Damage Limitation

In October our group was tasked with organising a Halloween party for the college. Many aspects of the organisation process went off without a hitch, such as obtaining a venue, bouncers etc. but ultimately the party never came to fruition. There were a number of reasons as to why it failed the chief of which was that despite setting up a Facebook group in which everyone involved had a forum to speak out on what they felt was important, there was still little to no communication, particularly between the graphic design students and the illustration students.

The lack of communication caused a number of issues. Many people were getting on with their assigned jobs, unaware that the job was no longer needed or had been assigned to someone else, such is the case with Harry Garrens who was tasked with creating a logo/typeface for the event only to discover that the work he created was no longer needed as illustration students had created a typeface themselves and already applied it to the brand. As failure was imminent it became imperative to invoke a damage limitation exercise to make the failure as small, subtle and insignificant as possible.

With that in mind
 the next task became to protect the reputation of the group by downplaying the incident, removing all posters and references to the party around the CCAD and quietly announcing its cancellation and offering refunds to those who had already bought tickets.

Master of Trade

For this week we were assigned to create a presentation about a master of our trade who we would like to emulate, particularly in terms of their career trajectory. I chose Shepard Fairey as I admire the way in which he is able to span the mediums of design, illustration and street art while still being financially stable which is due in part to his agency 'Studio Number One' which regularly serves very important and wealthy clients such as Coca-cola, Disney, Google, Nike and many many others. This level of security is admirable.

Fairey has also had his work displayed in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, The Smithsonian and National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C., The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art in New York City, The Museum of Contemporary Arts in San Diego and The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond.

However the presentation deemed best in our group was on Raymond Pettybon. This presentation was very well researched and written out and out of all of the ones we heard, i learnt the most in this one, not only about the man but also why he is looked up to by others.

Pettibon is an American Artist based in New York who has done a lot of work for punk rock bands, particularly posters and album art for SST Records in California. He works with Indian Ink and most of his early work is strictly black and white with only the very occasional use of colour through paints, pencils and collage. It is the black and white images such as the one shown here which he is well known for.

In 1976, Raymond's brother Greg Gill formed Black Flag which would go on to be a hugely influential punk band. In the early days when the band couldn't find a bassist, Raymond filled in and also designed much of the bands artwork including their iconic logo. It was after this that Pettibons art began appearing everywhere such as on Skateboards, Tshirts, fliers, album covers etc.

Images Taken From:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/Shepard-fairey-2011-westhollywood.jpg
http://176.32.230.27/d5media.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/ObeyIconhighrescopy.jpg
http://artobserved.com/artimages/2013/12/Raymond-Pettibon-via-Guardian.jpg
http://cdn1.smosh.com/sites/default/files/legacy.images/smosh-pit/082010/ptttibon-18.jpg

Brief/Commision

For this post we were put into groups and tasked with creating our own brief. This is what we came up with:


"The Client is looking for posters and business cards for a new brothel. Thorough the creation of these you are expected to design an overall brand for the business including logo's typefaces etc.

The poster should be in CMYK and A3 while the business cards should be 85x55mm. All of the work should be subtle and at no point should the word "Brothel" be used. It should be advertised as a massage parlour named 'Red Light Massages' with the slogan being "Don't Stop, Don't Stop!" This commission is due in 6 weeks on December the 4th." 

The slogan is obviously supposed to tie into the name, Red Light, creating a legitimate reason to use a sexual sounding exclamation in what is designed to look like a more legitimate business. The poster was chosen to be A3 as that can be subtle enough not to warrant any unwelcome attention while also being able to stand out to the clientele. We had a short amount of time to create this and so couldn't go into a great amount of detail but we were able to decide that 6 weeks should be ample time to complete a relatively simple and easy brief.

Communication and understanding commisions

When receiving and carrying out a brief, communication is incredibly important. Clients often have a very clear vision in mind for what they would like you to create and often they would not want to see you deviate from that vision. As such understanding the brief down to it's most intricate detail becomes vital. Clients will also become frustrated if you become busy with work and neglect to keep in contact and kee them updated on their project. A quick email every now and again to keep them in the loop is invaluable to the clients satisfaction with your work.


- Emails -
When speaking to a client through emails it is especially important to be specific and succinct as emails, more than most forms of communication, are open to misinterpretation. The email should be read and re-read before pressing send and words like "it" and "this" should be substituted with more specific terms like "The proposal" or "our launch date" so that it is always clear to the reader exactly what you are referring to. If the client continuously replies with questions then you are not communicating effectively. 

- Voice Mails -
Make sure clients know how often you check your voice mails if they plan on leaving you some. THey should also be aware if you are out of town, what hours you work, and other ways they can get in touch. For example it could be a good idea to say in your outgoing message that you respond quicker to emails if that is the case and then clients will know to follow up their call with an email.

- Project Questionnaire -
Creating a questionnaire helps gather relevent information on the brief that may have been left out. You will also have all of their information in writing for future reference. It will also help you establish useful information about the client, such as their preferred method of communicating.

- Ask Questions -
Many people are afraid to ask their clients questions for fear of looking uneducated on the subject however clients will appreciate you attention to detail if you ask questions during the course of the project. However it is important to try and contain the questions to 1 or 2 emails rather than bombarding the client with questions. You should be careful how you phrase your questions however. If for example you say "You don't have word installed?" and they answer "yes" that could cause confusion over what he means by that. "Do you have word installed?" "Yes" is much clearer.

info taken from: http://freelancefolder.com/6-simple-ways-to-effectively-communicate-with-your-client/

Branding

"A brand is a set of associations that a person makes with a company product, service, individual or organization."

These associations are usually intentional and are a result of marketing with the goal of creating a recognizable identity. However they are occasionally out of the companies control. Such as the negative associations people would attribute to a company after a poor press review or failed product.

Coca-cola is an excellent example of branding done right. So much so that the branding has eclipsed the product itself. More people will likely be able to recognize the iconic red and white logo used in marketing than would be able to recognize the taste of the product itself.
To illustrate the idea, let’s take what is arguably the best-known product – or brand – in the world: Coca-Cola. This idea can be summed up with a quote from a coca-cola executive.


"If Coca-Cola were to lose all of its production-related assets in a disaster, the company would survive. By contrast, if all consumers were to have a sudden lapse of memory and forget everything related to Coca-Cola, the company would go out of business."


As a brand is the set of associations a company leaves in peoples minds, branding is the attempt to influence and control those associations so that the business performs better. Through branding you can make your company seem distinctive, trustworthy, reliable and any other attributes you feel would benefit your company in the long run. Complete control over your branding is impossible due to outside influences however clever use of design, marketing and other such factors will always help to create the desired effect that your branding aims to achieve.
Due to differing target markets and consumer needs, different industry sectors will require different approaches to branding but the basic approach of being clear for what you stand for and being skilled in your field always applies.

info taken from - http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/news-opinion/power-branding

Target Markets and consumer needs

When I business needs to market a product they must aim their marketing towards their target market in order to achieve effective sales. Target markets are always different depending on the product and a well-defined target market should be one of the 1st priorities of a new business. The target market can be surmised based on 3 main aspects: The Product, The Location & The Price.

The Product
Obviously different products would have different users and therefore different target markets. A child could not buy a car, a teenager is less likely to buy a hearing aid and an adult is less likely to want a game boy. This alone however does not help to define the target market as it is not always the consumer who purchases the product. for example if a child wanted a game boy it would likely be the parent who goes out and buys it as a gift and so in that example the target market would be people aged approximately 15- 30 as this incorporates people likely to consume the product as well as the parents of children and young teenagers who would not be able to afford one on their own.

The Location
This aspect is important because many products may not be useful or enjoyable outside of the context in which they were designed. for example people who live in the centre of a major city are significantly less likely to require gardening equipment than people who live in more rural areas. On a larger scale fads, trends and even cultural differences can make a major difference in the consumption of products in different countries. For example a bible will sell better in predominantly Christian countries especially overly religious ones. Therefore it can be correctly assumed that the best place to market a bible is the USA.

The Price
People likely to buy foie gras  are not also likely to buy asda smart price cola. The reason being that people who need to go for the cheaper option would more often than not be unable to afford foie gras and people who can afford foie gras will not feel the need to buy a cheaper inferior product. People with money often have an over all more refined taste compared to the more wholesome regular tastes of the everyman. Therefore the amount of money someone has will drastically effect what target market they should be put in and when attempting to figure out what your target market should be you must take the price of your product into consideration.

Conclusion
Therefore if I was given a children's book to be sold at £6.99 I would first determine that I should be marketing it to parents in their late 20's - early 30's as they are likely to be the people with children the corresponding age. I would then determine that the parents would likely be on an average to low income as the book is affordable and finally I would aim a large portion of my marketing towards people in small towns as these places tend to be more wholesome and family friendly. This would not be the exclusive demographic however as people out side of this very specific target market would also wish to buy the product and as such a smaller portion of the marketing would be aimed at other demographics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_market
http://www.answers.com/Q/Which_country_buys_the_most_copies_of_the_Bible