The scope
The tasks I will be carrying out as part of this work experience opportunity is to create marketing, social media and photography content for this business.
The content I will be creating will be jewellery orientated, as Quince is a jewellers that makes their products by hand.
The business was looking for a designer to help them with social media, marketing and photography content for their business. To which I thought I could help.
My role would be to help the business have a more prominent impact within their industry and I would achieve this by carrying out the tasks said above.
Click on the link to checkout Quince and all their lovely handmade products at:https://quincejewellery.co.uk/
First email greetings
Quince first got in touch via email to see if I would be interested in helping them with their business.
I responded that I would definitely like to help, as I love jewellery and I would like to help them make a more prominent impact in their industry.
They replied back asking if I could send my CV over and what aspects of the business would I like to help with.
I said that I would be happy to try and take on any aspect that she needed help with, but that my skill set is design focused in the digital media field.
The first meeting arranged via email
After the first few inital emails, Quince invited me to have a meeting at their home workshop based in Winchester.
Between us we arranged a date and time that suited us both, ready to get things going.
The first meeting
I finally got to meet the face behind the business which was a woman called Karen Borely.
Upon entering the workshop, there was an extensive array of hand crafted products and collections. To which she needed help to try and shift, this is where I came in to try and advertise her products.
She went over how Quince came about, what perception she wanted to covey to her customers and where all of the precious stones and gems were sourced from.
We collectively decided that my first task would be to photograph a couple of her products ready for Mothers Day.
Mothers Day promotional material photoshoot
For the purpose of my portfolio I have only uploaded what I feel to be the best images to display online of the products.
In all of my photographs I have tried to encapsulate an essence of nature, but not overwhelming the products.
Mothers day material uploaded to the Quince website and social media
Website
Social media
Feedback from the photoshoot
Overall, Karen was very happy with the outcomes from my photoshoot, she said “I think the most successful are where the jewellery is centre stage, the flowers or slate is there more as a stage set - and you have done some lovely pictures like this.”
“I particularly liked the flower earrings on the slate with a touch of cherry blossom. You could make a lovely Mothers Day promotion with this.”
“I also love the picture I saw with the rose quartz ring - a perfect match with the cherry blossom.”
The only thing negative feeback was “Some of the images look a bit cluttered, the jewellery is fighting with the grass or too much cherry blossom.”
Mailshot
After the photoshoot Karen emailed me regarding sending out a mailshot to her email subscribers.“It would be great to email subscribers over the weekend.” “If you can manage to create an image - text and photo I can send something over the weekend.”
She suggested to make the mailshot using Mailchimp, so this is what I did and once finished emailed her back. I also sent over my login details so she could publish the mailshot to her subscribers.
(The image to the left is of the mailshot I created.)
I received an email back saying “I will need to add Mailchimp to my website as that is where all email addresses are currenty sitting.”
“Shall I give you my login to Shopify? - then you can design it in Mailchimp there?”
I felt rather disheartened reading this email, knowing that I spent all this time and effort on a piece of work and it going to waste. But her mailshot visually looked very enticing and would do the job perfectly, to which I told her this.
(Karen's mailshot to the left.)
Quince's next tasks
In our next face to face meeting I was set the task of photographing more of her product ranges. She gave me a much larger collection of jewellery to shoot this time, which would keep me busy.
Karen suggested that I should “experiment with a variety of different backdrops such as coloured paper and material, as well as props.”
She also explained to me the reason as to why she would not credit me in any of my photography she used online. The reason being that I did not have a professional account on social media and that I should probably make one.
So, what I took away from this meeting was that I had set myself a personal task of creating a profile online that somebody would be proud to tag me into their work. I decided that I would do this once the University semester was finished.
Seeded silver heart bracelet research
Often the colour of a heart is pink to portray a sense of love and compassion. I thought the colour pink would make a very befitting colour backdrop for the seeded silver heart bracelet. Especially, considering that Quince has used pink backdrops in a couple of their photos before, both on the website and social media.
Seeded silver heart bracelet promotional material
Seeded silver heart bracelet promotional material feedback
Having contacted Karen regarding the bracelet photoshoot, I received mixed feedback. “Having looked, there are some good pictures but it would be nice to mix up the background a bit.” “The pink is interesting but doesn't really sit with any other photography on the website or instagramso it might jar or jump out.”
Even thought she did not think it was not very fitting with Quince, because of the choice of background colour, I was very pleased that she used a couple of the images on her website which you can see below.
Ocean collection promotional material
For this collection I thought I had the perfect background to photograph the jewellery on, this being a bed of sand that I had laying about in a bag. As sand is very in keeping with the nature theme and compliments the jewellery forms well.
Ocean collection promotional material feedback
Like with my other photoshoot, I contacted Karen and uploaded my photos to dropbox for her to look at. Unlike last time, I received a much more postive response regarding my photos.
“Thanks so much for the latest pictures, I think some of the sea themed ones on sand the sand came out really well and I've put some on the website.”
The images displayed below are the chosen images Karen decided to upload to her website.
White backdrop promotional material
My next task for Quince was photographing products on a white background, I did this by placing the products on a white piece of A4 paper as the backround. I did this as Karen asked me to try photographing a couple of her products on a white background.
“It is always good to have things on a white background as an option”
White backdrop promotional material Feedback
I placed the photos into a drop box folder ready for Karen to have a look at and this was her response.
“I've only managed to open the elephants so far. Cute but not your best. I think maybe the earrings need to hang on something. You have done some nice things with the propping & i'm not sure the white background has worked as well - I know it was something I asked you to try and we probably will need to crack it for the website.”
Later photoshoots for Quince
Here are other photoshoots I have carried out to display jewellery products and collections for Quince.
Large bolle rings
Smokey quartz rings
Small bolle rings
Tourmaline rings
Unfortunately after these projects I was not able to continue doing any more due to Lockdown restrictions and not being able to travel to Karen's workshop to collect more jewellery.
But, After Lockdown has ended I hope to start doing some digital based work for Quince instead of just photography. As photography isnt the area I want to specialise in.