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).

Enterprise & Innovation - Logo redesigns

In response to some decisions made by the group on location and some feedback from Jane I've redesigned the logo for our business. This will most probably become the final design unless we have time to readdress it later on as this isn't a logo design brief and it's purely so we can apply it to the promotional side of the business at this point.

These are the 3 designs from the first redesign of the logo for the press ad. It was brought to our attention that as we are going to be based in the north on england it might be a bit confusing to have a logo that points downwards with the arrow, this would imply that we are based in the south. On top of this it has connotations of decline which is quite the opposite of what our business is intending to do with our customers and clients.

As I have spent most of the time on the logos already It was only fitting that I take on the role to redesign it again. I haven't changed much as the concept behind the logo is quite strong and very relevant to the business.

The main angle of the redesign was to reverse the direction of the arrow, this in turn would reverse that idea of decline and downfall along with the idea that we area located in the south.

This one below wasn't working at all and i had to scrap the idea. I was trying to amend the design itself and salvage it but I realised quickly it wasn't worth the time.

This final one is perhaps my favourite. It retains the concept that we, as a business, will take our clients and refresh their brand/identity/company by 'taking them back to the start'. The arrow, which moves past the start point of the company name 'Re:' implies that our business will also take our clients further and give them that push start after revamping them. Lastly the arrow is pointing upwards and to the north/northeast which is most likely where we will be based on a realistic level.

Colour choices.

I played around with colours and layering up colours but they were more for a 'nice' visual and trying to be eye catching. We discussed it as a group and concluded that the most 'Re'-freshing colours would be cold colours like Aqua, Turquoise and Cyan. Below are some colour swatches and their application to the logo. We all agreed to stay away from greens as it would sit to closely to the idea that we are a recycling company.

Enterprise & Innovation - Group target - Research on location and personal assets

Below is a list of my personal assets that I can bring to the business to help kick start it and to save money on lots of equipment which would be difficult to find funding for.

My Personal Assets

- Desktop MacPro 21.5"

- Adobe Creative Suite CS5.5 Master Collection

- Wacom Bamboo A5 Graphic Tablet and Stylus Pen, Software included

- HP Inkjet printer, scanner, photocopier

- Books - artistic, design based, illustration based

The second target for our group which we set ourselves was to investigate 2 locations which we would consider to base our business.

MANCHESTER

Printers -

- http://www.printhouse.co.uk/print/quote/

- http://www.stretfordstudios.co.uk/

- http://www.finalprintuk.com/#price_list

Competitors -

- http://www.studionorth.co.uk/client-list.php

- http://www.growstudio.co.uk/services/20117

- http://www.cuckoodesign.com/headspace.php

- http://www.weareyoung.co.uk/

Possible Collaborators - 

- http://www.siscottstudio.com/

- http://www.ahoycreative.co.uk/web-design/web-design/manchester.aspx?gclid=CJfW5t7-3q0CFcx_fAodolKIuA

- http://www.kudoswebdesign.co.uk/

- http://www.websitedesignmanchester.org.uk/

Networking Opportunities -

- http://www.manchesterprofessionals.co.uk/?gclid=CN6SwcP93q0CFVBlfAodDHRPlQ

- http://www.business-network.co.uk/

- http://www.meetup.com/C-I-N-G/

- http://www.creativeboom.co.uk/north-west/

Costs of Rent -

- http://www.awol-studios.co.uk/

- http://www.rogueartistsstudios.co.uk/

- http://www.moneofficestudios.com/

- http://www.studiomanchester.com/

Living suitability -

- Hale

- Altrincham

- Sale

- Stockport

- Oldham

- Rochdale

- Bury

Transport -

- Magic Bus

- City Link buses

- Metrolink - Altrincham - Bury

- Taxi

- Train - Piccadilly Station, Victoria Station, Oxford Road

Education -

- Manchester University

- Manchester Metropolitan University

LONDON

Printers -

- http://www.printed.com/?tksource=seo101&utm_nooverride=1&TNkeyword=%7Bkeyword%7D&TNad=%7Bcreative%7D&TNnetwork=%7Bnetwork%7D&gclid=CJ78ppmA360CFUIMfAodvxSLnw

- http://www.crowes.co.uk/?gclid=CNnEg6WA360CFcYLtAodzGbn0Q

- http://www.solopress.com/leaflet-printing/leaflets.html?gclid=CNuMgayA360CFUhrfAodU0zAnA

Competitors -

http://aspirelondon.com/

Possible Collaborators - 

- http://www.webdesignerslondon.co/

- http://www.kdweb.co.uk/

- http://www.omdesign.co.uk/

- http://www.nicehotcuppa.com/?gclid=COGo7tn_3q0CFUcjfAod8h4Qmg

- http://www.folioart.co.uk/

- http://www.debutart.com/#/illustration

- http://www.andymartin.info/

http://www.verystudio.co.uk/

Networking Opportunities -

Costs of Rent -

Living suitability -

Transport -

Education -

Enterprise & Innovation - Tutorial & follow up group meeting

Todays tutorial with Jane was a catch up session to go over again what we needed to have done by this point and what the rest of the module holds.

Topics covered:-

- presentation - has to be 8 mins long, the last 2 mins are for Q&A on the presentation and business - we should be coming up with action plans and organising our own group progress meetings to keep on top of the work load and progress further. We've already begun these meetings but we haven't been making full use of the action plan method so this is something we will incorporate into our group at each meeting - we went over the content of the presentation and what key things should be mentioned such as SWOT, PEST and 4_'s along with anything else that is needed for the presentation

other topics:-

- skills and services

- target audience

- self promotion

- competition

- financial considerations

- location

After this we reviewed the grading criteria and how the presentations run just to give us a heads up.

In response to this we had a meeting straight after the tutorial to go over a few things and talk about some of the topics discussed in more detail, specific to our group.

Notes from meeting:

- look up Re: companies to ensure its available

- look up leeds branding - investigate what they offer and how we can differ and compete with them

- need to find a niche

- audience

- picking up freelance work now to build a financial base for when we take the business live

- this would build a client base

- availability of college facilities and affordability

- students on other course such as fashion and photography may need work doing and this builds on a networking level to gain more contacts for specific fields of work ing certain jobs, for example, photography for an editorial layout of publication

- personal assets - what we can give to the business that we have already at this point

- LOCATION - this is the main obstacle at the moment as it may define a lot of the above

ACTION PLAN - 17/01/2012

We've made a list of potential places that we could set up a business, we listed Manchester, Leeds, London, Huddersfield, Sheffield, Liverpool, Birmingham and Warrington. The plan is that we each pick two to go away and research further covering these specific topics:-

- competitors in the area

- collaborators

- networking opportunities

- cost of rent of the building

- costs of hot desking/ meeting room hire/ flexible working

- SWOT analysis

- living arrangements

- transport

- educational opportunities

The second task we have set for the action plan is to go over our own personal assets that we can bring to the company to help kick start it and reduce the overhead costing for out first year or two. This could be:-

- computers

- software

- tablets

- printers

- phones

- books

- televisions/alternative monitors

- furniture if necessary

The next group meeting will be the day before our next tutorial Monday the 23rd Jan

Enterprise & Innovation - Group Meeting 1

Date of Meeting 1st Decemeber 2011

Summary of meeting:

Although we don't have any tasks or requirements for the groups driven part of the enterprise module we thought it would be a good idea to sit down and discuss a few things about ourselves and what we can expect from each other as a team.

We went over what we feel our strengths and weaknesses are and discussed what sort of design we're interested in and the skills required.

Group members:-

- Charlie Crosby
Strengths - committed, great at planning, strong design skills on illustrator and confident presentation skills
Weaknesses - Indecisive, visual thinker, researching
Extra - had work placements

- Lisa Whitaker
Strengths - Excellent background in this area, tenacity, excellent time management, strong at research
Weaknesses - Lives out side Leeds, shy at presentations

- Claudia Winkleman
Strengths - good with words, intelligent, strong illustrator, makes a good cup of tea, organised, easy to get along with,
Weaknesses - No career direction, easily not motivated, research

- Marty Edwards
Strengths - Confident, layouts and visual thinker, good presentation, cool
Weaknesses - Bad organisation, bad punctuality,

I'm quite happy with my group as I haven't worked with Lisa, Claudia or Marty before so it will be refreshing and hopefully we will learn from each other. From memory of past groups projects that I've seen from the rest of the group members I've noticed that they all contribute and work hard, with little if not no struggle with collaboration.

Plan of Action..
Individually think about where we want to go and what we want to achieve and be located.
Gather a business plan and bring to the next meeting.
Bring research of other business of that we think what we want to be involved in so we can then model ourselves on parts of each business.