OUGD205 - IMAGE - Editorial image crit & feedback

This was a difficult crit for me as I struggled to get all my designs done for the session and had little to show. However, I did get some useful feedback which I can move forward with and finish the brief with.

The first image for the article Doctor Doctor was a bit too busy and my crit group much preferred the hand rendered feel of my initial drawings as the content of the article is quite personal and the hand crafted aesthetic brings the image to a more personal design.

The 2nd image for the article Relationship Maths the group thought my idea and concept of the formula was good as it communicates the overall message of the article using the topic itself in a symbolic form. They suggested that I make the numbers which form the heart more spaced out so they can be better identified.

The third image was incomplete so I had to explain a lot of my ideas to the groups which made it difficult to develop any designs from the feedback. Ideas I came away with though were, to make the moon a pound coin and have human figures looking up at it from earth in confusion or looking puzzled. Also I thought of doing something with the reference to latte's and TV's and having some sort of mathematical ratio or representation of the amount of lattes that pay for one TV, this would be including the topic of numbers which runs throughout the article.

TOP 10 THINGS - Progress Crit

Crit session with James Flannigan, Lisa Whitaker, Beth Yates, Yaffet Bisrat, Marty Edwards

Feedback sheet1

Strengths:-

- A lot of research

- Get your ideas onto paper and start generating visuals

- Could be animated well

Areas For Improvement:-

- Start storyboards

- Need to get more visual direction

- Define target audience

- What imagery and colours will be used

Considerations:-

- BBC1 for TV programme

Additional Comments:-

- Animal skins - textures




Feedback sheet2


Strengths:-


- thorough research, seemed to have looked at a huge range of bear material
- visually interesting subject to animate


Areas For Improvement:-


- define audience - we know its aimed @ BBC viewers but is there a specific section of these?
- How are you going to visualise the sequence - what approach to images are you going to use?


Considerations:-


- who will you aim it at and how will this effect your visuals
- an older audience will require more sophisticated visuals - a child audience could get away with a less realistic visual (cartoons)
- sound
- pace
- when is your ident going to be on during the day?


Additional Comments:-


- bears looking real
- idents - morphing bear
- dark and grumpy - misty - simple
- earth motion idea - good linking of scenes - consistent

Action Plan:-

- Storyboards need to be done

- define audience
- define time of the day that the ident will be aired

I didn't have much in the ways of test pieces or ready and usable assets for the crit so the feedback was scarce and I would imagine difficult to crit.                                                                                                                                                

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 - Lecture 7 - Copyright

Protect your ideas.

Make a living from your work

Considerations of licensing:-

- how many times are you going to reproduce it?

- how long for?

- how big will it be?

- where will it be?

Your allowed to steal when your a student as its a contribution to your studies and development as a professional and its not for any financial gain.

What is Intellectual property? (IP)

Creations of your mind.

this covers anything from logos to cocktail recipes

4 Types of copyright.

1. Patents.

- applies to new inventions - machinery, software, medicines

- 1st patent was the Qwerty keyboard

- others are the ring pull on a canned drink - inventor licensed it and was earning £150000 a day

- Fenders tremelo wammy bar for guitars

- patent leather

2. Trademarks & Logos

- TM - to register it you have to send it off with precise colour specifications and information about the design(s) the TM symbol means that a logo or design is undergoing investigation which is the stage before its fully registered

- the R symbol means that the logo or design is a fully registered trademark

- even colours can be trademarked - Shell petrol garages, Heinz Baked Beans - this means that other manufacturers of the same or similar products and services can't legally use those colours and it creates a specific identity to that product or company and they become more recognisable.

3. Registered Designs

- re designs and decorations/features of a design or product are registered some nobody else can profit from them

- not inventing something just redesigning or altering the aesthetic of it

- iPhone is a registered trademark of Apple Inc

- just because its registered, it doesn't mean its good 

(see ipo.gov.uk and registereddesigncatalogue.com)

4. Copyright

- automatic - there's no list of everyones copyrighted work like registered work

- date and recored your work/sign it

- post offices and banks stamp dates and are the best proof of date for copyright - its not done digitally as it cant be proof

- you can post it to yourself but this can be impractical and costly, plus you have to keep it sealed and this can be hard to prove if in a court case years after the postage.

- ISBN number - usually in books - you can google this and it acts as a reference to the book/product

Recent cases of ripped off work.

Richard Fairey vs Associated Press

Johnny Cupcakes vs Benny Fryingpan/Urban Outfitters

Palin vs Heart(the band)

Fair use legislation - basically personal use is ok so long as it's not for financial gain or profit as this is effectively stealing their income.

How to secure your copyright now.

copyright symbol // date (year is enough) // your name

- this should be on the work somewhere

- log it somewhere e.g. a blog or website

- store it on an external hard drive and CD

How long do they last?

- patents - maximum 20 years - after this it goes into the public domain

- this is common with cosmetics, medicine, healthcare products etc - Boots is an example of a place that sells products that have become part of the public domain

- trademarks and logos - for ever - needs renewing every 10 years

- design rights - up to 25 years

How do we use it?

George Lucas (fluent in copyright)

- wasn't paid for the first year but made a deal that he had the rights to all the merchandise and he had shares in the box office takings - he's now a multi billionaire

Andy Warhol Foundation - bequeathed his copyright to the foundation and the money goes towards things that benefit young artists with little financial backing or support

Peter Pan copyright - bequeathed to charity and provides lasting funds and help to a good cause

Deviantart.com - licenses work for no fee.

University of the Arts London

Enterprise & Innovation - Lecture 6 - Don't just get a job

Issues raised

- be passionate about what you do

- great time to get a job

- collaboration - disney - warner bros

- 4ps product place promotion place

- marketing - brand - longevity - scarcity

- getting ripped off

- risk

- overseas trade/expansion

So...

start as a student - do what you love - don't do it alone - business plan - research - professional help

- legal advice

Getting started - Mark Boulton quote - web designer

Whats a business plan?


4 parts to it.


1. Mission & Values
- who you are and what your going to do
- problems that you'll solve
- values and ethics
- how you'll make them better


2. Resources and Equipment
- how much
- what you read
- determine how much you charge


3. Marketing, 4p's, Monitoring Competitors
- how you make people engage with you
- research
- promotion


4.....




In short - what are you going to do - value proposition - resources you need - cost - how will you pay - target customers


Why do we need a business plan?


- focuses what your doing - rationalises your ideas
- set objectives - manage yourself better
- track growth - measure yourself and plan
- raise finance
- attract collaborators - they want to know the plan


Funding a business.


- banks - barclays
- the arts council - grant
- www.businessballs.com
- www.businesslink.gov.uk


Finding Funding.


- helping others to get grants
- crowd funding - google - investing
- we did this
- cooperative


Organisation.


Meredith Belbin, Charles Handy


- power culture - 1 main boss
- role culture - large organisations - breakdown of management
- task culture - temporary projects - e.g. Hollywood film industry - multiple companies and professionals collaborating on different levels
- person culture - dental practice - several dentists each with their own patients


Income.


- freelance design work - turns you into a creative labourer
- workshops
- part time teaching
- royalties from book sales
- private commissions 
- pop up shops and craft stalls
- print selling and retailing designs
- professional seminars and lectures


Jeff Bezos - founder of Amazon.com



status/legal status types


taxation in the UK - NIC


Limited Company - Taxes and debt is determined on stakeholders %


VAT 20% on all goods and services - if you make over £70000 it's obligatory that you apply VAT
Avoid this by having more than one business accounts e.g. a book publishing business, a print business and a design firm.


Richard Branson

TOP 10 THINGS - follow up crit

After yesterdays crit we went away and addressed a few of the issues raised. Today we got back into the same crit groups and revised our projects.

Highlighted yesterday for me was; channel, time and day of the programme // audiences // a defined top 10 of bears // red panda

The red panda isn't technically a bear so I've had to look into extinct bears and prehistoric bear species to get a full set of 10. I found two more species to investigate and decide upon which to choose from. These are the cave bear, closely related to the brown bear, and the giant short-faced bear, which is the largest species of bear to have ever existed. Through further research I will determine which of them to add to the sequence.

The channel I've chosen for the programme is BBC1, I picked this one as the aim of the programme will be entertainment through interest and based upon factual information. I had David Attenborough's documentaries in mind when choosing, so I will be research and looking at programmes such as Life, Planet Earth and Frozen Planet. I think 7pm will be a suitable time for the programme as its not too early for adults that will be coming home from work and may perhaps want to unwind in front of the television, and equally its not to late for children and young teenagers that may be interested or watching television during dinner time. For the day of he week I originally thought to put it on a Saturday, however, recent trends in the nature of programmes played on saturdays at this time onwards is reality TV shows and game shows such as X Factor, Strictly Come Dancing, Dancing On Ice, The Cube, Family Fortunes and Come Dine With Me which are all very popular programmes. So I have decided to put it on Monday evening which gives BBC plenty of opportunity to repeat the show on their other sub channels towards the end of the week.

The audiences then would be roughly aged 9-15 18-25 25-45 and maybe 45+

Its a very family friendly programme and the audience would mainly be determined by interest and followers/fans of David Attenborough's work as I am proposing that he would be the present or narrator.

Crit Feedback

Strengths:-

- defined subject

- defined channel, time and day

- researched actively to solve a problem

Areas For Improvement:-

- advertising the show (stings)

- need to consider the idents still, research

- more research into design direction

- refine and define colours more specifically (relevance to content and design direction)

Considerations:-

-adverts for wildlife programmes

- BBC Iplayer

- print, DVD cover

Action Plan

Research:-

- keep collecting facts

- collect more images and type to work with

- study wildlife programme adverts and title sequences

Storyboarding:-

- ideas for stings

- preliminary structure for title sequence

- design direction and aesthetic

Design Context:-

- artist/design research

- research covers for DVD's and relation to programmes

After Effects:-

- preliminary animations

- motion tests

- tutorials and experiments

- pot to VLE tech forum

Enterprise & Innovation - Business overhead workshop

These are the basic notes that I took during the session.


Holbeck mills - office space - small creative businesses - community
£250 per month spaces


saving scheme/pension - start with small amounts


rent £6000 per year


business rates - if renting a place within a business this will be built in with the rent - based on the value of the property


1000 - 1200 for electricity


if at home - charge 1/3 gas + electricity to your business to reduce tax


business telephone is more expensive and lots of phone calls will be made


postage - for clients, build it into the cost your charging them
mail shots - put aside a small amount for a one off mail shot e.g. £250


computer repairs/periferals repair £100-200


spare computer £1000


accountant £250 - to go over your taxes each year


legal advice - solicitor - £70


IP intellectual property costs - logos/brands/your business identity £60 per design


promotional costs - spend  no more than 10% of your turnover - first year spend about £2000


car costs - renting is cheap - need to learn to drive first


professional product liability insurance - covers costs of amending serious mistakes in designs


speculative presentations and quotations - can take a lot of time