Enterprise & Innovation - The Unit visit

Enterprise & Innovation - Group Meeting.

We discussed our progress over reading week and where we were up at this point. With just over a week left we really have to push to make final decisions and get things done in order to tackle everything for the presentation.

Marty and I have put together and designed a rough idea for the layout and order of the presentation, it needs a few tweaks as we missed out anything about finance.

Claudia and Lisa have done some research on the location for our business and looked at networking opportunities.

We came to the decision that we will be based at The Unit in Leeds which is part of Leeds City College. The rent is just £50 a month and it gives us 6 hours and month which would be perfect for weekly briefings in person. The rest of the time communication can be done via telephone, Skype and email.

After the first year we would hopefully rent out and office space at The Unit for £150 a month, this would allow us to keep the same address and contact.

We've decided that the focus of our business that will appeal to our clients and possible collaborators is that we are brand new, we are young and fresh and vibrant plus we are able and willing to compete on price against bigger more experienced businesses.

We plan to cut back our overheads with the hot-desking at The Unit for the first year, this will allow us to build up our client base, our reputation and funding to move into a more substantial office space at The Unit. Furthermore we will be providing a number of personal assets for the business to cut back on the overheads even more.

Claudia put forward the idea that we could hand out bottles of juice like orange juice at the presentation/any face to face business pitches as a creative give away apposed to a simple leaflet of print. The reason for juice is it connotes the characteristic of being fresh and refreshment to the audience. The labels will include our logo, slogan, mission statement, any contact information and any other services that we provide. We will of course be designing standardised business cards and letterheads for formal reasons as not every business or client will respond in such an informal manor to us. 

This idea then lead me to think about sponsor ship and who could provide the orange juice? Off the top of our heads we could think of supermarkets and their own brands of juice, Innocent Smoothies and The Amazing Smoothie Company. If we were to get sponsorship from anyone of these, they could provide the juice we hand out and some financial backing for expenditures and equipment in exchange for free advertising and publicity. Furthermore, the ethics and credibility of the juice company would be reflected onto our business and give it positive light with a wide range of possible clients.

Action plan.

Claudia - mission statement and slogan

Marty - business cards and bottle labels and letter head

Lisa - overheads and spreadsheets

Charlie - Networking opportunities and sponsorship

Enterprise & Innovation - Group Tutorial 2

This was a smaller tutorial session and for the majority was lead by us as a group.

We went over what we had done so far a a group and what we had been considering and how we've handled this module up to this point.

So far we have:-

- designed a company logo

- been meeting regularly to discuss progress

- been creating action plans and dividing tasks up within the group to move forward

Issues and concerns raised:-

- location

- presentation

- portfolio

What we did about these issues.

The location seems to be determining a lot of our business decisions and we don't want to be spending too much time on researching a broad range of places an end up neglecting some of the other key considerations and aspects of this module. Jane pointed out to us that we are all situated up North so it would be a wise decision to pick a location that is already close to where we all live at the moment. Realistically we wouldn't be able to get 4 people to move to one location so far as London.

We discussed the logo briefly just to get it finished. We decided that the direction of the arrow could imply that we are situated down South a the fact that it is pointing in  downwards direction gives it a slightly negative idea of decline. The concept behind the design is strong but the execution is a little off. This isn't a logo design module so all this needs is a quick redesign to make it work and we can move on with the important parts.

The presentation shouldn't be too long and the slides need to be visual aids to the notes of the speaker(s).

OUGD202 - Self Evaluation

BA (Hons.) GRAPHIC DESIGN		LEVEL	05
Module Code	OUGD202
Module Title	DESIGN PRODUCTION - DIGITAL

END OF MODULE SELF-EVALUATION

NAME	Charlie Crosby

1.  What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?
I’ve learnt a lot of new skills through this module as I’ve never touched on digital design and motion graphics. In particular I found that the development of storyboarding as a skill was essential, It introduced me to considerations such as action and title safe zones, time and key frames. After Effects was a completely alien programme to me before this module and although I’m not a particularly digitally driven designer I grasped it and appreciated it straight away.
2. What approaches to/methods of design production have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?
I’ve developed a new way of seeing and speculating things, noise and motions and time all play a factor in the way I’ve been considering my designs and this has increased more and more as the module has gone on.
3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?
I would say the strengths in my work are the application of concepts, without a concept the design can seem random or neglected due to lack of attention. I tried to focus everything I was doing and everything I was designing on concepts driven by and relevant to the content of the project.
4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?
I felt as though I could have experimented more, and with that documented what I was doing more thoroughly to really develop my skills and learn more about the software. I wouldn’t put this down to procrastination but to a severe amount of personal, social and other academic constraints which were unavoidable.
5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?
Be more aware of how well I’m documenting what I’m doing when using software, I want to develop a more thorough and consistent documentation habit. Make sure I have the content for my work ready before using software such as After Effects. Study more online tutorials and focus on home schooling myself more to discover new methods and approaches to my designs. Carry out more research throughout the brief to keep up to date and well informed about my content. Keep searching for inspiration, watch more video clips, read more articles and blogs, search for more designers and professional work to influence and fuel my creativity.
6.How would you grade yourself on the following areas: (please indicate using an ‘x’)  5= excellent, 4 = very good, 3 = good, 2 = average, 1 = poor
	1	2	3	4	5
Attendance					x
Punctuality					x
Motivation					x
Commitment				x
Quantity of work produced			x
Quality of work produced			x
Contribution to the group					x
The evaluation of your work is an important part of the assessment criteria and represents a percentage of the overall grade. It is essential that you give yourself enough time to complete your written evaluation fully and with appropriate depth and level of self-reflection. If you have any questions relating to the self evaluation process speak to a member of staff as soon as possible.

TOP 10 THINGS - Final Resolutions

Ident 1

Untitled from Charlie Crosby on Vimeo.

Ident 2

Untitled from Charlie Crosby on Vimeo.

Ident 3

Untitled from Charlie Crosby on Vimeo.

Ident 4

Untitled from Charlie Crosby on Vimeo.

Final Title Sequence

http://youtu.be/N3S-WaHOVLw

SILENT MOVIE - Final Resolutions

Silent Movie 1

Untitled from Charlie Crosby on Vimeo.

Silent Movie 2

Untitled from Charlie Crosby on Vimeo.

Silent Movie 3

Untitled from Charlie Crosby on Vimeo.

Silent Movie 4

Untitled from Charlie Crosby on Vimeo.

Silent Movie 5

Untitled from Charlie Crosby on Vimeo.

TOP 10 THINGS/SILENT MOVIE - Mock Submission

This was a strange new way of criting and getting feedback as we had to properly grade each others submissions. The highlight of it was getting back a grade I can actually, if you will, resubmit.

Before the crit I could easily say that I had all 5 Silent Movies completed along with my 4 idents for the Top 10 Things brief. The final title sequence, although 60 seconds long I haven't full finished what I was planning to do with it so much has been left without any animation. This was flagged up in the crit as being like a slide show. and is my main focus on amending at this point so close to the deadline.

The burnt disk worked fine which is a big positive to begin with.

As the wireless internet had some technical difficulties shortly before the crit nobody was able to assess the blogs which did make it difficult to effectively crit others work and I would imagine the same would have applied to my own.

Instead we just graded each other on the 4th and final grading criteria 'Demonstrate practical and conceptual dexterity in the use of appropriate techniques, processes, media and approaches to the production of practical work. (SELECTION, PRODUCTION & RESOLUTION) Which is 40% over the overall grade for this module.

Feedback sheet 1

Grade out of 40

23

Comments:-

- good visual consistency

- 'Bear Species' not 'Bears Species'

- no visual consistency between idents and 60 second piece

- bit slide show like but really crisp imagery, very BBC one

- silent movies - consistent, good colour pallet/well work

Feedback sheet 2

Grade out of 40

32

Comments:-

- silent movie 5, brilliantly executed

- like the way the ONE logo appears on ident 1 - although not a massive range of transitions

- maybe come in a bit soon on ident 2

- ident 3 most interesting

- polar bear, strongest ident, like the way it appears

- type too quick at the start of the 60 seconds, needs to remain on screen longer

- music a bit over epic

Action Plan

As I only have 24 hours to amend any problems and finish everything of I have to be quite rational with what I choose to do now.

- tweak the silent movies so the execution is up to the standard of ident 5

- alter the aesthetic so they all look like a set keeping the colour pallet the same

- go back over the type in the main sequence to ensure that it all stays on screen long enough to be read by the audience

- finish editing the sequence to prevent the 'slide show' effect

- review the idents to give them slightly more variation in transitions and make them all equally as interesting as ident 3