Business Lecture 4 , Year 2

Buyer Behaviour/ Business Issues

To Start this lecture off we were shown various advertisements that thought outside the box , these ways of advertising products were smart and involved using the surroundings to their advantage , this showed us that advertising doesn't always has to be print based through flyers or billboards and can be done smarter , this would achieve better connection with an audience. One of my favourite examples of this was the Rimmel - Quick Dry nail polish. The designer had created a surreal piece of art which looked like the the bottle was floating , the message it was trying to get across that the nail polish would dry as soon as it left the bottle! (as shown below)

Buyer Behaviour is how the buyer thinks before they purchase a product and how we can tailor a product to spark various points in this buyer behaviour resulting in a purchase.The chart below shows how the mind process flows within every buyer.

Buyer issues showed us that certain things can effect the buyers behaviour weather this be age or even mental issues, These factors can effect the demand for certain products but also create gaps for new productions to be tailored around these issues.

Process and Production 2 , After Effects 2

Rotoscope technique

This workshop focused on rotoscoping. Rotoscoping is one of the oldest forms of animation. traditionally It involves live action images to have a light shone through them to allow the animator to draw over them , multiple images could be use so the animator can trace movement of the character or object easily. Although this was a successful early form of animation it proved to be very time consuming and was quickly replaced by easier and more advanced methods.

Personally i struggled with this workshop , i feel that this was because it was a more complex form of animation and i was used to animating using simple vectors and path techniques. The creation process involved using a piece of video that we had recorded of a movement and turning it into a rotarscope effect animation. One of the main reasons i struggled was because the video i used involved complex movement. if i was house this technique again i would use a more simple movement to allow myself to concentrate on getting the detail of the masking.

The process involved using the pen tool to create a mask on each frame of the video , once the figure was naked out i would move onto the next frame and so on for the rest of the clip. After effects generates the movement between the masks on each frame to allow the masks movement to flow smoothly between frames. Once the whole clip was masked we used different textures to get a background and a texture for the character. 


Rotarscope from Ben Moulson on Vimeo.

Seminar 3, Year 2

The Research Question

This lecture focused on identifying the research question for our presentation. After a weeks think when struggling to produce a point of research i have finally selected 'How did Russian Propaganda in the 20th century influence modern graphic design?'. I felt that this subject had a lot of history to it and has very direct links to modern design , it is also a subject that I'm not very familiar with therefore will give me to opportunity to discover new things.

I had a quick research into the propaganda and found:

Alexander Rodchenko

http://assets.thecreatorsproject.com/blog_article_images/images/000/038/735/COnstructivism3_detail_em.jpg?1354569682

Shepard Fairey

http://www.geekexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/SFUADMural-1.jpg

Self Publishing 1 , Year 2

Drawing Skills 

This Process and production session focused on Zine illustrations. The Zine 'Short for Magazine' Involves a group of people or a single person creating a publication that can contain anything. Zines are not regulated by an editor and are usually published to convey self expression about an issue or event thats happening. Zines are normally non profit or are very cheap. A traditional Zine would be created on paper then be photocopied and duplicated as a low expense way of producing multiple copies.

I wanted to create a zine that had a very quirky and different feel , lots of zines have little stories which is what i wanted to create. My story was about Dogspotting: A large Facebook group that involves people taking pictures of dogs and rating them online. I felt that this had enough illustrative value for me to create an effective zine. 
The GIF below shows my publication.

I thought that my zine was visually connecting with the audience and looked good to the eye. I used different shapes to create an abstract feeling to the background. If i was to improve anything it would be my typography skills , i feel that when drawing quick typefaces my style can be sloppy and not look perfected , although i had little time to complete this it is something i will need to look out for in the future.

Studio project 1 , Session 3

Studio Session 3 - Development

This studio session focused on developing our ideas further. By this point we should have got an idea what we wanted our project to look like and what we needed to do to work towards the final outcome. In the seminar we were required to present sketches or a mock up of vaguely what our design should look like.

Above is my mockup that i created , the images i used were stock images however in my final pieces i will be taking my own images with models and editing them in a similar way. when i presented this mockup it received very positive feedback , praising its originality and that the concept of the idea was easy to understand but had technical. something i was given to improve on was how could i make each piece different , could they have different personalities? 

To expand on this session i have got the studio booked to take photographs of different models and equipment that should be ready for next week for final hand in. i have also created a research and development booklet to support my ideas. My final piece will be printed.

Business Lecture 3 , Year 2

Market Research

This business lecture focused on market research and how we can craft our research to discover the most about who our products would be aimed at. Primary and secondary research are the two types of research. Secondary been the easiest to gather as you look at previous sources. However Primary involves you generating your own questions which can sometimes be very costly , having to hire people to collect the research and other staff to process the information into a readable from can be very time consuming too.

Consumers are identified by using Market segmentation , this is breaking the market into distinctive segments such as: Age , Sex, Social Class, Geography, Hobbies and interest. successful segmentations are Measurable , Accessible , Substantial and Meaningful to the designer. this ensures successful targeting.

One of the most interesting things that i was shown this lecture is the ACORN classification chart, this chart classifies social class using the alphabet. This chart gave me an accurate description of social classes and what to look for when designing to a markets requirement. what shocked me the most is how many classifications there is in the world.

History of Graphic Design

History of Graphic Design

In this lecture spencer discussed the history of Graphic Design using a very cluttered and confusing mind map. Graphic design began in more of a form as art. The first graphics can be identified as hieroglyphics and murals created around the years 500-1000 AD. Other forms of graphic design included manuscripts about life , political status and technology in the early years.

Before the use of digital software graphic design was created using collage techniques and layering images over the top of each other. photocopying was a very common way of sealing all these cut and stick techniques together. This Piece known as 'The Lovers' By Man-ray in 1936 is a well known example of using layering techniques to create surreal graphical imagery.

Social developments added to big influences in graphic design such as the rise of youth culture through there 60's. People were expressing themselves more and weren't scared to turn away from the normal. This resulted in mass amounts of artwork , musical pieces and publications that were all graphically produced were published. The mass influence of fashion also created a demand for graphic design as advertisements , promotional material and new designs were all having to be made. Hallmark Psychedelia was a very distinctive style. Hallmark psychedelia came from hallmarks greetings cards as they designed cards with cheesy bright coloured stretched words to portray the hippie culture , this stereotype then took over and Hallmark Psychedelia became a serious style of design.

Indesign 1, Year 2

Indesign 1 , Expanded Typography

This process and production session focused on a more detailed look at typography and the different ways it can be manipulated using the different settings within the character style window. we began the lecture by recapping over the structure of lettering by breaking down the type and identifying parts of letters.

We then began various tasks that allowed us to use different features within indesign to manipulate text. One of the things that caught my attention was that when kerning letters the space in-between the letters isn't always equal , it all depends on the font style and how well the letters sit with each other. Kerning is different to tracking a word as tracking creates equal space between lettering and kerning allows you to precisely edit each space.

The next task we completed was matching certain types of font styles with words and discussing why they complimented the word the most. i found this task fairly simple as the typefaces were given for us , however it would be more challenging having to seek out or even design typeface for a certain word. I feel that this task worked well as it showed that styles of fonts can give off certain atmospheres around words , often used to grip audiences.

The final task in this workshop was to use the character styles tools to edit typefaces without adding any illustrative value limiting us to strictly using in house editing. This challenge proved difficult as some of the words were hard to portray without wanting to add illustration or change of colour. Examples below:

i feel that this session introduced me into more ways of designing type instead of adding illustrative values to the wording , this will become useful when trying to design more simple pieces or even help add personality to short pieces of text.

Studio Project 1 , Session 2

Further development upon Ideas

After last weeks base research i looked further into how people created personas online , my main focus this week was previous video advertisements and animations. One of the key sources i looked at was Catfish: The TV Show.

catfish

ˈkatfɪʃ/ : lure (someone) into a relationship by adopting a fictional online persona.

"he was being catfished by a cruel prankster"

The TV show focuses on catching people that pretend to be different people online for attention. The story are sometimes sad , happy or distressing depending on the situation. The shows main aim is to help people and discover why the person has created this persona. I feel that this is relevant to my Cybernetic Self project as people can choose how to create themselves online.

Lewis Hamilton for Santander. This advert stood out to me when i was younger. The advert aired in 2008, it consisted of lewis hamilton being constructed in the form of an airfoil model , i was inspired by this idea as it shows that internet personas can be constructed out of certain stereotypical pieces. If i was to execute the project like this i would use photography and photoshop to create a manipulated piece that has elements of surrealism. I would use the studio to take high resolution photographs then later edit them in photoshop to create a final piece.

i would produce a series of posters r flyers to be included in a magazine which would educate proper bout online safety as it is a rising concern in civilisation.

Business Lecture 2

Business lecture 2 

We started the lecture by recapping over the design process and how thoughts should be carried out . we added a sub timeline to the process that showed how different elements of industry had to be added to the chain of thought , such as financial situations and how production. 

One of the things we need to watch out for is the current world occurrences as they effect work in positive and negative ways.The News is very important.Pest analysis should be carried out when generating ideas looking out for Political , Economical , Social and Technological capabilities within the next 5/10 years and how these might effect your idea.another technique of a SWOT analysis is used to discover Strengths and weaknesses and also opportunities and threats to your design.

Finally we looked at the life cycle of the product. How it would firstly get off to a slow start selling , as people recommend the product and the popularity grows sales will increase. Advertisements will build hype and the product will retain a strong sales pattern for a certain amount of time and finally the product will decline. However the product could receive various spikes in sales if every day events occur , the sales chart works just like the stock market will how life events can make dramatic changes.