Dawn Day

Yesterday, Dawn French was installed (...like a fridge, as said by herself in her perfect speech) as Falmouth University's new Chancellor.

Some of us student ambassadors worked on the event which was received well, amongst the public and staff. The event included a procession from Falmouth's Town Moor up to King Charles Church before VIPs were shuttle bused up to Pendennis Point for an afternoon lunch and celebration. Staff members were invited to the evening party before the party continued for students at the Stannary (the Student Union).

Emma, Ella, Rob, Adam, Dawn, Camilla, Harriet and I,
were working up at Pendennis Castle for the day!

It was a beautiful day

Bulletproof - Packaging Workshop

Today, Vini and Luke from Bulletproof came down to Falmouth Uni to talk about Bulletproof, the kind of work they get up to, their clients and to present their workshop brief.

The brief was centred round the British pound and what you can actually buy in Poundlound for it. In pairs, we were given random products which, were previously brought in Poundland itself, and we had to find as many ways to add value to it. The brief stated:

"This could be by simply increasing the desirability or changing the USP of the product entirely. We have deliberately chosen products that will test your lateral thinking - so be prepared to think hard.

I worked with Callum (who I also studied abroad with in Germany in 2014 on Erasmus). We had never worked before together on a collaborative and this was quite exciting for both of us. Callum approached me saying, 

"We haven't worked together, I'm very lateral and you're strategic, aware of time allowance and always bring it back to the brief. I think we'd work together well"

We were give Caffeine, a shampoo which simulates hair growth - targeted towards to average middle-aged man with hair loss and a receding hair line. This product is relatively standard in most supermarkets and beauty stores and the fact that it has reached Poundland is evident that is is now a norm and generally widely used.

To change this, we decided to look outwards at the product. We came up with four routes:

1) FOR THE BALDIES

2) FOR THE BEARDIES

3) HAIR = HEAT

4) SHAMPOO AS A CLEANING PRODUCT

These routes were then explored for roughly about 10 minutes and we came up with a range of concepts in each, however as this was a day project (10.30-15.00) of 4.5 hours we had to think laterally very quickly. Route two, we believed had more substance about it and it challenged existing competitors....mainly because there aren't any.

We changed the target audience of our original product from middle-aged men to the 21 year old guy whose identity is just being built. He is also the life and soul at a party but not the loud one, he's got many friends and definitely has a close circle of best ones. He is independent and really wants to be seen as a real man - this is really important to him. We kind of based the user profile around our friend Marcus (yes, he has a beard and yes he knows).

Our inspiration:

What we presented to the other teams and Vini and Luke, was a totally new product but more importantly it changes and challenges category conventions. This, Callum and both feel is very important. Nowadays there is an abundance of products, old and new which clutter the shelf which say and do the same thing. This product is for beard growth, something that is very relevant and current in today's society.

The brand name is:

and the tagline is:

Who says you can't be Hill Billy?

which plays on the fact that not only is it challenging category conventions but also challenging the man himself into standing up and doing he wants. Maybe, he is not allowed to grow a beard at work (not literally of course...but you know what we mean)

We worked on the ideas and strategy behind this for the majority of the workshop and the mock-up of the packaging was squeezed into 25 mins. 

Callum and I presented and are both happy with the idea and packaging design we have come up with. We really want to work further on the packaging for another day together with further extension on the promotional and advertising implications. This was a very quick project and we are aware it's not at its highest standard at the moment. We already know who we might photograph....Marcus.......

Thanks Vini & Luke for coming down to Falmouth. We all really enjoyed the workshop and being thrown into the unknown very quickly with products we have never worked with before in such a fast paced environment. 

My focus group set up idea!

Following recent events, I have decided to set up a focus group company run by myself, where I will take food and drink products off existing shelves and bring together groups to talk about them. I have been crafting this idea over a number of weeks so this is something I have not thought lightly about however today was the day I put action to the plan. I am a quick thinker and I am one to act upon carefully thought out plans and strategy which my passion and enthusiasm will be evident as I follow this idea through.

I have already contacted a few food and drinks brands which I hope will be interested in this market research activity. There are both benefits to the brands which come on board and myself. For them it will provide data surrounding consumer behaviour and the opinions about their products and why and when the audience chooses to engage with it. The benefits for me are to allow me to understand more about brand and consumer experiences and engagement. I really want to pursue a career in advertising or marketing and so this will really help me understand more about the industry. 

In the growth of this idea I am hoping to get some students from the course I am involved in too as when I have spoken about this have become interested. I am really looking forward to which brands want to come on board. If you have any thoughts or want to be involved don't hesitate to contact me via email. I would love to hear from you.

Design storm at the Met Office

Ross Middelham who is the digital designer at the Met Office in Exeter invited some students from Falmouth University, Plymouth University and Winchester University up for the day for a design storm. It was a great day and I learnt an incredible amount and just want to share it with you all.

The day started at 08.45 so we had to leave Falmouth at 06.30, however Ross and the team warmly invited us with tea and coffee. The Met Office building itself was not what I expected, the building is incredibly cutting edge to go with all its high-tech equipment. The building was opened on 21 June 2004. 

Ross introduced the whole event with a presentation about what the Met Office Content Team get up to on a daily basis. He delivered this through a fantastically engaging video which explained what it is like to work in a government organisation and the importance of design in the strengthening of the brand. Personally, I did not expect a presentation like this - it was very interesting to find out about what goes on inside an organisation this scale as what it refreshing to see how much fun they have as a team.

Michael Robinson, former Head of Graphics at the Guardian News & Media (2002-2012) was the keynote speaker for the day who provided us all (students, practising designers and members of the Met Office) with such valuable information. I would just like to capture some things which Michael said which will always resonate with me.

'Be as good as you can'

'You can't impress the client with the size of your 

office but only you as yourself'

'A designer and client must have a close relationship'

'Digital has made print better'

'A designer solves other people's problems' 

Many things which Michael along with Ross touched a lot about what my dissertation is on where I am exploring the rise of brand accessibility and its result in terms of creating mediocre marketing content which is infiltrating people's daily lives. Elliot Lyons who is the Met Office Brand Manager also provided some thoughts too as he presented purpose and aims in the Met Office as a brand themselves.

D2 Creative, Bluestone 360, Meor Design were the three 'agency life' speakers who provided insights into what it's like to work at their agency. Each had different approaches to tackling design issues and a range of different offices in some beautiful locations around Cornwall and Devon. Lunchtime provided the chance to network with the agencies and other practising designers such as David from River Collective. Have a look at all their work by clicking on their names.

The afternoon was the chance to work in teams on the challenge set by Anna Slingo who is the Social Media Manager at the Met Office. We were divided into 4 teams - Clouds, Snow, Rain and Wind and were given content to work with. Anna explained that through social media they reach a span of 700,000 people. Social media is such an important platform to use in today's society as it reaches a huge amount of people in a short space of time, much faster than the roll out of a print campaign. She uses infographics, videos and images to tell stories as she finds 140 characters in a tweet too difficult to sometimes put across a message. This is easy to understand when a number of issues she is addressing online are very scientific and need to put across the right information without confusion. 

Using the content we had to produce engaging content within our topic. I was in the 'snow' group and worked with 3 students from Winchester University, a tutor from Winchester and Sean Russell from NHS Choices. 

We created a 2 week campaign which included the run up to snow falling, the snow fall day and the recurring effects. The main idea revolved around a 'snow day' and would initially engage the audience with a question via twitter with the question 'what will you do on your snow day?'. A tool was also mocked up which would generate further interest and was inspired by my Christmas holiday. The Christmas just gone was particularly special for me as I spent it with my younger cousins which I haven't done in a number of years. They were all very excited about Christmas and found the Santa Tracker particular fun to follow every minute of the day. This Santa Tracker fuelled the idea of a Snow Tracker which could be potentially created by the Met Office to engage younger audiences about the possible occurrence of a snow day which could give them the day off school. The Snow Tracker could be downloaded through the Met Office website onto devices (iPad, mobile and tablet) and would generate push notifications. The user could watch their 'snowman' grow which would represent the likelihood of a snow day in their area. To follow their area all they have to do is supply their postcode. 

We all worked on the campaign at various touch points from the initial spark of interest to the very end. It was great to work with people I had never worked with before as was it interesting to understand how different people liked to start off live briefs. I really liked Sean's approach about creating user profiles to understand why we want to engage with audiences by questions ourselves. This was similar to the approach which fffunction take when tackling briefs.

After an hour and a half we had to pitch in groups for a social media campaign to 2 judges and the rest of the members of the design storm. All the campaigns were so great, I was very impressed by Will a student at Winchester University who developed an app in the short time frame where you could draw clouds on paper and then reflect them into a camera where it would translate digitally in real time on a computer.

Anna and Michael decided that the 'snow' team which I was involved with would be the overall winners and we each took home a pair of Met Office socks. Perfect for my next 'snow day'!

The whole day was so fascinating and totally not what I and the other 3 students from Falmouth University had originally expected. I love surprises like this.

Laurie Stansfield captured the day by being the graphic facilitator by illustrating our thoughts and ideas throughout the day. Her work is beautiful and she works so fast, I would definitely recommended checking her work out.

Thanks to the Met Office content team, Ross, Anna and all the speakers for organising the day.

Campaign Review - ‘Mistakes’ by the New Zealand Transport Agency

Recently I have been applying for graduate placements as a graduate scheme is what I really want to be involved in once I leave Falmouth University. 

Each graduate scheme asks for different things, this is a campaign review that I had to write for the idm summer school application. I came across this campaign fairly recently during a strategy team meeting on my course as it related to a peer's project she was working on. 

‘Mistakes’ Anti speeding campaign by the New Zealand Transport Agency

Earlier, this year this advert was part of New Zealand’s Transport Agency’s ongoing campaign to clamp down on excessive and unnecessary speeding, which carries the compelling message ‘No one should pay for a mistake with their life’. It’s executed perfectly and has personally struck a cord as well as inspired me.

It features a time-freeze scenario after a car is seen pulling out from a junction without looking properly whilst another car is seen speeding down the road.The accident doesn’t follow immediately as both drivers involved get out of the their cars and walk towards each other as they interact through a ‘relaxed’ conversation. It is evident that they now both face serious danger but the advert doesn’t focus upon that, it focuses on the emotions each driver has.

Compared to previous campaigns by other governing bodies, be it about drink driving or safety in the car in general, this is one with the absence of disturbing imagery. Previous adverts I feel have always followed a certain pattern which are ‘blunt’, brutal and use direct footage of an actor being hit by a car along with an impersonal voiceover – yes these have worked and are still powerful but this advert by Clemenger BBDO really turns the issue of speeding on its head.The 60-second advert focuses time into depicting the ‘storytelling’ aspect of the scenario, which is unlike what previous adverts have done as the audience sees a different side of a road traffic accident. Both drivers talk to each other, in a controlled manner and the direction of the advert really focuses in on this relationship which I find very poignant; it allows the audience to really step into the individuals lives and realise the pain on their realisation of their own actions, their ‘mistakes’.

There is a sense of silence, which in turn dramatises the conversation, as it is certain that both drivers wish they could turn back the clock. It’s the pleading, which is so heartfelt from the Dad as he mutters the words ‘Please, I’ve got my boy in the back’.The boy is seen looking straight on, it’s like he is just waiting for the accident to occur in the final frames, this is particularly chilling.The fact that both drivers are at fault, and not one is more at fault than the other is strong; it highlights how catastrophic actions can be.

This campaign by Clemenger BBDO emphasises how the actions we commit not only have an effect on ourselves but others, those involved immediately and those families to which the people belong. Ultimately, we share the road with other drivers – so we should think before we share the consequences and our ‘mistakes’ with them, which costs lives.This advert emphasises my ongoing quest to always to sit back, find bold insights and look at things from another angle. From a long history of driving campaigns, this definitely has reinvented the meaning of safety awareness, which questions the audience and prompts conversation. 

The requirement of this essay was that it had to be under 500 words - mine is 499 words.

fffunction workshop

Today the last fffunction workshop was about information architecture, sketching, prototyping and user testing. 

We used the same hypothetical user profiles we created last week to create a structure for our website. For this we planned a website which would work for them considering all the potentials, failures and options. We then expanded it after to think about other users and what might drive them in their decision making when they work across the site. This got us really thinking as we had to create labels, push buttons and tagging. 

This was all done through simple sketches and the group I was working in really thought about how it would translate across different devices and platforms. This is really important when you are working on the content and how it will work across multiple devices with different people, each with different needs.

This then led to a prototype sketch with a model iPhone to mock up what we had produced in the small timeframe. 

Every site needs focus grouping or user testing and this was no difference. We used students who were not in the group to user test the site for us, this enabled us to check and see if we had considered each choice and we presented each task differently to each user. To aid us we also asked the user if they could think out loud when they were deciding on their choices.

The whole workshop led by fffunction was incredibly valuable and I would like to thank Adam and Dan for coming down each Friday. I am interested in keeping in touch to join in with their 'hack days' as this sounds very interesting and positive.

Propercorn Delivery

my amazing delivery

Thanks propercorn for the free delivery! I am working on the brands creative brief which is in association with the 2015 YCN student awards. They are sending these huge boxes to each student who is working on the brief.

This is the 'creative challenge' aka the brief:

How can we creatively bring to life our ethos of ‘done properly’ to our customer?

We want to consider the daily touch points of our customer’s life where they will be most receptive to engagement. How can we creatively connect with them in these moments and give them a memorable burst of our brand and beliefs. This could be in the form of a campaign or piece of communication in a more traditional sense, or it might be an altogether more radical physical engagement or experience.

This is deliberately a very open brief, and we’re interested in your individual interpretation. If you are studying animation, you might want to think about how we could bring our illustrative world to life. As an illustrator, you might want to extend the narrative of our pack design. If you are interested in consumer experience, you may want to revolutionise the corner shops we are stocked in. As a brand we want to challenge the status quo, so welcome creatives from all disciplines.  

These yummy supplies of @propercorn are helping the creative process flow as I work on the brands student brief in the studio today. Can't wait to see what I come up with!

Find out more about YCN and all the briefs http://www.ycn.org/awards/ycn-student-awards/2014-15-ycn-student-awards/briefs?group=1