Research and Development The Creative Agency
Ellen McAleavey
Creative Director
From my past year on the FCM course, I have most enjoyed photoshoots and having that control of me being the creative director of my own shoot. From the ideas, to planning, to the results- concept to market. I enjoy being in control and bringing my own visions to life.
When looking for a placement, I knew this was something i wanted to explore.
Role Requirements
Visionary Leadership
Fashion Expertise
Business Understanding
Project Management
Problem Solving Communication
Team Leadership
I emailed some smaller businesses like Gypsabella and Caramella who direct their own shoots.
That was when i found OSO Content Studio, a company offering studio space for photoshoots, podcasts, a hair and makeup station, and much more.
I have been working closely with creative director Grace Adams Short, assisting her on shoot days and making creative content for OSO and many other brands.
In our InDesign sessions with Catherine, we have been experiementing with different skills like using the line tool to create different shapes, aswell as effects like drop shadow, and gradient. We have also learned how to export colour palettes in CC Libraries from Photoshop to InDesign.
I have started to use effects like drop shadow in my own work to make it look better and more proffessional.
In todays session, we looked at photoshop skills like retouch, editing the brightness and contrast, and even using the camera raw filter to adjust the size of facial features- this can be seen in the first image. We also started to look at editing the gradients of an image. I found the tasks fairly easy as these are skills we have already learned in the past, however it was refressing to touch on them again aswell as learning different ways of doing these types of edits.
I have started to look into different content ideas for my own page and different, original ways to portray a day in the life. I took inspiration from pinterest, different social media pages, as well as some of my classmates and the videos and posts they have created.
I know that I need to start creating more day in the life videos and posts and find ways to also make them more creative.
I have done some further research into different magazines and layouts and how to make my own blog better and look more professional and appealing. I looked at mags such as Dazed, SHOWStudio and Hunger for some further inspiration.
Since furthering my research and moving on from component one, I have decided to completely change the style and layout of my blog.
I created this layered board from a day on my placement. I used images I took from the shoot and found the bows online. I went with the diagonal style to create my board showing points from the day in order to tell a story. I used the remove background tool and added some text. I enjoyed creating this layered board and I think I will create some more for my blog in the future.
I created a traditional CV targeted to my future role and a video slide show portfolio, showcasing my personality, skills and projects to date.
In my traditional CV, I included work experience targeted to fashion marketing and skills I have learned throughout my own work and on the fcm course.
I included a section about my hobbies and likes to give the reader an idea into my personality and the type of person I am to work with.
My creative portfolio includes content creation from my projects and recent work at my placement.
I think both my portfolio and CV are a strong representation of my as an employee and as a person.
Tools Used: Remove background
Lasso tool
Spot healing tool
LIGHTROOM
For this image I used to crop tool and focused on the rule of thirds to center Pattie in the middle of the frame.
For this image I thought about the negative space composition and placed Ella in the corner of the fame. I think it looks better like this and gets you to focus more on the model.
When cropping this image, I centered our Studio 204 print in the middle of the square.
I used the heal tool to try and get rid of aome rubbish and grafitti on the floor arounf the model. This tool worked best at removing the pieces of plastic near Ella’s feet but not so much on cleaning up some of the spray paint on the floor.
To edit this image, I used the mask tool to edit the linear gradient. I adjusted the exposure, highlights and shadows on the image to make it darker and sharper.
Robbie Spencer is a London-based stylist and consultant, Senior Fashion Editor of AnOther Magazine and the former Creative Director at Dazed. He has created some of his generation’s most striking editorial imagery.
He has worked with many other brands including, Maison Margiela, Givenchy, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Zara, MSGM and H&M.
He has styled talent such as Rihanna, Timothée Chalamet, Elle Fanning, Lana Del Rey, Kendall Jenner, among others.
He initially envisioned a career in the art world; his art background has had a powerful influence on his approach to styling. His originality and creativity combine objects in unusual ways, combining prints, patterns, and colours to produce one-of-a-kind, nearly artistic images.
I created this croquis video from some of my favourite looks Robbie Spencer has styled, incorporating looks from his time at Dazed, and from Craig Green’s S/S26 show. This video can be found on my Instagram account.
Hunger magazine blends the high and low of culture; fashion, beauty, music, arts, alongside meaningful discussions about what it means to exist in today’s politically charged world.
The magazine was created by photographer, publisher and cultural provocateur, Rankin.
Launched in November 2011, Hunger was born from Rankin’s desire to celebrate the innate drive that we all possess and that, with a bit of creativity, can be used as an impetus for cultural change.
Here are collages of some of my favourite Hunger magazine covers from my research. To showcase this, I put these images into a moving carousel video which can be found on my Instagram.
From my skills learned in our Premiere Pro sessions, I have been using to create my content from my time on placement at OSO Content Studio.
Here is a step my step of everything I do when creating my videos.
Firstly, I import my clips from my camera and select my favourites to put into my video.
I then airdrop them to my laptop and import them into Premiere Pro.
I crop each clip to my desired length, I make sure to play the video over a a couple of times to make sure it looks good and is how I want it.
Then I can go back through and crop some more or move some clips around to make sure it looks the best it can.
I then go into basic correction to edit the clips. I only ever tend to edit the saturation and exposure to keep it as natural as possible.
Once I am happy with my video I can then choose some music to go over.
I think the music is the hardest part when creating these videos as it can sometimes be quite tricky to find the perfect sound that matches the style and essence of the content.
It usually takes a couple of tries and some different sounds until I find the best fit. I use sounds which I have screen recorded from Instagram and TikTok, I try to go for the most popular and trending sounds.
Once I am happy with the final outcome, I can export, wetransfer to the brand owner, and post to my social media. This video from the GPL Creator event can be found on my instagram @ellenm_creative
Since starting my placement at OSO Content Studio, I feel like the quality of my videos I am creating have gotten so much better, I have been learning from the photographer, creative director, and other content creators also on the shoots.
Being in this environment with like-minded people has pushed my creativity and helped me improve my skills.
For the branding of my magazine style blog, I took lots of inspiration from other magazines like Vofue, Dazed, and Hunger.
For the front cover of my blog, I used an image from OSO Content Studio and edited the transparency, to make the text stand out more. This set up is specific to the studio and easy recognisable as OSO. I also used the same font used in the branding of the company to keep the branding of my placement. I used the ‘signpainter’ handwriting font for my name to add something extra, I like this font and feel like it works well with the boldness of the titles.
For the layout of the rest of my blog, I chose to keep the background white and use the ‘marion’ font. I think this is what makes it look clean and professional and works well with the images I am including, and complements the standards of the company I am working for and the shoots I am attending.