This year in CSVPA has passed shortly, and Final Major Project happened to be the fastest part of it while it took twelve weeks period to complete it. There were lots of barriers and challenges on the way to the end, but I’ve managed to achieve this level and finish up the course.
For my FMP, I have chosen and researched the topic of Minimalistic lifestyle. The choice of this topic was based on my interest and desire to know more about out. The freshly looking theme which is getting the attention on social media was the perfect opportunity to try out new things and give a try to challenges. To share my approach on the minimalistic lifestyle, I’ve chosen to create a digital magazine-catalogue which would visually demonstrate the beauty of this way of living to an audience.

When the project has just started, it seemed to me that one day I’d find myself bored by this simple topic, but I was more than wrong after all I’ve never lost the interest in it and couldn’t wait to explore it through different aspects. A few times, I have to stop myself from making massively impossible plans for my research or development because the twelve-week project started looking small when I’ve completed half of it. It became clear the original idea of mine can’t be finished up by the deadline.
By the way, my first intention was based on making a full, big and informing magazine like the once you all know: Vogue, i-D, Bazar. In the middle of the project, I started working only harder and doing more researches as well as beginning the development of my outcome.

Talking about the research into the minimalistic lifestyle, I’d like to mark myself pretty high due to difficulties which you would come across if tried working on my topic. Nowadays, in the twenty-first century, people are cover with clutter and belongings and obsessed with the idea of accumulation. That is why it was a challenge to find people who openly talk and promote this new to society lifestyle. So talking mainly, I’ve looked at works of many artists such as Henrik Eiben with his simple shapes and lines drawings, Kwon Young-Woo who inspired me on experimenting, Eikri Amanda Abubakar who does impressive digital collages, Thea Gregorius with her detailed mark-making and Renée Goin who expresses herself in fashion illustrations. Also, I’ve researched influencers who speak openly in social networks on the Internet, and those were The Minimalists, Courtney Carver and Matt D’Avella. My interest was also caught by fashion brand COS and i-D and Kinfolk magazines. Not to mention, most of these people who it talked about above have inspired me to make a response to their works.
The primary research also did not lag during the trip week when we visited museums and galleries in Cambridge, Oxford, London and Margate; also I’ve continued doing it in my main sketchbook by creating fashion illustrations and some mini photoshoots.

To continue with, I’d like to talk about the development of my final piece which I’ve started doing during the seventh week of the project which I consider the perfect time because it has allowed me to have enough time for everything including experimenting, expending my creative thinking and enjoying the process of growing up my outcome. There’s also a significant benefit came from time management and let me to look at my project idea realistically and to understand my opportunities and possible targets.
Developing of any catalogue or magazine starts with the plan where I lay out all the pages I’ve planned without including details. My second step on the way to my outcome was creating colour selection page with palettes and mood board where I’ve shown my intentions and conceptual idea. I think that this step is more than essential to be completed because it gives the visual sense. My following actions were concentrated on planning the photoshoot, which consisted of a concept where I demonstrated my thoughts and possible approaches on shooting. Moreover, after the plan has come to life, I’ve dedicated a few pages telling about my outcomes and development of the catalogue ready photos.

The exhibition was one of the biggest challenges of the project because, for the first time for the whole project, we had to preserve our skills to the audience, which consisted not only of college students and teachers but also guests. None of the above characters was familiar with the projects in advance; it was my main goal to facilitate the understanding and perception of my work for those who had never heard of it before. My setup gathered two main objects: the poster, which I hardly worked on the day before and the Mac with automatically playing presentation of my catalogue.
The best award on the day of the exhibition for each student was attention, and I inadvertently watched if people stopped or wondered if they were interested. And you know, I was utterly glad when I bent more than ten fingers in twenty minutes! Almost everyone who saw my work stopped for a minute to see the poster and presentation.

To sum it up, I’d like to conclude that I am satisfied with my work. It was my first chance in life of trying on working on the same topic for twelve weeks period, and I am happy to say that I enjoyed it a lot as I feel that I’ve developed many of my skills connected to different aspects of my subject: writing, editing, communicating and succeeding!

MINIMAL

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Hello there! Today I’m dedicating to FMP the last post, and it would be nice to summarize all the project, but later I’ll upload my final evaluation which will include my whole way through these twelve weeks of work.
In this post, you’ll be reading about my final steps finishing my project, set up of the exhibition and the result of it.
Eventually, the whole project has passed, and I can’t ignore the fact that it was faster than I expected. My previous blog posts have already informed you that I was struggling with time management, but I was motivated enough to finish it all up to the deadline.

The twelveth week was all about preparation for the exhibition. I was busy editing photos in Lightroom and Photoshop, which turned out to be complicated and time taking. I watched a couple of online lessons, as well as some on YouTube a which were telling about different techniques of editing skin, removing unnecessary people or rubbish from the background and last but not least correcting the light. It took me long three days to edit around 25 photos. But the changes were massive, and I was pleased about it. Later on, I’ve collected them all from different computers ( because I was always kicked out due to taking somebody’s computer) and made up a list of photos I was 100 per cent sure about. There were 19 photos of different kinds with the same editing style. They all looked well together, so if you looked at all of them together, you would think that it’s one pic photo, not 19 separated ones. I considered it as the success and continued my idea’s preparation for the exhibition.

The idea I’ve created was pretty simple as I wanted to show my topic’s sense not only with my work but with the way it was presented to the audience. So, I’ve come up with two things: poster (choosing the image for it was quite tricky, and now I think that another photo could fit better) and my final piece which was playing on my Mac.
After the set up on Thursday, I decided not to have a rest, but hurry up. So, I’ve continued working on my sketchbook dedicating a page to photo’s editing and other’s to my final outcome. Later in the evening, I remembered about sketchbook of the trip week, which needed some final actions to look absolutely gorgeous. Eventually, I’ve spent all Saturday working on it.
I’m writing this post to tell you about that the project ‘Minimalist Lifestyle’ is over as well as this blog of mine. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll come back to it to narrow you about my life, haha.
Hopefully, the time you spent on reading my blog was worth it! See you then and Bye!

Hello there! This blog post is going to be about the pre-last week of the FMP. As I remember I’ve mentioned my intention of doing the photo shoot a couple of posts ago, but it had finally happened last weekend. According to my prepared timetable, I have to hurry up with completing the photos and making them look their best. But first things first, I’m going to tell you how the photo shoot went, what problems I’ve faced during it and what are the lessons I’ve brought out from this experience.
To begin with, the code name for this event was ‘The White Lies’, and there are a couple of reasons for that. The models were wearing white shirts, and the profound reason is that all our ‘crew’ of four of my friends and me are united not only with the friendship but with one secret we all keep. And every time somebody tries to reveal us, we work like a team covering ourselves and each other. Sounds mystical, right?
To continue, the idea of outfits, makeup and hairstyle for girls came from my childhood when I had rivals and ill-wishers around me at school. And when their words about my style and clothes in general wholly broken me, my mum told me one thing. She said that if you all were wearing the same clothes, you would be the only one beautiful because the beauty itself doesn’t come from the clothes you wear. And my photoshoot’s idea was in showing the beauty of every person without putting gorgeous pieces on them. There is a story behind every single photo, to be honest, but I don’t have any rights to tell it here.
So the makeup was pretty simple: foundation to smooth the face tone, some contouring to give sharpness and shape to models’ faces because it looks better on camera, also some blush for them not to look pale. On the eye leads, we used neutral shadows, but just a little bit, some mascara to highlight the eyes. The lipstick was an emergency decision cause one of the models had visible damage on the bottom lip. Finally, the eyebrows we’ve done in the usual for girls way.
The location choice was simple to make because I knew for sure that I want it to be a place full of nature not to make it too complicated and overdone. So there were two locations: one was for the duet shots and another for shots with male model Nicolo. Primarily I’ve struck him out of the models’ list because we had some complications in our communications going on, but the day before that we found the common language and agreed to do the shoot.
I admire models’ hustle and their hard work to make my photos to look better; I was honestly impressed by the outcomes I’ve selected over bad shots with someone’s eyes closed or light being not the best because the number of good shots was around 150 and I consider it to be successful.

Now let’s talk about the last bits of research which I’ve done before the photoshoot which included two artists: Thea Gregorius and Renée Gouin. Thea’s works have attracted me because of the simplicity and beauty of geometrical shapes. I’ve also made a response to her creations by taking the papers of different colours and making holes with needles. It has helped me to present the style of her works and also reflect on my skills of this craft.
Renée’s illustrations look minimalistic, and I’ve decided to take her style of picturing the shapes and try to do the same with different materials. I’ve used Adobe Sketch on iPad Pro for my digital response, watercolours for showing the same image with different colours and lastly papers of different textures. The last bit I’ve added to response was little collage I’ve made with my digital work, where I’ve used Andy Warhol’s idea of Campbell’s Soup Cans.

That’s all I wanted to tell you today. Next week’s post is going to be about the exhibition with our works. I am so excited to see the audience’s reaction so I can’t wait for it!

Hello there! How are you doing? I’ve been waiting until this Thursday to report my progress in work to you and tell what has been challenging and what was inspiring. You know, I broke up with my boyfriend due to our daily scandals based on his lifestyle, and I don’t know how I feel about it. There are lots of reasons which motivate me to work harder and keep doing better daily.
So during this week, I’ve been completing some research for my development part. One of the first things I’ve started with were magazines which I find exciting and attractive: as the beginning, I choose the i-D. i-D is a British monthly magazine dedicated to fashion, music, art and youth culture. i-D was founded by designer and former Vogue art director Terry Jones in 1980, and personally, I love this one because of its original style and unrepeatable uniqueness. There are two covers which I was interested in researching with two of my all-time favourite models: Kate Moss and Sasha Pivovarova; both of them are the same types (they’re different types of faces in modeling like baby face, strange face, strong face, commercial face), but if you look at them you can guess their noticeable difference. In my opinion, Kate Moss deserves endless glory and fame, not because everybody else says that, but I’m truly concerned that her beauty is able to conquer all the universe. The cocaine situation did affect her reputation but drugs are not the tool to judge people, conversely, it blinds you up when forming an opinion about someone.
The magazine I’ve researched as well was KINFOLK. Kinfolk is an independent slow lifestyle magazine, based in Portland, OR. Each issue is themed around a topic that is related to the season it is being published in, with all food, entertaining and lifestyle content geared towards that theme. Sample articles include interviews with well-known chefs, sample themed menus with accompanying recipes, illustrated guides to daily encounters and inspirational photo essays encouraging readers to try new activities. This magazine inspires me mainly because it’s relatable to my topic and style, which I would like to demonstrate in my magazine. I’ve had a look at four covers of my choice, those issues were: eighteen, fifteen, thirteen and Kinfolk Entrepreneur. I’ve chosen them because of photoshoots’ ideas which are represented on them. Researching this magazine wasn’t easy at all due to lack of information on the Internet. If I could I’d love to visit their office which interior photos I’ve included to my turn dedicated to Kinfolk, because it looks absolutely minimalistic and simple.

That’s all I wanted to tell you today. Thank you for your attention and bye!

Hello there. How’re you doing? Today’s topic isn’t the most pleasant one to talk about, but it’s important to me and my project’s progression. And as you might have guessed from the title, it’s the problem-solving which is considered to be one of the criteria for marking the FMP objectively.
Everybody can avail from having well-managed problem-solving skills as we all meet problems daily. Some of these obstacles are more severe or complex than others. It would be incredible to have the capability to work out all issues efficiently and without difficulties, unfortunately, though there is no one way that you can find an ultimate solution for all the problems you face.
Throughout the whole project, I’ve met different occasional situations when I needed to act fast and change the plan, and it’s not only about setbacks, but also things that happened to be unexpectable. My research, for example, turned out to be different from what I planned to do. It appeared to be challenging to create something original as a response to bloggers and influencers, who pushed me to take this Minimalistic lifestyle project to happen. Overcoming this problem was a natural thing because I have the tutor of my dreams who immediately advised me a few more areas and artists for study. Continuing, I’ve faced lots of challenges like keeping the sketchbook full while doing the minimalistic lifestyle theme, luck of research’s areas and misunderstanding from closest people around me. The point which helped me to solve those is confidence in progress because I’ve never doubted what I was doing and going to do. I kept in mind ‘I’m different, and it’s cool.’ The problem with my sketchbook fullness was quickly solved when I gave it a bit of life by making the responses to artists and experimenting freely.

The technical part wasn’t challenging at all, but I believe that it’s all in front of me because I’m starting the development part at this moment with will be full of experimentation, trying out things and changing of plans as always. I would have begun it before, but due to the weather condition, I had to change my plans and move my photoshoots to the upcoming weekend. At some point, I’ve realised that I have too many approaches and strategies in my mind which I’d love to come true. Unlikely, due to the lack of time and just physical power I made the decision that I want to keep things real and dreaming about doing something enormous is not a good idea in the frames of the 12-week project.
To finish it up, I want to tell you what has changed in the project comparing to the original idea which I had at the stage of proposals. Well, I deemed that I have more time because when the duration of FMP was announced, it sounded massively enough and I even though I’ll finish by now. My primary idea of the digital magazine has included producing two sketchbooks(research and development) full of work. But it appeared that one is genuinely enough. Also when I was planning the magazine, I intended it to be quite big with lots of articles, notes and paragraphs which would be written by me only. At this moment I can say that I will still attempt to do as much as possible, but also consider the possibility of making this magazine as an introductory one.
That’s all for today’s blog. See you on the next rainy day! Just kidding, see you on Thursday.

Hey! How’s it going? Last time we were catching up was on a rainy day, and today(Wed) when it started heavily raining, I thought of simplicity I wrote my previous post with and the concentration which rain gave me. I guess that shortly this kind of weather will become my best friend due to its unexpectable inspiration gifts. Alright, today’s blog post is going to be about my current work and upcoming plans on it.
To begin with, I deem I told you about my anxiety which appeared after I noticed what progress other students are doing at this moment. So, I craved to update you that…it hasn’t gone away, and I apprehend a couple of reasons for that: theme chosen and my mind’s arrangement. I’m not trying to find subterfuges here; I’m stating the problem as it is.
My current progress is quite tough to report, I’ve done enough research by looking on artists like Henrik Eiben and Know Young-Woo by making a response to their artworks, people who inspired me: Courtney Carver, Matt D’Avella and The Minimalists, as well as, I’ve produced the primary research by including some mini photoshoots to my sketchbook. Actually, I think that this amount of artists and influencers is quite enough as I will have to look at more things like magazine layouts, cover concepts etc. shortly.

There’s also a nicely going progress in my developmental part of the FMP. I’ve done so many things: mindmap, line drawing and summary of the magazine, organised magazine plan, colour pallets and mood boards. For my inspiration, I’ve looked at minimalistic outfits of french it-girls such as Caroline De Maigret, Jeanne Damas and Louise Follain who have not only a fantastic sense of style but also a skill of dressing up like they don’t really care. Their looks are always 100 per cent gorgeous. I’ve got many plans for this weekend as it is time to do photoshoots. I’m not sure yet if I’m prepared enough for it because doing the researches and concepts firstly sounds like a better idea. Unfortunately, I am in a rush at this moment due to upcoming deadlines, but what keeps me motivated is the success and the feeling of it when I tick out more and more points in my ‘To do list” in the notebook.

This short *update on progress only* blog post is coming to its ending, and I want to say goodbye. I will see you in the next blog post where I’ll be telling you about the development part (finally)!

Hello there! Today’s one more rainy day in Cambridge which means I’m going to be writing a blog post about FMP. It has been one week since I’ve updated you on my process but time flew too fast. Today’s blog post is going to be about the adjustments I’ve done in my diet and also a bit about my current work.
As you know, I improved my lifestyle practically in 2 weeks without being prepared, and now I can state that ‘I am a minimalist’. What has transformed so far? Are there any complications I’ve faced? Well, hearing questions like this makes me think that I’ve done something amiss cause that process of adopting new lifestyle was such an easy and natural thing, so it felt like it wasn’t something new to me at all. The only concern I’ve battled with was an appraisal of my friends, but who cares? At the end of it, everybody gets to pick something right for them, not for the friends around. There’s nothing to do with my particular friends, and I bet your friends would also react this way. They were comfortable with you as you were maybe chubby, going out to McDonald’s for the unique (and not only) occasion, maybe nicotine and alcohol addicted, drinking a single (and not the last) beer with your friends daily. Perhaps you were just fine, and you desire to become better, strengthen your personality and grow up inside. But believe it or not, your friends will not catch this kind of news with an open mind, and the main purpose might also be aware of losing you as a friend. Yeah, right, let’s sum it up a bit. Your friends will not like that you want to ‘grow up’ because they are scared to stay alone without you.
Apparently, the strategy for this kind of problem is absolutely essential and urgent, and it may take two different directions. Firstly, you may commence covering your back with jokes about yourself in order to support your friends’ position. Secondly, you throw facts which show the profitability of your choice. What am I stating all of these things for? I’ve been there when I adopted the veganism back to my life and when I got rid of a big part of my clothes and at the beginning of acting in a new way, and I’ve disciplined myself not to overreact.
Wait; what? Minimalist doesn’t mean vegan. Yeah, for each person it’s going to be different depending on your preferences, goals and requirements. A minimalist diet is a simplified approach to cooking meals where you balance nutritional needs, ease of preparing, and optimizing your ingredients to have as few as possible while still being able to cook a variety of meals that you love. You approach it in a way that’s right for you, but you are making sure to be intentional in how your meals fit into your life.
Moreover, there’re different ways of upgrading your diet. For instance, Intermittent Fasting is a big thing which I adore. I found that my body naturally fell into this pattern of 8 hours eating and 16 hours of fasting. For me and my schedule, it works well. This 16-hour window is enough to firmly put yourself into autophagy (where your body weens out underperforming cells and builds new cells). What’s interesting is that the amount of autophagy that occurs during a 16 hour fast, up to around 20 hours is very sufficient.

My research at this moment is on the stage of completion and it makes me anxious. There’s no doubt that nobody is perfect, but when doing a minimalism related project, it feels like no limits exist for perfection.
Thank you for reading this post! See you next time.

Hello there! It’s the blog post which is going to be about my current progress and general condition after coming back to Cambridge.

So, my spring break has finished on Friday, 19th of April and after arrival, I first spent time on laundry, organisation of stuff in my room and cleaning it up. It might be interesting for you to know that cleaning is one of the most important things you can ever do for yourself. Sounds silly, huh?
A clean house is vital for the health and well-being of your entire family. A messy house is a bad news, it increases your stress level. Clean and organised makes everyone feel happy, but more importantly, it eliminates the stress that’s caused by a chaotic environment. Clutter distracts us from important things. There is no need to experience such kind of pressure when it can easily be remedied. Your family deserves to live in a healthy home environment.
When you take care of things, they typically last longer. You can’t go to bed if you leave a mess to clean up the next day – hence, you will not be able to sleep peacefully. The idea of waking up in the to a healthy environment reduces stress and tension, which makes the whole day to be meaningful.

Well, it is clear now that one of the most essential things for living a minimalist lifestyle is regular cleaning. I try to discard the things I don’t need daily as life goes along, but in spite of that, things have a tendency to accumulate and take up space. That’s why I do regular weekly cleanings and a major one every month or two. After every significant cleaning, I feel like I’ve also tidied up a part of my inner world; I feel refreshed and ready for new achievements.
You can do the same with your garage, the food in your refrigerator and other places in the kitchen, the basement and all the different areas where junk gets accumulated. When you get rid of all the stuff you don’t need, you simply make room for new things. You make room for new, better things you can fight for; somehow cleaning feels like an exciting experience, being in touch with your past, remembering it one more time and, in the future at the same time, thinking what new you will attract to your life.

The purpose of this blog post is to encourage you to try a minimalist lifestyle or, if that seems like too big a step, try to make some space in your life to attract new, better things. You can do that with material things, but you can also clean up and reorder relationships in your life, business and personal, in pretty much the same way, all with the purpose of focusing on those that really matter.

I recently came across the book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown, he gives an incredible approach to the new way of calling minimalism. It is essentialism. So what is this? Simply put, it is the identification, and then the continual choice, of living only what is essential. Similar to those who claim to live a minimalist or life of simplicity, Essentialism tilts the saying, “less is more” to the statement “less is better.” In fact, McKeown claims that the relentless and disciplined pursuit of less leads to a life of meaning filled with what really matters.
McKeown learned much of this approach through his own practice of wanting to make better and more meaningful choices in his own life. The pursuit of it led him to drop out of law school knowing that lifestyle would not make him happy.

Finally, it is time to say goodbye and move on with working on my sketchbook and final piece. I wish you a productive week and self-productivity growth!
Bye! See you in one week.

G’day. How are things? At this moment I am in Rome, Italy, having brunch at home with a fantastic view from the window of the room where I and my boyfriend live. The purpose of my visit here is not relatable to the FMP as it is connected to my personal life. In this blog post, we gonna finally touch the clothes care topic which I have been encouraging for two weeks and a little record I’ve scribbled down at the beginning of the week in Italy.

Metting a family of a person who you love is a unique and delightful moment, and the main rules about it are acting like yourself, smiling all the time and forgetting about the arguments with your second half. Honestly, it was a troublesome experience to keep up with experimenting on my lifestyle and adopting brand-new habits when I was surrounded by distinct people of diverse interests and verdicts, not my close ones who could accept all my contemporary and forthcoming ‘updates’.

Opportunely, I’ve got sufficient time and words remaining to share with you my new strategy to clothes’ care as it is an indispensable topic for minimalistic living. The way it is linked is that minimalists aspire to leave things in life which are essential, so there’s nothing that can spread out their focus. The wardrobe of humans can simply identify a personality, some character traces and even a job. However, the clothes you spend money on while shopping isn’t always the clothes you need for real. It can also be the replacement for damaged clothes, which could be in good condition though.  If you expect to read the life-changing tips from a fashion business teenage student, I’ll call you from another life where I am a scientist who found a unique formula for clothes material which doesn’t deteriorate ever. Back to reality, I am learning daily and comparing my experience to my mum’s one, mine loses significantly and critically.
One of the most essential—yet underrated—steps to have a longer lasting and more sustainable closet is to care for our clothes more consciously. Of course, by being mindful in the way we clean and treat our garments keeps them in better shape for longer and means we’ll demand to purchase fewer clothes over our lifetimes. But, something that’s not as apparent is that an estimated 50% of the greenhouse gas emissions from clothing takes place in the consumer use stage. Crazy huh? This implies that no matter what piece of clothing we own in our closet or that we choose to buy, we have control over a considerable amount of the environmental repercussions of our wardrobes.
To begin with the advice, I’d like to commence with this manageable and understandable one; the first step to diminishing our impact on the use stage of clothing is to wash less. Don’t worry, I’m not recommending that we must wear dirty, smelly and filthy clothes to be sustainable and eco-friendly—but I do desire to share some alternatives I’ve discovered over the latest weeks. If you are purely washing a piece because of a bad odour, machineless options exist like air the garment, put in the freezer, spray with vodka (I wouldn’t recommend using this method on more fragile fabrics like silk) or any other ones which you might have found out yourself.
Another uncomplicated switch is going from conventional to natural laundry detergent. Two difficulties that may come up with ecological soap are one: the perception that natural detergents don’t clean your clothes so thoroughly and two: that it’s more expensive. After using both conventional and natural soap, I must assume I don’t notice any discrepancy in the cleanliness of my clothes. Anyways, I favour the natural ones because they smell so much fresher to me and of course I like appreciating it’s better for my skin and our earth!
If your garment has a stain, here is an adorable natural remover white vinegar which operates as a master! White vinegar is especially useful for yellow stains and brightening up white clothing.
While doing a little bit of research, I ascertained that in many households, a dryer consumes the equivalent amount of energy as a refrigerator, dishwasher and washing machine combined! So to diminish your energy bills hang-dry and line-dry your clothes whenever possible. Your clothes will also likely last longer without being put in the dryer. If you’re lucky enough to have a backyard, patio, or balcony and have warm, sunny weather, line-drying is an excellent option. In case you have to dry inside, a drying rack is pretty useful.
And there you have it! With these tips, tricks, and tools of the trade, you should be well on your way to caring for your clothes consciously for a more sustainable and long-lasting wardrobe.

The words count I’ve set up says I have to finish my incredible, inspiring writing about minimalistic lifestyle which people consider strange. However, I will not deprecate spending a few more words with my regular (and not) readers for saying goodbye.

“Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t like.” —Will Rogers