are some images of my first posts:

To create those looks I have tried to use as many cruelty free products as I could, but as my transition to being a cruelty free makeup artist will not happen over night, I will still use the products I already have in my kit and list them. My aim is to completely change my make-up kit while reviewing and testing new products, and talking about them on my new future youtube channel by the end of the FMP.  It is a very ambitious and expensive aim and I will try to stick to it as well as possible although I have a feeling that this is not going to work as well considering my bank balance at the moment.