week 4: contacts

My focus this week has been on seeking out local sports organizations in the Michigan area with the hopes of providing them with some ideas and assistance in revamping their image, develop a marketing campaign and help them expand their exposure in their community. During this week I sent emails to a large variety of youth sports organization such as baseball, tennis, basketball, sailing, volleyball and gymnastics. Once I hear back from some of these groups, my plan is to see if they would like some volunteer help with their marketing campaign. If so, I will then schedule a time to meet with them to begin my research. I have connected with a non-profit basketball organization in Ypsilanti, called Common Bond Basketball and am planning on having our first conversation with them tomorrow. I am looking forward meeting with them and learning about their history and directions for the future. If they want to create a new image, I would like to work with them in developing their design proposal.
3 hours

I have contacted Pilates Midwest, which is a two instructor Pilates studio located in Northern Michigan. Pilates Midwest is looking to promote their upcoming event called Pink Ribbon Program, a program to help women who are recovering breast cancer surgeries with Pilates lessons. They are looking for a postcard design and it would be a great opportunity for me to help them out by combining their look and feel into a direct mailing piece.
1 hour

I am also taking a step back, and trying figure out a way to incorporate many of passions, which include sports as well as television, fashion, traveling and event planning. After talking to Erica & Amanda it might interesting to combine different topics and see where my project can go. Now I am trying to figure out where these ideas can overlap for my concept. I am also continuing reading the history of the Olympics to get an fuller understanding of planning major sports event planning.
2 hours

Next week: I plan to focus on incorporating more of my ideas and coming up with a concept as well as collecting information and details in order to begin rough layouts for designing the postcard for Pilates Midwest. I also hope to work on a visual identity for Common Bond Basketball. I can see many possibilities for the organization’s logo and it would be great to show those designs to the leaders of the group.

week 3

I started this week making sketches of possible ideas that come to mind when I began researching and brainstorming the non-profit sports company Common Bond Basketball. and the research from the website. 3 hours



I also continued reading about the history of the Olympics. I researched artists and was really drawn to the designer Otl Aicher, who was a lead designer for the Munich Olympics. Aicher's background also included doing branding for the airline Lufthansa.
http://cimaschen.wordpress.com/2010/02/20/otl-aicher/ 2 hours

Today, I met with John Keith, the Recreation Superintendent of the Rec Center. I had the opportunity to learn about the Rec Center's history and its current mission. When the Rec Center opened in 1981, it was strictly an adult fitness facility. But over the years, as they discovered what needs the community was seeking, they expanded to offer fitness to all age levels and to make fitness easier for working parents, they also started to provide childcare. The rec center's mission now is to improve the quality in people’s life by programs and facilities 1.5 hours

I am planning to continue to research local companies with the hopes of also meeting with a contact person at each location. I enjoy learning firsthand about their company's history and their mission going forward. With the info I find, I hope to continue to learn about their industry, past, present and future goals and hopefully will also be able to work on new ideas and sketches to will tie their ideas together.

Cadbury Chocolates

I am really drawn to the advertising campaign for Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocolates. The advertising agency Fallon, which is headquartered in Minneapolis along with offices around the world, was responsible for the entire campaign. Fallon took the approach with this advertising campaign to showcase the ad in an unconventional way; the commercials were for mainly for entertainment purposes that would be posted on the web through viral marketing and spread via word of mouth. In both of these commercials their message didn’t directly relate to the product, but instead the message of the commercial relates to the entire experience of eating Cadbury Chocolates. The audience will hopefully be joyfully watching these videos, which should be the same feeling they would experience when they are eating a Cadbury Chocolate bar. Both of the ads seemed memorable and with its catchy tunes the notes continued to linger in my head even after viewing the advertisement. I can picture these ads being passed on through word of mouth because of the unique topic.

In both of these commercials they didn’t directly relate to the product, but the message of the commercial relates to the message of eating Cadbury Chocolates. The audience should be joyful watching these videos just as eating a Cadbury Chocolate bar. Both of the ads seemed memorable and last in my head even after viewing the advertisement. I can picture these ads being passed on through word of mouth because of the unique topic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnzFRV1LwIo&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVblWq3tDwY&NR=1

One part of marketing a product is to be creative and take different avenues in the way that the audience would view the ad. The whole concept of producing commercials for the web is a relatively new medium with the technology always expanding. Advertising companies always need to keep thinking of how to improve, how to set new boundaries, and hopefully being the ringleader in exploring new horizons and establishing new trends. Creating new messages is exactly what Fallon has done so successfully for Cadbury Chocolates and the audience will appreciate this when viewing their YouTube ads. This can relate to the actual message of the product or how the ad is viewed. It appears as though the ads were fun to make and it shows from the final product, which I responded positively too. I also included a print ad from the campaign. Even the tagline “Glass Half Full” has a positive connotation to it, tying the whole positive connection together. The contemporary feel of this ad, with its clean, fresh, modern approach white on white textured, fun, and artsy feel of the milk gives the entire ad a sense of excitement.

Fallon also works with many other clients. One of their popular television commercials was for Citi Bank dealing with their Identity Theft advertisements. Again, this advertisement stuck out in my mind because of the odd combination of the older man and the voice of a younger woman. This ad agency continues to try new approaches to advertising; they are extremely creative with its efforts to not repeat things they have already seen but have the confidence to be different from current advertising messages.

http://www.fallon.com/work-client/10-Television-Archive

I am definitely inspired by the results of Fallon. From the outcome of the advertisements they are entertaining and make me smile and laugh. I think humor and/or happiness are great aspects to add in a project. It always helps to enjoy the process from start to completion and it would be great to experience similar emotions as I work on my IP project. Even though I do not know the exact outcome of my project I want people to have the same positive reaction to my project, similar to what I felt when I viewed these advertisements. I would like to expand with new mediums and pay attention to trends.

recap

This week I want to focus on creating my own visual identity of the 2020 Olympic games. I enjoyed having the freedom to explore themes relating to Philadelphia and want to continue my research on different cities around the world that could possibly host the Olympics years to come. As of now I see this project as creating the ideas, coming up with cities, doing historical research on all facets of the proposed themes, develop specific logos, branding and provide a marketing plan for each location.

The target audience would include all sports fan. I realize that some people are only interested in watching and cheering on specific sports while others like the competitive environment, no matter which athletic challenge is taking place at the moment. Creating interest and excitement in highlighting all countries, their teams, their athletes and following their story, their sport and their rise to the top will build the desire to see how all the competitive action takes place during the heat of the battle.

research at Duderstate and Undergraduate Library: 2 hours
sketching: 4 hours

I want to continue researching proposed locations: look at location over the past 100 years, offer areas that are many times overlooked; plead cases for those unsung heroes. Then find out historical facts about these areas, create ideas for themes, logos, branding, art history facts and incorporating the details. I’m interested in researching the history of the Olympics and meaning behind the symbols used.

a memorable project

One project that was memorable to me was from the class Aspects of Visual Language. For this assignment, we had to develop a cohesive system to explain common antonyms such as on/off, above/below, clean/dirty. One area of focus I tried to concentrate on throughout working on this project was to create my images for an audience knowing that it didn't matter what language or culture they were from. I was hoping to design symbols that everyone could easily understand and comprehend. In this process I made many drafts, always trying to improve upon my initial thoughts. I kept revising each piece in hopes that everyone would exactly understand each message I was trying to convey. The project was meaningful to me because I not only was creating unique imagines, but also kept the audience in mind throughout the entire process and take into account other people’s perspectives. I felt it was very important that the viewer understood what each symbol meant; otherwise the symbols would be lost. I also wanted to get across that these symbols make sense not only by itself but also related in this universal visual language as an antonyms with its corresponding term. One main lesson I discovered during this project was since I was designing symbols for simple words, I consequently felt that I needed to keep all my designs aspects equally simple. It is always important to take a step back and look at your design and see if others can take away the meaning as well. That is point that I can take with me for years to come.

olympics

I really liked the feedback I received on Thursday. It's great to see where I can go with this idea.

Now I am starting to think about creating a brand identity for the 3 possible bids to 2018 Winter Games. This idea combines all of my interests of graphic design, visual communications, sports and branding

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/06/22/2018-winter-olympics-finalist-cities-announced/

inspiration