Wednesday 26 November 2014

OUGD603 - Extended Practice: DSM Brief Research (Experiential Marketing)

Every year, for Christmas, the church I attend sets up a display in the main lobby typically made up of two Christmas trees covered in 300 tags with unique gift suggestions on each one. Church members then take the tags, purchase the gifts suggested and bring them back to the church. All purchased gifts are donated to local organizations which care for homeless or low income families which are less fortunate during the winter holidays. This year I was asked to create an entirely different display for our Christmas tradition, using a 29'x9' wall as a canvas. With some meticulous planning, basic materials and an amazing team, this was the final outcome of the creative display we called "The Giving Wall".




Below are some videos which illustrate examples of experiential marketing. All of them present very unique ideas but they are all incredibly memorable and engage the audience straight away. I would love to one day be working with a team of people who create this type of work. 






Monday 24 November 2014

OUGD603 - Extended Practice: DSM Brief (Community Christmas Case Study)

Community Christmas believes that no elderly person in the UK should be alone on Christmas Day unless they want to be.

Communities are encouraged to provide companionship to older people on Christmas Day by running a community Christmas Lunch event, joining up with others at a local pub or restaurant, popping round for tea and cake, perhaps organizing a film viewing or anything else that can be enjoyed by all those that take part. This should be a chance to meet up with old friends and make new friends creating bonds in the community that last well beyond the single day.

We will:
  • provide support and guidance to those starting something new on Christmas Day,
  • give a free listing to any events or activities wishing to maximise their reach into the community and
  • guide older people, those who care about them, or those that want to help them, towards activities in their area.
We can do this thanks to our supporters and the local communities that take up the challenge to achieve our vision by increasing what is available or helping reach those that need to know about what is going on.

Find out more about us and how you can get involved. If you have new ideas or any feedback we would also love to hear from you.

Before contacting us you may like to read our FAQ’s to help answer your questions.

'Christmas Day used to be such a sad, miserable time for me. Now, I could smile all day and enjoy other people’s company.'

OUGD603 - Extended Practice: DSM Brief (Ideas Feedback)

Today DSM came back in to college to give us some feedback on our ideas so far. We all met in studio 3 and sat in a circle with them all. They asked us to feedback any ideas which we had thought of. This was a very informal chat and a chance for us to share concepts to enable us to strengthen the ideas we had and progress further with them. 

I started by explaining the concepts I had come up with. I told them about how I had thought about designing something to help the elderly in Leeds. I also explained the idea of creating something which would be placed in the centre of Leeds city centre to attract attention. This would be a form of experiential marketing, which is something I have read about for my dissertation and something I am becoming more and more interested in. Another key aspect to my idea is the fact that my brand would bring everyone together to create a community, which I feel would be extremely beneficial, as this is something which constantly needs improving. 

The feedback I received:

  • Strong concept
  • Community council - A council brand which brings everyone together
  • Make a council not feel corporate - At the moment the website is very corporate
  • Involving people will make it more people friendly too
  • It doesn't have to necessarily be called a council
  • Council isn't a very human word
I was pleased with the feedback I received and found it interesting listening to what other people had come up with. It was particularly interesting hearing about what existing councils already do. For example the 'poo bus' which Jamie looked into which is based in Bristol. 

We were then told what we would need for the 8th December:
  • Complete brand
  • PDF
  • Physical work
  • Talk through story of the brand
  • What is the problem you are trying to solve?
  • Bring big ideas together
  • Consider a logo, tone of voice, perhaps illustrate your idea?
I am looking forward to the presentations and seeing how much everyone's idea has changed from their initial thoughts. I think my idea is likely to expand an awful lot as I still don't feel as though I have covered everything I would like to. 

Sunday 23 November 2014

OUGD603 - Extended Practice: DSM Brief (Leeds Case Study)

Out of the Shadows: Time to Shine – tackling loneliness and isolation in Leeds


IMG_20140512_081158

Today, 1st October, is UK Older People’s Day and in the run up, our blog has been promoting various events being held to celebrate the achievements and contributions that older people make to society.
Days of the year that highlight a particular cause are clearly helpful but there is a whole lot more going on to ensure that Leeds is a city for all ages everyday and this includesfinding out what people think about what it is like to live in Leeds. Tomorrow and the rest of the year is no less important.
Leeds Older People’s Forum supports organisations throughout Leeds that provide services for older people. It has recently secured funding from the Big Lottery of £1M per year for the next 6 years, starting July 2015. This will be used to help tackle the loneliness and isolation experienced by many older people in Leeds.
There are 246,000 older people in Leeds, and 14,500 of these are aged over 85. Numbers are growing every year and it is estimated that about 15% of older people are lonely and socially isolated. This amounts to 37,000 people in Leeds. The funding from Big Lottery will help establish a wide range of services and projects to tackle this serious and growing problem.
Loneliness blights both individual lives and our communities through unhappiness and ill-health. This puts carers and relatives under enormous pressure and so Leeds Older People’s Forum will aim to reach at least 15,000 older people and help them to move out of the shadows cast by loneliness. Older people need not experience loneliness as an inevitable consequence of ageing.
Working with a wide range of partner organisations including Leeds City Council, Voluntary and Business Sectors the project will:
  • promote Leeds as an age friendly city,
  • develop inter-generational links,
  • improve connections with older people from street level upwards,
  • provide support and friendships at home,
  • increase number of volunteers in local communities.
This project will build on the excellent work already being done across Leeds and focus on the more vulnerable, hard to reach people.
Most importantly of all – older people will be at the heart of managing and designing all of this work.
Bill RollinsBill-Webon MBE, Chair of Leeds Older People’s Forum says
“This is great news for Leeds. We will offer older people in Leeds currently living in the shadows of loneliness a time to shine. This is why we have called our project “Out of the Shadows: Time to Shine”.

OUGD603 - Extended Practice: DSM Brief (Leeds Community Foundation Case Study)

Below is some research I found online about elderly people in Leeds. There already seems to be a lot that the council and charities do, so it will probably be quite hard to come up with something different.




OUGD603 - Extended Practice: DSM Brief (Leeds Case Study)

A GROUNDBREAKING project to keep thousands of older people in Leeds out of the grip of loneliness has secured a £6m lottery grant.

Leeds Older People’s Forum (LOPF) will receive £1m a year for the next six years to establish new services across the city that will keep “turn the tide” of social isolation and aim to prevent the damage loneliness can cause.

Estimates suggests there are 37,000 lonely or socially isolated older people in Leeds, with the number growing each year. The funding, from the Big Lottery Fund’s Fulfilling Lives: Ageing Better programme, which saw 100 local authorities bid for a share of the money, will be used to establish a wide range of services aimed at tackling loneliness, which can be as damaging to health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

LOPF said it hopes to reach at least 15,000 older people to “help move them out of the shadows cast by loneliness.”

It will work with Leeds Council, voluntary organisations and business partners to build on work that is already being done to focus on the most vulnerable and hard-to-reach people, and will put older people at the heart of managing and designing the work.

The bid was put together by LOPF and the council after consultation with 863 older people, carers and community organisations across the city.

The new community services will include more opportunities for older people to socialise on evenings, weekends and bank holidays, help with travel and cultural activities, including a project where volunteers will offer ‘dinner dates’ and mentors will support older people in gaining confidence to get out of the house. Social prescribing initiatives will also work with older people referred through integrated health and social care.

Coun Adam Ogilvie, Leeds City Council’s executive member for adult social care, said securing this funding was a “massive leap forward” as it works to stop older people in Leeds becoming socially isolated and would help “turn the tide against the blight of loneliness.”

He said: “With this money, we can build on the impressive work already being done in Leeds and spread the message louder and more clearly than ever that older people don’t need to sit on the sidelines, that they can have active and fulfilling social lives and that the help and support they need is out there for them.

“Loneliness is not an inevitable consequence of old age and if everyone works together we can ensure that older people in Leeds don’t have to suffer in silence.”

The project also forms part of Leeds’s effort to be an age-friendly city. The council recently signed up to an ambitious pledge to make Leeds the best place in the country for older people to live, work and visit, with the city officially included in the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Global Network of Age-friendly Cities and Communities.

OUGD603 - Extended Practice: DSM Brief (Survation)











OUGD603 - Extended Practice: DSM Brief (Survation)

Survation were asked by The Centre for Social Justice to conduct a telephone poll of 2000 elderly people to assess what their plans for Christmas were.  2003 pensioners aged between 75 and 103 were surveyed in the largest survey of its kind for some years.

A quarter of a million of the UK’s Elderly will spend/will have spent Christmas Day Alone
 In the largest telephone poll of its kind for some years, using Government Office of National Statistics data and Survation’s UK-wide telephone survey, we project nearly a quarter of a million people aged 75 and over in the UK will spend/will have spent Christmas day alone according to our poll for the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) and Independent Age.
And almost half of those home alone on the biggest day of year have children living in the UK.

A larger group may see someone on Christmas day, but for the rest of the year have no contact whatsoever with other human beings. Using our survey and government data, Survation estimate at least 400,000 over 75s spend ‘zero hours’ with other people on a typical day; nearly a quarter of older people living alone.

Survation’s poll of 2003 elderly people aged between 75 and 103 – one of the largest of its kind, has exposed the extent of the isolation among older people in the UK.
Many who responded volunteered detail, both positive and negative.

One 80 year old woman from South Yorkshire said “I was working until I was 78, in a nursing home, but I had to stop because of collapsed discs in my back. I miss it, it was really sociable, and I miss the money. I don’t really see anyone now, my children live miles away, so I have two cats. I talk to my cats”

Another said, ‘Some days the only person I speak to is the boy in the shop when I pick up my paper.’

“I don’t know what I’m doing this year, I’m hoping for an invitation out but haven’t heard from anyone” – 82 year old woman from Coventry

 “If I didn’t go out, I wouldn’t talk to anybody. I have a bad back and I have good days and bad days, but at the moment it’s so cold, I don’t see anybody” – 82 year old man from London

Others are much more active, with work and social mobility key to staying in company with others

“He sees around 50 people in the course of the week, because he plays bridge three or four times a week”. (carer of an 87 year old man from Essex)

“I am very busy. On Sundays I do a lot for church; on Monday I go bowling; on Tuesday I go bowling; on Wednesday I catch a bus into town to see family; on Thursday I go to Sainsburys; on Friday I catch a bus to Dawlish to visit my 96 year old sister; and on Saturday I do my housework.” 82 year old woman from Exeter.

The poll was conducted by telephone by Survation between 16th-21st December 2011. The population sample was 2003 single occupancy households where the resident’s age was over 75 years old.

Top Line Data

 Q1. Are you planning on having a traditional Christmas dinner this year on Christmas day?

Yes                            85%
No                            10%
“Don’t Know”         6%

Q2. Are you planning to spend Christmas day…

With family                  76%
By yourself                  12%
With others                   9%
“Don’t know”                3%

Q3. Do you have children living in the UK?

 Yes                           77%
No                             20%
Did not answer       3%

Q4. On a typical day, how many hours of the day do you normally spend with other people?

 0                        18%
1-2                     30%
2-4                     27%
4-6                       3%
8+                       4%
 Could not/did not answer 10%

 Some further observations;

 1) 19% of men aged over 75 will spend/spent Christmas Day alone this year – males were the most likely to be by themselves.
2)  18% of pensioners 75+ say they have “zero” contact with others on typical day
3)  Of the 18% of those  aged 75+ that have “zero” hours contact with others on a typical day. 66% have children living in the UK.


OUGD603 - Extended Practice: DSM Brief (Tesco Case Study)

I came across this when carrying out some research for the DSM brief. It is a conceptual project which I found on Behance but it caught my eye as the window display is interactive. I would love to be able to propose a similar experiential marketing experience for this brief. However, it just depends on what my outcome ends up being and whether it is necessary. 




Friday 21 November 2014

OUGD603 - Extended Practice: Intern Magazine (Presentation)

OUGD603 - Extended Practice: Intern Magazine (Development)

Today we were visited by design studio Intern. They focus on creating editorial work. The day started by them showing us examples of their work and then setting us a brief to work on in groups. We were asked to come up with our own concept for a magazine. 

We started off by each writing down any ideas we had individually. Then Alec from intern came over and spoke to us and said that we should just discuss as a group straight away as this is what he does. 


I wrote down any ideas that the group came up with as a starting point. 



We had quite a lot of fun coming up with different concepts. In the end we settled on the idea of creating a magazine called 'A Day In The Life' to demonstrate to people what it is like to live the live of various working professions. 


We then went away and collectively designed the front cover of the magazine. Dan came up with the main concepts for the cover, and we all helped by searching for appropriate typefaces as well as imagery and ideas for layout. 




Overall, I was really pleased with the outcome of our concept, and actually asked everyone if they would like to create the magazine. Unfortunately, due to time, we all realised that we wouldn't be able to put enough time and effort into the final outcome so it wouldn't be worth it. 





Friday 14 November 2014

OUGD603 - Extended Practice: LCA Christmas Cards (Development)

When this email was sent to us I knew straight away that I wanted to do the brief. Having already had meetings with potential clients about designing stationery for them, as well as completing the Tigerprint brief, this would be a perfect addition to my range of work to complete before Christmas break. 

Ellen also mentioned that she wanted to do this brief as well, and as we live together, I asked her whether she would like to collaborate and we could work on the brief over the weekend. She said she would like to, so we started designing and thinking of ideas.



I asked Ellen whether she thought it would be a good idea to create a structure to follow so that we don't spend too long pondering over ideas. She agreed that it would be a good idea so I got a pen and paper and started to write out everything we needed to know. 


Task 1 was to review all of the key words in the brief. This was just to make sure that we weren't missing out any important information. We spent 10 minutes doing this.


Task 2 was to look through our research we carried out in Marks and Spencer mainly and write down our initial reactions from the designs. We only spent 5 minutes doing this. 


Task 3  was to write down all of our initial ideas for design. I had already been thinking about the brief before doing this exercise and had considered how we could use the Leeds College of Art mosaic logo and apply the shape to the shape of the cards somehow.


Task 4 involved reviewing all of our ideas and coming together to make a decision about our preferred ideas and which ones to develop further.


One of the ideas we came up with was to build different Christmas characters out of the mosaic tile shapes. I experimented with this idea and quickly applied the features to one of the shapes to see whether this would work. This would act as a 'do it yourself' card. We decided however, that it would probably be too many pieces for this card. It may have worked for a younger target audience though which is something to bare in mind. 






Once we had decided not to take the previous idea any further, we then had a bit of a rethink. Although all of the ideas we had thought of would be possible, none of them jumped out to us as being the correct one to use. I suggested that we should maybe take the inspiration from the Marks and Spencer giant cracker we found, and create our very own, but adapt it so that it is a card and not a cracker as such. 

Below is a photograph of the initial cracker which inspired me. I visualised in my mind straight away what our card would look like and started to design on my laptop as soon as I could. 


Below are some screenshots of the cracker forme I have started to design. I am sure that this won't work the first time round but I am hoping that I can use the same forme for the final design and will only need to tweak it slightly. I am really excited about the end result and can't wait to start making some prototypes. 




I then started to make some prototypes and apply some colour. Ellen and I discussed the colour scheme we should use for our cards and we both agreed that red and green would be appropriate colours to start using. Below are the images of the cracker formes with the colour applied to it. I also used the mosaic tiles to create a random pattern. I guessed how much I would need to increase the width of one side of the cracker by simply enlarging it slightly. 



I then tried to experiment with the colour removed and the pattern simply outlined. I also applied a festive green to the cracker to see what this would look like. I won't know which one is the most suitable until I print all of them out and experiment with them. 



Prototypes

Below are all of the digital designs above printed out and made. As I only printed these ideas out on my printer at home, the colour isn't exactly accurate. But I thought it would be worthwhile to print it out on white stock as well as some brown stock just to see which would be most effective for the final cracker. 

Although I like the green cracker I don't think it is as effective as the red. It doesn't look quite as striking and memorable. I also feel as though the red is more obviously festive. 


Here I was just testing to see whether the size was appropriate for the final cracker design. 


I made these prototypes using brown recycled paper and only printed them out at small scale to make sure that they worked first before enlarging them to the correct proportions.



I also inverted the design to see what this would look like. I quite like it on the brown stock but still don't think it is suitable to be used for the final cracker design. 


Out of interest, I printed a sample out on red stock to see whether any of the colours would show up. The green showed up the most but it wasn't very striking and definitely not suitable for the end design. 


Final cracker to submit to marketing department

Below are the photographs taken of the final cracker which we handed into the marketing department. The holly took quite a white to cut out without leaving any white marks on show so if we are chosen for the competition we will have to print green on the reverse to make it a bit easier for ourselves. 

I am really pleased as it didn't take long at all to perfect the forme for the cracker and we were able to locate string and bells in town quite easily, from Clintons cards and Marks and Spencer. The fact that we had carried out our primary research in Marks and Spencer allowed us to locate certain resources which was really helpful. 






Ellen used the gift bag I bought in Marks and Spencer as inspiration for her characters. We wanted to make the card quite cute and playful whilst also giving out the message it needed to say. We did talk about illustrating the marketing team to put on the card but thought there may be too many to fit on such a small space. Instead, we decided that we could subtly illustrate ourselves on there, so we are the female elves! 


The decorations on the tree are also made up from the same mosaic tile shapes. This is to maintain consistency across the card and also to have a strong focus on the LCA branding as we feel that this is becoming increasingly important since they updated it all. I suggested that we should write when the college was established in the sack. 



We submitted our final design along with the costings list. I worked out the cost of all of the materials along with the time it would take us to make all of the cards and the finishing touches. A lot of the costings were estimates as we had not yet decided about which string to use for the final crackers for example. I was worried that the quote may be a little bit more than they were hoping to spend and really didn't expect to receive the email below with the subject 'Winners!' We were both over the moon when we read the email and started the production process almost straight away.



Production of the final cards

Below are all of the photographs of the final production line of all 75 Christmas cracker cards. 


Firstly, we had to cut out all of the individual cracker pieces.


This left us with piles of 150 individual crackers to cut out by hand.


We then had to cut out all of the white tabs to create the shape of the cracker. We started off doing this by hand but then discovered that it was just as easy to cut them out using scissors.


Using a ruler we then folded all of the tabs back.


This is what the cracker looks like once it has all been folded back. 



At this stage the crackers are ready to be folded in half. A little slit has to be made in the centre as well as a small triangular cut out. This is to make it easier to seal it. 


Once folded, each cracker then had tape stuck to the tabs.



Once the tabs had been peeled away they were ready to be sealed.


This is what they started to look like.


I purposely didn't mark each cracker in the centre in case I calculated it wrong. But it turned out that there was no need to because it was obvious where the centre was when folded.


Once the crackers were made, the final touches could then be added. I cut the berries out by hand as well as the holly, then made a slit in each piece of holly for the string to feed through. The bell was then added as a final touch to create the third berry on each side. 





This process then had to be repeated until all 75 cards were complete and ready to hand in. We sat in the studio for a good number of hours as well as at home to get them all done in time. We had said to each other than we would produce 15 per day leading up to the deadline but we ended up staying up one night and completing them the following day. 






We decided that using the holly was going to be too complex for all of the crackers and we couldn't have used the laser cutter because it would have left a brown mark on them all as well as still being too fiddly to feed through a piece of string once all of the pieces had been cut out. 


I then suggested that we could create some stickers instead. I mocked up a file quickly so that James could test our idea out on the vinyl cutter downstairs. 






Once the stickers were applied we both agreed that the whole thing looked too flat and without the 3D added elements the whole design was ruined. This meant that the stickers were now out of the equation and we needed to think of an alternative.


I suggested that we should create tags instead. This would mean that we could use the guillotine to cut them all out and make life a lot easier for ourselves.


I printed a couple of options out to test them first. We asked a few people in the studio and decided that we liked the black text the most. I experimented with cutting the corners off to make it look more like a stereotypical tag, but this just seemed unnecessary work. 


This is the final layout of the labels. 


The production line continues:













Once we had applied all of the final details we placed them in a couple of boxes. We decided to use brown, green and red ribbon to give college a selection to choose from. 





Below is the final invoice which I typed out to give to the marketing department. We ended up having to charge them more than we had initially expected, but they took us a lot longer to produce.



We took the cards to the principals office, as we had been to the marketing office and nobody was there because they were all at the graduation ceremony. We managed to catch the principal's secretary to show her the cards and leave them with her. We had already bought some envelopes for them to use to send them out in, but they seemed to think that they may need extra support (perhaps a slip of card) to protect the bell. 

When we spoke to the principal she said she was really pleased with the outcome and said that they were the best they had ever seen in response to this brief over the years.

We also spoke to Amber and she seemed equally as pleased with them and said that they were outstanding. So overall, we were really pleased with the final products for this brief. 

We also received this email to say thank you to us both which was lovely!


Final Photographs

Below are all of the final photographs of the crackers we submitted to the marketing department and the principal. We didn't have much time to photograph the end result so we will be photographing them again in time for the final submission to use in our portfolios. I am really pleased with the outcome of the cards and I am really pleased that we won this competition as it is something we can look back on and remember about third year.