#famedbasedesignedby

all merch approved for this collection of the designed by line will be sold at merch stands during the duration of the crowned world tour. as the line is tour merch this time around, the aim of the designs and the type of products expected are slightly different. 

products for this collection should directly identify or link to the idol or their group in some way. this may include their or their group’s name on the product, symbols/themes/words from a group or personal project, a likeness or symbol of the idol, etc. 

examples of tour merch can be found here, here, here, and here. clothes, stickers, mugs, necklaces, pins, etc. are all fair game, but products should be reasonably able to be carried and kept in a merch bag for the duration of the concert and easily brought home. products should be able to be shipped overseas and sold in person and must be reasonably idol-appropriate and perishable products (i.e. food and beverage) should be avoided.

all idols whose products are used will receive a cut of the merch profits (though base will own the intellectual property rights) and will gain additional publicity by way of the merch release.

for this collection, up to two products per idol will be produced. for idols with two products produced, products will be cycled so that only one product per idol is available at each show.

the price range for products will be up to ₩135,000 (approximately $100 USD), so product pitches should stay within that sellable range. idols themselves will not set the final price.

idols will not be expected to present an actual prototype of the product unless they have the capabilities of creating one on their own. base will have hired teams in charge of actually creating the product and bringing it to life.

points roundup

total available points for muses involved in this project: 13 points (none of the prompts count toward monthly limits.)

each of these may be completed twice: once each for two different product pitches per muse.

+2 points: an visual aesthetic photo set or a graphic edit representing the product being pitched by your muse, plus a description of at least three sentences briefly explaining what the product is and how the photo set / edit represents the product.

+3 points: either a headcanon of at least 400 words detailing the product and its pitch or a self-para of at least 400 words detailing the narrative of your muse giving their pitch to a small conference room of base designs project managers. 

+3 points: free choice. you have free choice for this as long as the effort put into it is approximately equal to the normal amount required to earn three points and the content created is original (e.g. you can’t find a single picture on google that looks like what you’re going for and post that and call it a day). ideas for this could be a powerpoint “made” by your muse about the product they designed, a mock-up of the product, or a fake print or video advertisement for the product if you have skills in those areas. you may also go simple with this and do a 400+ word self-para or a six-post thread with another muse that relates to the product creation process.

word count: 424

tldr; im doing the para first bc,, timeline purposes but also bc im Hype to mention how apeach sung’s inspo here

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never did joosung ever think that as an idol, he’d be asked to design merchandise for himself. asked for opinions on what phrases, pictures, or items might resonate with their fans, sure, just like anything else they were vaguely asked for their opinion on.

designing something of his own felt too close to the discomfort he’d felt when he was pushed as some... fashion guy, a while back. however, this couldn’t be blamed as a him issue, considering he’d heard everyone in the company was being asked to do the same thing. all he knew for quite a while was that clothing would be off limits. sung didn’t want to fall back into the same marketing as fashion focused, and even if he did try, the only clothing items he’d personally be interested in wouldn’t be all that marketable against his, and quantum’s, image.

he’d felt stumped, when every time he tried to think on the subject, he found his mind wandering to subjects that felt more pertinent. schedules, relationships, script writing, song writing. staying on the subject long enough to give it a proper go never came to closure.

what got him there, eventually, was in conversation. a compliment on his apeach phone case, and the subsequent discussion where sung, in a not too common scenario, was able to gush about his love for this, in truth, useless character. vaguely, it’d sparked a sliver of a thought, that came to mind the next time he attempted to think about the design process. he wished he could make something that could have that strong of an effect.

-well, why not?

who was to say sung couldn’t make a character out of this? he hadn’t tried creating characters of his own since he was a child, but with as much of a literature fanatic as him, it should be doable, right?

although, considering this was supposed to be merchandise in some way, it should be a reflection of him, and when it came to what could be personified, immediately he jumped to animals. the eternal debate amongst his fans, was he more of a bear or a puppy? sung did at times feel a little slighted that cat was nearly never in the picture, but on a deeper level, he understood.

deciding between a bear or a puppy might give himself too much of a stake in the debate, but... he could play into it, if it was both. that would make the character more unique than the millions of bears and puppies out there.

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sung vs bearppy... pear...

word count: 474

i wanna come up w more concepts abt the character

and i dont actually kno if theres any lore(??) abt the characters in the aesthetic so if this part is the same its just parallel thought lol

so the character wears the suit bc theyre rly friendly n lonely but no one wanted to hang w them bc theyre a Big Scary Bear n most ppl love dogs so it makes them less threatening

they had a backstory of trying different suits but nothing working and/or feeling right until the puppy suit

their fave food is a peanut butter n honey sandwich

they explain hibernation to their friends by saying theyre visiting their family abroad

their life goal is to have 100 friends

okay im gonna leave it there bc i feel like these kinds of characters r meant to b vague enough to project onto

 onto the product pitch!

so this one i think would have been his second pitch, and he’d feel more confident n stable in the headphones pitch, despite the idea coming first (i imagine the headphones to come from the connection to bears)

this is more pitching a concept of sales rather than explicit research suggesting sales would likely be good

he’d have made a powerpoint for this one too bc ofc he would, and he’d end up mentioning his initial concept around apeach but in a more general sense of line friends/kkt friends

and he’d put effort into selling the concept of a brand new character being marketable Just for being cute. it’s a harder sell because this is meant to be something branded, tied to the self, and,,, bc this is an area sung always felt he struggled with most

he knows the textbook knowledge of how to be professional, marketing techniques, blah blah, but when it comes to knowingly using his charisma to win someone over, he gets in his head and it feels like lying. he’s just not good at closing the sale

his main tactic here would be presenting the idea that this one stupid keychain could become a big piece of media that they can get a lot of coin from. it’s just a gamble, and he knows that, even if he wouldnt mention it (bc again, if he did, he’d feel like he was lying to try to reassure them that he Absolutely knows it would turn out well. he’s like no this could b a total flop i dont actually kno anything)

so yeah he’s selling the big picture of it starts with a keychain then its a feature film kind of thing

word count: 438

so imagine those cat ear headphones, but it’s bear themed, and fuzzy

sung would want them to be comfy and wearable for longterm, so the sizing and squishies would be part of his product pitch

and the ear muffs would have cute bear faces most like the middle pic

he’d ideally like a couple of colors, the expected brown, a pink, and then white blue or black (all if dms wants to but he’d expect three to be the most, n Realistically expect if they went w this idea it would be just one bc,, less money. but he wants 3 or 5!)

he wouldn’t b expecting the kind of quality he has in his studio headphones bc that can get Really expensive, but i have raycons n i feel like thats the level of quality he Could get within the price range 4 sure

wouldn’t b the best but for casual listening it’s dope. if they didn’t end up being real shit quality sung would wear a pair of these to airports.  imagine his fans being like we match~ im not a fan of those selfie day things but this wOULD be great for that,, tbf,,,,,,,,

 anyway for the product pitch

idk if ive said it on dash or if it’s just in my dms but sung is a powerpoint FIEND when it comes to dms meetings

that vibe of ppl that are like ‘least im using my art degree for something’ but that’s sung w growing up primed to b a business heir

no it doesnt suit him at all but Yes he learned a lot and that means he’s gonna be professional n business-y as shit to have a better shot at them doing what he wants

any time he’s tried to convince dms to stop doing smth for him too, powerpoint time lol

i’m gonna post a lil fake ppt about this below so i dont wanna overexplain too much but for what wont show up in ss,, sung’s style w these powerpoints is to come off professional for the most part

it’s a tactic to convince, so it won’t be him letting his full personality out

BUT he wants it to be semi fun for him lol he’ll b more loose w things that arent so strict like this as product pitches (ie album concept pitches) but for this, his fun would come in the little ways

like transitions may be stars swiping across the page or he’ll attempt at some form of jokes here and there when explaining (tho honestly he should keep the jokes out they’re only harming his pitch smh)

PPT 

(or parts of it because it’s difficult and awkward to make and takes a Lot of space for each slide)

btwn here he’d have a section talking about headphones generally, introducing the topic that he’ll be on, then go on to talk about the popularity boom that wireless headphones had (i am Not doing research like he would i just know the beats -> every other headphone brand was a Big thing that’s since become less of a big thing,,)

he’s very source driven, does a lot of research for his charts

talking abt the popularity of cat headphones from twitch streamers

a more vague conclusion page in here would talk about the interest filling that gap, and would segue into sung’s design idea

as someone who enjoys tea over coffee, the idea sort of came to suji unexpectedly. initially, she didn’t think she would even pitch a second idea for the project, but then she decided that a tea cup set would be really cute. it’d be a nice way of sharing something else about herself to her fans 

since her fans are firsthand over everything else for this project, suji didn’t want to go too all out with her idea because she knew that it would end up costing more. rather, she wanted something that her fans could buy while thinking of her and could actually put to good use

it’s why the “set” technically only really has 2 cups and 2 coasters. it’s not extravagant or much of a set, but she thinks a pair of cups should be more than enough for the project

wanting to tie in both something personal (the idea of the a tea set in general) and her group, when it came to coming up with the design, she threw out the idea of using a solar system concept. while equinox’s name has more to do with the sun, she didn’t think that it was as aesthetically pleasing as, say, the shape of moons or stars so she leaned more into the latter in the design department

however, both cups are shaped in a rather “sunny” shape. it’s supposed to replicate those childhood drawings of suns where the rays are always shining. she asks that the rims of the cups are coated in a golden color in her attempt of doing the best to replicate a sunny shape 

the coasters, in her opinion, end up looking prettier than the actual cups though. they’re a combination of a star and a crescent. this wasn’t solely her idea, however, and it was a design that was pitched out by the design team themselves when she threw them the idea of the solar system. she thinks this is where the difference between professionals and amateurs became clear, and she’s ever so thankful for their skills

she chooses the colors navy (though she asks that it leans more towards a blue hue so it doesn’t appear too dark) and light yellow. again, the latter is her attempt at tying the design back to the sun since it lacks that in the design department

it wasn’t much of a set-up but yena liked to think she did a decent job. she wasn’t a technically inclined person, she wasn’t used to work the behind the scenes section of a photoshoot. sure, she took plenty of pictures of herself, too many even one could argue but most of that process involved simply taking a lot of pictures of herself and hoping at least one or two would turn out well. it wasn’t the same as a (semi) professional shoot.

so she was pretty proud of herself. if she said so herself.

her living room had been turned into a photo studio for the day, camera set up on a tripod, white canvas hanging from the sealing for a simple, one-toned background, hand mirror and  two flat irons (one plugged in to actually do her hair between shots, one simply there to hold in her hair in photos without running risk of burning off her precious hair) laying on the floor beside her just out of frame.

was she shooting the whole thing sitting on her floor? sure, but that was only a detail truly. it wasn’t her fault that this was the only place that gave for both proper lighting and was close enough to a wall socket to keep her flat iron plugged in so she could touch up her hair between shots. it would have to make do.

truly, it wasn’t the easiest project to make do all by herself, taking semi-proper reference photos to make a mock-up for the instruction cards for her product pitch with actual step-by-step pictures as she imagined the final product would turn out to look, not just because it was hard to be her own styling department, photographer, model and editor all at once (which, dear lord, was hard enough in itself) but also because her absolutely wonderful idea meant she had to take proper pictures of her own backside, all without someone telling her if she was positioned properly for the camera, simply pressing the little remote control button and hoping for the best.

it was a bit of a hassle truly, one that at some point involved taping an x on the exact spot on the floor she was meant to sit in and another one on the white canvas so she knew exactly where to aim her head towards, followed by hours of trial and error of taking a couple photos, realizing her angles were wrong, and repositioning herself again to give it another try, only to style the next section of her hair and do the whole circus over again for the next picture.

in the end, it takes her the better part of a day, and that was just for the shooting itself, leaving her with a small pool of actually usable pictures, a bitching backache from being stretched out on the floor all day and an absolute mess of a living room but at least, she got it done.

now all she had to do was edit the pictures and put together the mock-up for her presentation. surely that wouldn’t take too long, right?