The LAB

Just before the Easter holidays we had an initial deadline for our Final Major Projects where we had to exhibit our work in an enclosed room in the studio which was called The LAB.

The reason behind this was to push us to have our projects at a very finished stage a few weeks before our final show. There were also some designers who came in to speak individually to people about where they could take their projects and give some advice. If I'm honest my FMP is nowhere near finished as I spent so much time producing award entries. I wanted to spend a lot of my time on these as we will not get another chance to enter these when we graduate.

My idea that was exhibited is as below:

Playstation Brief –
Create a campaign that gets children to combine virtual sports game playing with getting involved in real sport.

Solution –
Incorporate real sports into the virtual sport playing experience.

Why?
Hardcore virtual sport game players will not wish to give up their console completely. Players of real sport are
occasional virtual sport players also. Rather than alienate either group with a campaign against playing virtual
sports, I have decided to bring these people and both worlds together and create a Playstation community.

Output –
Campaign called ‘PlayNation’ that merges both virtual and real world together.

Benefits for Playstation – Sony
Publicity via various medias. New image as a promoter of health and talent. Help in the fight against obesity.
Create new communities and get people talking.. Create relationships and promote sports playing ahead of the
World Cup and Olympics 2012.. Make Money from product sales. Increased console sales to players of real
sport.

Benefits for Children: Healthier Lifestyle. Ability to talk more. Work in teams.. Achieve a feeling of success.
Chance to better themselves and increase confidence..

*Impossible to cheat: Even if it is done indoors: Bouncing ball. = still physical activity. Anything is better than
nothing.

Brand:
The name ‘ PlayNation’ is a play on words of ‘Playstation.’ The reason for the word nation is that Playstation is an
international brand so this can be used all over the world. It divides nations in the same way sport does but
brings them all together in the form of an online world that mixes virtual reality with reality. The word Play
remains as it works on both levels. Playing real sport aswell as playing virtual sport..

There is a lot more to be said about the idea as it needs its own Manifesto but this will be worked up for the show.

Dan Ingham and Stephen Owen were the people from industry that came to speak with me about my work. They offered good advice liked the idea overall as it had so much potential. They suggested I focus on one area of it and have fun with it to make sure it becomes a hard hitting campaign. At the moment I have the idea sorted but need to communicate with the viewer much more effectively so they get it straight away. A suggestion that came up was to focus on my iphone idea as everyone does posters for their final show and the industry is going much more interactive and digital based. We spoke about some work I had seen of Stephen's for Umbro which has a similar feel and they agreed that the style of it all should look real rather than half digital and half real.

I think the idea of bringing the deadline forward was a good one as people are at more of an advanced stage that they might have been. However, I don't feel anyone is anywhere near a finished standard with their work so it didn't work in that respect. It was good to get people in as ultimately these are the type of people who will be looking at our work in the final show.

Craig Oldham - Ambient Media Campaign - Adidas

I am currently researching different ways of getting young people into playing sports as part of my Final Major Project. I was told to look at the ambient media campaign for Adidas to promote football ahead of the FIFA World Cup in 2006. This was designed by Craig Oldham from Music who came in to the college to give a lecture about design a while ago which I have previously written a post about. http://nick-entwistle.blogspot.com/2009/04/craig-oldham-lecture.html

The campaign provides great value for money as it is simply a roll of tape. This shows that the simplest ideas are the best. I can really relate to the campaign as me and my friends used to use walls, garages, car height barriers, trees etc... as football goals. Anything that resembled a goal and was reasonably sized we would use. If not we would put our jumpers down for goalposts. This tape allows you to make a goal anywhere you want and can turn any environment into a football pitch. It promotes street football and can bring communities together. With the rise in obesity and people staying in playing computer games, ideas like these are vital.

I like the posters as they are well art directed and the copywriting is great. They are not made too fussy and don't seem expensive, which is a good thing as it relates to the idea. I also like the way it gives football an importance over other things like cars. Humour is another aspect of the campaign and I feel that it is this that captures people's imaginations.

You can see this campaign at: http://craigoldham.co.uk/project/take-it-to-the-streets/

3D Design- University Project Products

Here are some images of the products we designed including the dispenser, spray and keyring battery/light.

3D Design- University Project

For one of our university projects this year, part of the brief was product design. We came up with our ideas and mocked them up to a good standard on Illustrator. However, we decided to go a step further and learn some 3d software. This gave a whole new dimension to our designs which stopped them looking flat and unreal. We were shown how to use the software by Paul who works in all aspects of digital design and he was a great help. It is a platform for us to be able to use this software in the future on other projects and it is good that we have got the chance to learn these different programs before we enter the real world of industry. You can see the designs mocked up in 3D above. The product is also shown over the existing logo to show the idea we went for.

Mike Carter Workshop - Orchard

A couple of weeks ago Mike Carter from Orchard recruitment came in to speak to us. He graduated in design and art direction and Orchard have placed more people into design than anyone else in the North.

At the moment 49.188 people are studying in art and design. This is second only to business studies. During the discussion we spoke about what was needed in the industry to breakthrough this huge number of competitors for jobs. The main points were enthusiasm, commitment and organisation. Real industry work requires a whole new level of accuracy. You can't afford to make mistakes before you go to print or it can prove to be very costly to your employers. When making your portfolio you can afford to make mistakes and make them better but when you show your work to people it cannot have mistakes in it.

We moved onto the subject of CV's. These need to get people to contact you. They need to conform to the 3 second rule. If your potential employers see exactly what they need to within that time then you have given yourself every chance. You need to include Employment - What your company does and what you do in it. Aswell as this you need to include education and your number of GCSE's with dates. Other qualifications need putting in order most recent first. We were advised not to put our date of birth on the CV due to ageism. If employers really want to know age they can work it out from our qualification dates. We should not be general with hobbies and only put in references if they are excellent.

With regards to the portfolio the advice was to consider the amount in our book carefully. To fake real prints to make things look like real industry pieces of work. We spoke about portfolios all looking the same which I have noticed about my class. Something I agree with is the way you should let the person look through the work. If you need to explain your ideas they are not good enough. During interview we should be ourselves, know the location and have some knowledge of the company.

We then did a small group exercise which involved having 25 cards with industry and student projects upon them. We could only include 15 cards for imaginary portfolio breakdowns. We did this for different types of job which helped us to understand how to taylor our portfolio to each one.

We were told to always have questions to ask your interviewer. Going around the group we were asked what we would ask. Most people didn't have one to ask. Mine was 'What are your plans for the future?' At the end of the interview we should clarify when we should be contacted.

I found the workshop worthwhile and got involved as much as possible and plan to take the advice into my own work.

D&AD Design Workshop

Myself, James and Mike attended the design workshop which was hosted by a lady from The Chase. There was a group from the MA Advertising course in Leeds and also a tutor from Preston.

We all sat down and introduced ourselves and said a little about what we are doing at the moment within our courses. We then went through a few ideas that I had come up with the night before. I was the only one who had brought ideas along with James because we hadn't had the brief long. It was difficult as we didn't have a product to go off.

We all then discussed the pros and cons of the product in a lot further detail to try and get down to what exactly we wanted to communicate. There were a few good ideas about 'sexing' the product up by likening it to underwear and getting down and dirty on the floor. Price, effectiveness and economy were high on the agenda and we talked about the shift in throwaway culture to people keeping their things. To come up with ideas for the brand we spoke about what coulours and typefaces meant to people and we even named a typeface and colour that would best show ourselves.

We had the idea of colour coding to show the different grades of underlay.

Funnily enough The Chase had come up with something similar which was a nice fresh design but I feel it could have been pushed even further and become more interactive with the consumer.

New York Video

Today we had a talk about New York prior to our trip there on Sunday. This went over any rules and regulations we had to keep to. As part of this we were asked, as a group, to come up with a small presentation of what New York means to us. Other groups managed to do this such as illustration and surface design but most of our group couldn't be arsed. So I took it upon myself to just do it. The result ended up being a short video of a few different aspects of New York.

Thanks to Lauren, Sarah, James, Mike, Kat, Bob and Carrie for making the effort to provide image/footage to be put into the video.

New York - Men on Girder

We have been recently asked to come up with images and design a page to put into a small presentation. These had to be of things that interest or inspire us about New York. Something that I thought of straight away is the famous image of workers on a girder against the backdrop of New York City. I have seen numerous imitations of the image and it is one of the most popular posters you can buy. The image is inspirational as it shows the workers taking their break without a care in the world and not worrying about their safety. It is humourous and shows character against the contrasting industrial robot like background.

I combined this with the yellow of New York taxis and the stripes represent the busyness and sharp angles that make up the New York landscape. I have typed over the word 'New' of New York with the word 'Old' as this image represents the history of New York and it shows its age.

Critical Journal

Today we are handing in a 5000 word draft for the written part of our critical journals that we have to complete during the final degree year. We also have to complete a 20 minute presentation. The critical journal focuses on your own work and you can write about any issue you want as long as it involves your own and other people's work.

The aim of my critical journal is to explore, in depth, the journey from an initial idea through design and advertising into a fully focused marketing strategy. This will centre around an industry set brief that will also be used as a college project. The contrast between education’s idea of creativity being everything and the politics of industry will be interesting to see. This will be done in relation to the self initiated project myself and my creative partner are currently working on. We were given a choice of eight projects, with one being self set, and I decided along with my partner to take the opportunity to contact a leading advertising agency with the proposal of us using a live brief set by them to be used in conjunction with the briefs set by college. This will help us as it is well known that experience is vital within this industry.

Identity Exhibition

Here are some pictures of a small exhibition of Identity work we produced in set groups last year. Each group was given 2 boards to show our work upon. The presentation of the work was very important which included cutting and mounting onto foam board and then composing onto the boards in an effective and ordered way. The exhibition was good as we got to see what every other group had done and we all had a say about each other's work. We highlighted the good and bad parts of other groups work and vice versa which will definitely help for future projects.

Another interesting part of the project was the distribution of marks. We were given an overall mark which was timed by 4 members of the group and then as a group we had to decide how the marks would be distributed between us all. Most groups did this smoothly but unfortunately we talked for hours about ours and argued somewhat but luckily we came to a conclusion in the end which I feel everyone was reasonably happy with. It's not something you like to do but it's good when you are forced to say exactly what you think of other peoples contributions as this would not normally be known.

Berghaus YCN Development

Some of the ideas during development of our idea that won YCN haven't been put up on here until now but it goes to show how much work goes into pushing an idea until it is communicating the message perfectly. The original idea was sound enough and reasonable as a poster visual but taking that onto a bigger stage and thinking of how to use it took it further and resulted in it thankfully gaining an award.

Marketing

Rather than traditional advertising for our Shine products we wanted to have a look at other marketing methods including stunts, ambient media, traditional adverts and phone applications. These are our ideas but they are a work in progress.

Product Design

Our project has involved us delving into product design which has been great as it is something I have not done before. These are the ideas for dispensers of the existing product, vitmain chewing gum packaging and all new products including a vitamin energy shot, a vitamin breath spray and also a keyring dispenser with a light that only works when it is re-filled with vitamins.

Self Initiated Brief

Our first brief of the third year was a choice of eight which were all exciting briefs. However, the brief that stood out straight away to me was the self initiated one. Immediately I thought back to my time at Mccann Erickson during my placement there in the summer just gone. Whilst I was there I produced some good work and concepts for the likes of Sainsbury’s, NHS, Peugeot and Scholl and this gave me the confidence to believe that I could potentially be able to work there in the future. I expressed my interest in doing a brief for them. My response was a positive one but I was told almost all advertising agencies require people to work in teams, one being a copywriter and one an art director, which wasn’t a problem for me as I explained I have worked with someone, called James Clancy, collaboratively on a number of projects in the past. This led to them asking if I could work on a live brief alongside James for them in the near future to see how good we can be. Unfortunately James was in Australia at the time and I had no contact with him but I knew he would relish the opportunity so I provisionally accepted their offer and told them I would be in touch. So when the opportunity of a self initiated project came up with college I knew straight away that we could forge a link with this and the industry and get the best of both worlds. The only potential obstacles were the opposing ideas of tutors wanting us to be as creative as possible, without having any boundaries, and the realistic world of advertising where politics and guidelines have to be strictly adhered to. Having a balance between the two is somewhat difficult but it is an invaluable learning curve.

I got in touch with James via e-mail and he gave it the go ahead so I approached Mccann Erickson with the brief and I was lucky enough to get a speedy reply. This was needed as the choice of brief was to a strict timescale and I had to go back and forth contacting between my creative partner, my tutors and Mccann Erickson themselves before I could get the final answer to whether the brief was feasible to be marked in accordance with the University mark scheme.

The brief itself to promote vitamins to an older teen market.

Teenagers cover a vast spectrum so think late teenagers once

they begin making decisions about their own health/food.

Think why they would take an interest ( weight, skin,

looks, sport, helps me party etc) and about the barriers to them taking

supplements ( cost, can’t be bothered, too much of

a kid thing, too much of a responsible adult thing,

don’t like swallowing, never up in morning, boring,

‘why do I need them...I’ve got youth on my side’ etc).

Completely re-think:

1.what the suppliment would be

eg multi vit for looks, multivit with energy enhancers etc.,

2. how its delivered – drink, tablet etc

3. its name and packaging

4. ‘Shelf presence’ in-store - Retail Toolkit e.g.POS, gondola ends or full Counter unit, shelf talker, shelf wobblers

5. Web redesign/navigation– microsite or own website

6. promote its image profile on the high street

and beyond considering which channels will interupt them and get noticed.

Use advertising or gorilla/viral tactics or celeb endorsement, events etc. Suggest which channels would be best.

7. Any other ideas which would spin off or help as long as they are completely relevant to the core idea. eg. Merchandise, life store, social networking use.

8. Importantly, consider who you are targeting...the teenager or...

The solution we came up with was to create a whole new brand which would enable you to stretch to this older target market without alienating existing customers. After lots of discussion and brainstorming over what to call our brand, we decided upon ‘shine’.

We felt this word encapsulated what we were attempting to put across to the target audience as it works on so many levels DICTIONARY DEF: 1 the sun shone emit light, beam, radiate, gleam, glow, glint, glimmer, sparkle, twinkle, glitter, glisten, shimmer, flash, flare, glare, fluoresce; literary glister, coruscate.

2 she shone his shoes polish, burnish, buff, wax, gloss.

3 they shone at gymnastics excel, be outstanding, be brilliant, be successful, stand out.

Counter Magazine - College Work

I was looking through some old college work and found this project which was for a magazine called Counter. We could do anything we wanted with it and mine had a cut-out right through the middle representing the eye of the front cover which was made entirely on photoshop. I used to do some crazy psychedelic looking work using lots of vibrant colours during my college days but now I am a lot more subtle and use this style sparingly in my work although it is great to be able to work on things sometimes in this way such as with the Ministry of Sound video we created last year.