1. Who are you?

2. What do you like about what you do?
I like the creative diversification and the possibility to meet interesting people with different backgrounds that both go along with the work on my culinary projects. Facing new challenges every day. Combining my professional skills as a designer with my love for food and all things related. In this context I love working for people respectively with people who have a preference for dining, cuisine and – of course – food in general. Satisfying the needs of my clients by creating something very unique and very emotional, but also keeping the rational and economic aspects of cuisine in sight.

3. What don’t you like about what you do?
There´s nothing what I don´t like, because what I do is what I am. The only thing negative to mention here is the all day officialism or bureaucracy that sometimes constrains creative processes and work.

4. Please tell us about your company ajiDesign!
The term aji is borrowed from the Japanese language and can be translated as taste, flavour or aroma. In this context ajiDesign is an agency/company for food and culinary design that acts service oriented and addresses to hoteliers, gastronomes, chefs, food-companies respectively the food industry and everyone who is engaged in dining, cuisine and the culture of enjoying it.
The core competence of ajiDesign is the creation of innovative concepts, processes and products that are a profit making and economic efficient connection of culinary terms and design. Therefore ajiDesign acts close to the client and his product. The creative work is aimed at generating factors of uniqueness and success. By this, ajiDesign helps the client to tap his economic potential completely. ajiDesign offers design, consulting, strategy design and development in the fields of culinary concepts, processes and product-design.

5. Are you working with blogs and if yes, what is your favourite blog?
I´m working with blogs from time to time, it´s a source of inspiration. My favourite right now is www.playingwithfireandwater.com, a great blog from Linda. She is a freelance chef in the US.
Great dishes, great ideas, great blog!

6. Tell us about food and culinaric design and its advantages for the industry!
Food and/or culinary design is a very wide field with endless opportunities for working creative. Both, food and design, are very emotional aspects of life and when brought together the result is more than just the sum of it´s single parts. ajiDesign divides his fields of activity into three main groups and each of them refers to another aspect respectively point of view on the combination of food and design. Those fields are

• Culinary concepts

In this field ajiDesign helps the client to present his gastronomic concept or company as a consistent package in order to communicate all qualities of the company in an aesthetic and also distinctive way. This includes the clients´ whole corporate design but also means working on new concepts for the interiors of a restaurant, a hotel or even a food-company. Besides that, ajiDesign tends to extend the existing business concept of the clients company by exploring new and economic worthwhile business areas. Based on the analysis of the structural, economical and regional conditions ajiDesign develops innovative ways to acuminate the profile of the client´s culinary brand.

• Culinary process

ajiDesign works on techniques and ideas to improve the enjoyment of eating. In this field ajiDesign concentrates on the way we perceive culinary pleasure and how this knowledge can be used to initiate an additional benefit for the luncher. Therefore the creative dialogue with a chef is necessary, because ajiDesign wants to improve his or her style of cooking by adding new aspects to it. Those aspects include scientific knowledge and different forms of creativity that are transferred into practical forms of appliance. The result of such a culinary process can be a new recipe, an uncommon combination of different flavours or even a new technical concept for the preparation of food.

• Product-design

ajidesign offers the client the design of his own unique table- and flatware and the development of new tools to present and serve food and dishes. The aim is here, to initiate new emotions and qualities of taste. Dining shall be seen as an event and a culinary story which is told by the chef. In this context ajidesign plays the role of a mediator, who creates the proper tools for presenting and serving the main actors of the story: the dishes.

Besides all the benefits for the client and/or the industry mentioned, there are some outstanding ones.

1. Innovative food/culinary concepts acuminate a brands profile and it´s market position
2. Stand alone features for a culinary brand, restaurant or hotel
3. ajiDesign helps the client to optimize their product and – by doing so – to increase their customers loyalty.
4. The work on culinary processes helps to create new and interesting dishes and to optimize existing dishes and recipes. It´s also possible to replace allergens by other ingredients without altering the overall impression of the dish´s taste. By choosing the right ingredients Chefs can prepare their meals without any use of artificial flavours or flavour enhancers and as a surplus can reduce their costs.
5. Having a designer´s point of view on food, the food market and the gastronomy leads to uncommon, innovative, forward-going products and concepts, that even may help to increase the level of cuisine in general – and how we percept it.

6. Any comments you want to share with us?
Respect food, but don´t mind playing with it. It might develop into a great meal!
AND: visite my website www.aji-design.de

That is why well known fashion labels currently change their strategy and are trying to increase their direct contact with the final consumer, no better way as to use specific fashion blogs and social media networks like Facebook or twitter or even distribute a new fashion line on the best online shops.

A few examples of online shops

www.theoutnet.com
Tthe ultimate site for chic discount shopping.

www.catwalkgenius.com
A great shop where you can buy ‘hard-to-find’ pieces from designer labels, one can even buy a share in a specific collection. Their blog is also interesting.

www.asos.com
Over 876 brands & labels.

A few labels also started to integrate their consumers via the web 2.0 by putting their fashion shootings or images on different sites. A good example is www.style.com, here you can see different videos on fashion shows, fashion moments, shootings and many more. Or take www.firstview.com where you can enjoy the world’s largest fashion database with more than 3 million fashion images, videos and more. A very good site is www.notjustalabel.com, if you are searching for a specific or upcoming label you will definitely find it here and it even contains a great shop!

Interesting is an approach done on Youtube: youtubefashion1.blogspot.com Here you can see all sorts of movies on fashion (shootings and shows). And if you are an upcoming label, take a look at www.showstudio.com, not only a useful site for the making of a fashion film but also excellent for distributing.

Interested how specific shops look like? www.newfashionlabels.com has a great ‘Shop Tour Video Session’, you can look at more than 20 different shops around the globe.

What about Facebook? How many labels do use Facebook to stay in touch with their consumers, distribute their new fashion lines and gain more ‘friends’? We took a quick look at which Austrian fashion designer has its own label on Facebook. Lena Hoschek has, on her page she shows different images of fashion shows where she did attend with her label, also Anna Aichinger, she mentions all possible events where you can see or buy her fashion. Gina Drewes has posted 23 image albums, and the label ‘Elfenkleid’ has some interesting links to partners, fashion weeks & events as well as some promotional activities. It seems that many fashion labels do use this social network to provide news, special promotions and images and also distribute their new collection after the official launching, although we did not check activities from fashion labels on Twitter.

Is it ‘hot’ to read fashion blogs? Yes definitely but it is not easy to find the best one as there are so many, it is also difficult to differentiate. The experts in the fashion industry most probably ‘connected’ themselves to the most popular ones to keep updated on what specific labels do and which new labels do enter the market. We looked at a few and what to share this with you:

IamFashion

Two ‘fashion darlings’ started this blog because they wanted to have a place where trends and fashion from the runway and on celebrities can easily be understood and translated into down to earth, youthful street fashion. They started late 2004 and this blog is full of nice articles and images.
iamfashion.blogspot.com

The Sartorialist

Done by star blogger Scott Schuhman, this blog was selected as one of Time Magazine’s TOP 100 design influencers. It offers postings since mid 2005, great images and is used by different labels for commercial issues.
thesartorialist.blogspot.com

Stylebubble

Done by ‘Susie Bubble’ from the UK, this is one of the trendsetting blogs within the fashion industry. She is not a fashion expert/insider – merely a fashion lover/consumer, and that is exactly what you can feel & see when reading her blog, full of unique daily fashion experiences.
stylebubble.typepad.com

A nice Austrian fashion blog is tschilp.com It tells you all about fashion trends and fashion experiences in Vienna.

A lot of fashion bloggers can be found on independentfashionbloggers.org It also cultivates a community for fashion bloggers to share their experiences and creates a resource so everyone can build a better blog. It also provides news about fashion shows, new fashion blogs and fashion blog conferences.

A pretty new initiative on ‘fashion 2.0’ I would like to share with you is www.garmz.com. You design and Garmz does the rest, pretty easy, they operate as a stage for designers to promote and present themselves and their work and get immediate feedback from a worldwide network of consumers and experts. They provide the handling of the complete production process at no costs and no risk. Also visit their blog to get a view behind the scene of Garmz. Since they started this platform beginning of 2010 they featured 7 ‘designer dates’. They also do organize the ‘Fashion Camp’ during the ‘MQ Vienna Fashion Week’ this year, I will be a wonderful gathering of interesting people, or a clash of cultures. The future of fashion, the change of communication, market and trend spreading. The Internet as the companion of new generations. Together with bloggers, fashionistas, photographers, designers, internet people, (online) shop operators, fashion designers and style hunters this will be nice social networking event all about fashion.

It seems that ‘fashion 2.0’ does not stop, or better to say that the web 2.0 does not stop the change process of fashion versus experts and consumers. After spending more than 24 hours on the internet, looking at more than 200 sites (blogs, shops, Facebook) one can say that creativity within this industry combined with web 2.0 is nowadays at a very high level and speed and will become larger in the very near future. Welcome Fashion 2.0!

How to get a package sold successfully?
Good question, in general it will never amount to more than a small fraction of the overall leisure business generated, in fact it depends on the accompanied marketing strategy if a package is successful, as one in general reaches only niche audience that specifically look for special themed packages or offers. Possible tools to market packages are:

• listing on hotel website
• blog listings
• third party website listings
• distribution via on-line press releases
• advertising
• distribution through social network sites like Facebook, LinkedIn or XING
• listings in hotel newsletters and hotel magazines
• hotel internal promotions
• distribution via flyer

One should focus on its core mission to market a specific package, also look at the items/services included to decide which marketing tool fits best. Good examples of packages that are special and sold successfully are:

Omni Hotels, which do offer a socalled “Retail Therapy” package, a girlfriend getaway package that does include shopping elements. Omni Hotels market this via their own hotel websites as well as www.hotelchatter.com.

Babymoon packages, pre-baby vacation packages for expecting parents, a real “hype” for resort destination hotels but also a package that becomes very popular for city hotels. One can market these via various third party websites like www.babymoonguide.com, www.babymoonfinder.com or www.baby-moon.eu, a few good examples of babymoon package can also be found on these sites. A nice babymoon package is the “Luxury before Birth package” offered by The Ring, Vienna’s Casual Luxury Hotel, more details on www.theringhotel.com.

Numerous hotels offer “pet-friendly packages” as many guests prefer to travel together with their dog, a nice example of a “pet-friendly package” is offered by the Hotel Pere Marquette, have a look: www.hotelperemarquette.com

Pretty new on the market are the socalled “green travel packages” or “ecofriendly packages”, websites like www.greenhotels.com do explain “green travel” very clearly, for hotels as well as for guests and hotels like Kimpton Hotels & Resorts do explain their mission statement and “earthcare program” (www.kimptonhotels.com) on their website, a nice example of an eco-friendly package is the package of the Orchard Garden Hotel in San Francisco (www.theorchardgardenhotel.com).

How about “dynamic packaging”? In this way a hotel offers simply accommodation and next to that their guests a large variety of booking additional services like breakfast, lunch, dinner, limousine services, spa treatments, museum tickets, fruit baskets, flowers and many more items. Hotels can act fully flexible as to their selling strategy and promote specific services/items. Also the guest can act fully flexible and can decide if he wants to book specific services beforehand or at check-in.

Looking for a creative, trendy, extraordinary or themed hotel package? Just use the well known search engines and type in the different themes and the words “hotel package“, it is amazing what comes up.