Today I was involved in a side project which required the whole of our group to think up some ways which we could promote our company to possible clients, preferably local businesses. We had to think about:
- Networking
- Targeting new companies
- The cost (can't cost a lot of money)
- Needs to deliver

We began by thinking about the types of companies and clients that we would be targeting are services at and how these types of companies would all be able to link together in some way. We came up with Record Labels, Fashion, Drinks, Charities, Food and Education as the main areas to consider. We felt this was quite a wide area to target in and could show links between each other, however we narrowed these categories down by removing food and education as we felt they would not link in with all of the other categories. We also felt that there were not many companies in this category that were local and also that would be able to fully benefit from our services.

For ways to promote the business we thought about virals, creating a set of headphones to send out to clients which would link in with music and fashion. The headphones could then use some form of audio to deliver a message to the client.

We then began thinking deeper, looking into our brand name (13PlusOne) and using this within our promotion ideas. We thought about sending companies an apple a day for every 14 days relating to 13PlusOne. We also thought about sending shoes to show SOUL. The shoe idea was also linked with getting your foot in the door so by placing a shoe outside the possible clients door. However we then came up with problems for this idea relating to gettin the shoe in the door, which led us to thinking about a paper based shoe design being used to slip under the door. We then felt that using a paper based image lost the feel that the shoe gave out.

The day consisted of a great amount of thought processing and ideas generation which led to us bringing all of our ideas together on some larger sheets of paper and having a group discussion on what idea to use. We had struck a problem as we had achieved some effective ideas but we knew we could generate something better and more effective with less constraints and cons. We were stuck at an idea of using bottles and postcards, which resulted in us trying so hard to think up ways of putting it to use, when we eventually looked closer to the actual design of our brand identity, which led to us to linking the green plus to doctors, pharmacies, cures and then coming up with the use of a prescription as a bases for a promotion idea. The prescription could use some creative copy and type to show some play on words which would be technical, creative and interesting to look at. The use of showing our company as a cure to design problems was a strong idea that was struck upon.

After this idea had been chosen we split into groups of three and each created some promotional materials relating to the pharmaceutical theme. The ideas that my group came up with were to create a medicine paper bag promoting our company with a prescription, a sachet of sugar, a tipex and also a rubber in the shaoe of a pill. We presented our ideas to one another and ended up choosing the survival kit to work as our promotional materials.

My groups ideas:

Our final design ideas:

Other groups designs ideas: (chosen design on the left)

On Thursday

On Friday

Today I began the live project brief work which had been implemented in place for those who were unable to find work experience. We were firstly taken through what the project would consist of and what we would need to achieve. The brief was made clear which was based around creating a signage system for Castle Point Shopping centre in Bournemouth. It would need to be suitable for partially sighted or blind people in order to help them navigate their way through the shopping centre.

Once the brief was made fully clear we began thinking of a brand identity for our company. We were split into three groups with each group developing an idea for the name and logo. My group came up with Camelleon as the company name using an image of a Chamellon with the tail representing the letter "C". We created a mind map to help relate our company to the traits that we could offer possible clients.

After our group had created our logo for the company we linked up with the other groups and presented each of our identity ideas. We then discussed the qualitites of each idea, giving opinions on which we felt were the strongest and how each one could possibly be improved. We then had to decide as a group which design we would take further.

We eventually made a group decision on "13PlusOne" to become our company name and identity after a heavy debate. Three memebers of the group were then asked to volunteer to create a set of designs for the company and to present these to the group. When the designs had been created they were presented to us and we were then able to discuss between the whole group, which design we felt were the strongest and most appropriate. We ended up choosing this design for our finalised brand identity.


When the three group members had been assigned to designing the company identity the rest of the group were assigned a side project which required us to create a set of stencils which would need to be circular and portray a set of numbers from 1 - 12. The signage could then be used as a navigation system to be placed around certain areas of the univeristy where the number would relate to the area. The signs would be used for people to navigate their way around the university when attending the upcoming shows. The brief that was given required us to divise a system that would use... We were given the task of researching stencil systems and typefaces to firstly gain some understanding of the subject at hand. We were then required to carry out our own designs and ideas individually and produce a finalised number stencil with the implemented design.

These were my ideas that I created. I eventually went with a system that used the style of the numbers on the right.


This was the design that I brought to the table.

When looking through each others designs we presented each one individually one by one to the group and then discussed together which designs we felt stood out and were most appropriate and effective. We chose three designs that stood out and then narrowed this down to a final design choice. Eventually we decided on a system that used the numbers being emerged from the outer area of the cirular black background. We felt that this was most effective as it showed a neat and appealing style which showed an effective way of compensating for hollow areas within the text. Once the the design style to use had been chosen each member of the group was assigned a number to design a stencil for. We needed to communicate with the group member who had designed the chosen idea in order to make sure were keeping consistancy within the design.

This was my finalised design that I created, which I then used to print out to scale and mount onto some thick card, allowing me to cut around the shape and create the stencil.

Today I went through Paper and Printing Specifications

Yesterday I carried out self-directed study on my magazine spread design as well as carrying out some sketch book work.

On Monday

On Tuesday I had a group critique which allowed me to gain some helpful feedback on my improved final design that I had carried out over the easter break. I found that my design was quite effective but still needed some strong improvements to bring it up to standard and enhance it. The typeface for the informative text needed to be decided on and the image and text arrangement needed to be changed slightly. I also needed to figure out whether I would be using an image in the first spread and if so I would need to obtain this image. Overall the critique went very well and also allowed me to see how everyone else was getting on. The critique really helped to make me up my performance in the unit and boost the drive to create a strong final design.

Yesterday I attended a talk with the art director at Wonderland which I felt was a great help to boosting my knowledge of the design industry and also to allow me to see some of the work practices carried out by the art director at Wonderland, looking at how he creates his ideas and the techniques used to develop these ideas and build upon them to create final pieces. I was able to obtain a general outlook of his career path that he had took and was able to gain some helpful information and views on design in general. Overall I felt the talk was very helpful and being able to view his idea generation and sketch book work gave me strong view into how basic ideas can develop into finalised pieces.

I thencarried out some self directed work on my final design, making slight changes to the layout to help improve the overall design.

Today I finalised my PPRD 1 project ready for the hand in tommorow. I used In Design to present the work in the form of a small booklet using a themed layout which I felt helped to enhance the aesthetic qualities of the project overall. I made sure to include all the specific areas of work and also the relevant pieces of accompanying text to help explain certain parts of the unit such as the editorial talk that I had engaged in.

Today I had a trip to Dayfold Printers in Verwood which was a great experience and a big help to learning more about the printing processes and printing industry. I was able to learn about print specifications and how the company quote their clients. Finding out about the different types of paper was also interesting, showing how certain papers can suit different outcomes. I was also able to view how printing plates were made as well as seeing how the prints were bound together and coated with a finnish such as laminating or glossing

I continued sketchbook work today, adding in notes from In Design tutorials and also carrying out some research on type designers.