At the beginning of my Graphic Design HNC course, I was given a brief instructing me to design a tee shirt that appears to look imaginative, on trend, and eye-catching. I was also set the task of creating sustainable packaging designs for my tee shirt prototype, and an established advertisement campaign.

After receiving this brief, I began my research and decided that I wanted to look further into the specific design trends of 2022, to help me figure out what kind of style and target audience I would be most excited to design for.

I created a simple open ended questionare, which allowed me to gain valuable insight into the different styles of tee-shirts women prefer to wear and buy today, starting from the age of 16 to 35.

During my research and inspiration process, I became very intrigued with the Japanese style of design named Kawaii, as I loved the light-hearted and colourful aesthetic surrounding this fun style. I was also surprised to learn that some of my favourite childhood characters like Hello Kitty fall under the category of Kawaii art. After confirming that I wanted to create a tee-shirt within this unique style of art I began to research the large array of Kawaii styles and clothing stores, specifically on Etsy. This investigation helped me to generate the idea of my own brand named Beau Boutique, for mothers, babies and children, where customers would be able to purchase fun and adorable Kawaii inspired tee shirts. These items were also to be available in adult, child, and baby sizes.

During my time spent researching, creating, and generating ideas for my sustainable packaging, I decided I wanted to utilise the idea of using a recyclable heavy duty card-board cylinder. This allowed for any tee-shirt prototype inside the packaging to stay protected within transit. This packaging can also be re-used as a storage container. Additionally, I came up with the idea of customers being able to choose whether they wanted their tee-shirt to arrive in a branded cylinder or a plain coloured one, to make re-using the item easier.