Today we had another act meeting. We had all gone away thinking of specific ideas for what each of us could do and then today came back to discuss them further. We talked about different works people were making, how we could merge them together better, how to setup the room and what equipment we would need. My part of the project is to oversee the firework display that we will be making. I will be overseeing it and making most of the fireworks, while organising how other people's similar work can fit into it and including other people's fireworks.
We arranged to meet up once a week to continue seeing other people's progress and making sure that we all work together rather than seperately.
Tuesday, 29 April 2008
Improving Website Traffic Seminar.
Today there was a short seminar on how to increase traffic to personal websites. It was very short but had some useful points to remember.
The main way to get a lot of traffic is to have a website with a clear purpose in the first place. Use the 'rule of three' (3 personal strengths, 3 methods of advertising, 3 mediums of advertising) to establish this.
It is also incredibly important to make sure that your website appears high in search rankings. To do this, its important to ensure that the keywords are accurate on the web page's META tags. It's best to find a niche market and use words that represent that for the META tags.
Finally, it helps to have other websites linking to your website. This is one of the criteria Google uses to determine rankings and it will help a lot if people are actually using those links to find your site.
Personally, I must make sure that I think through the purpose of my personal website clearly, find a niche to appeal to and make sure my website is promoted through other websites. I could do this by putting my URL wherever I can (facebook, myspace, forums, anything with a profile opportunity).
The main way to get a lot of traffic is to have a website with a clear purpose in the first place. Use the 'rule of three' (3 personal strengths, 3 methods of advertising, 3 mediums of advertising) to establish this.
It is also incredibly important to make sure that your website appears high in search rankings. To do this, its important to ensure that the keywords are accurate on the web page's META tags. It's best to find a niche market and use words that represent that for the META tags.
Finally, it helps to have other websites linking to your website. This is one of the criteria Google uses to determine rankings and it will help a lot if people are actually using those links to find your site.
Personally, I must make sure that I think through the purpose of my personal website clearly, find a niche to appeal to and make sure my website is promoted through other websites. I could do this by putting my URL wherever I can (facebook, myspace, forums, anything with a profile opportunity).
Sunday, 27 April 2008
What was the Brief?
Introduction
I have chosen to investigate a recent highly popular campaign. It was special because it connected different media to create something that intrigued people and got a lot of people talking. I am looking at Lost's season 2 advertising campaign.
The nature of the television show Lost is one of cliffhangers, hidden themes and withheld information. This causes it to be addictive because people are always wanting to find out more about the show's themes and narrative. Knowing this, the creators of the series decided to do something new and interesting, give them the option to do this, but not by using the actual television show.
Background of Lost
The show is the result of collaboration between ABC Studio's Damon Lindelof, J. J. Abrams and Jeffrey Lieber. The concept of the show itself is a mix of ideas taken from both book, television and video games. The main influences were from the book Lord of the Flies, the television show Survivor and the video game Myst. It became one of the most expensive television shows to create, causing one of the executives at ABC Studios to be fired because of the risk.
Who commissioned the campaign?
ABC Studios commissioned this work to promote their shows above other television network's shows.
The Hanso Foundation Campaign
The series has never shied away from having a big budget and this side-campaign for the show stayed true to this. It started by showing adverts on television. The first one advertised a rather vague foundation's website to go to. Strangely, there was not even a hint that it was to do with the television program Lost. Even if you were inclined enough to visit it online, the actual website at first glance didn't seem to tie in to the television program. This I find is a rather strange tactic. To advertise a foundation in the hope that some people will be curious enough to visit their website and then explore it enough to realise that it is a television-show tie in seems quite risky. However, people did do this and were very excited that they had found something out to do with the television show that they immediately started telling everybody who was interested in the show. This created quite a buzz because suddenly everybody was on the fake foundation's websites looking for clues about the show.
Soon to follow was another television advert with a phone number to the foundation. This provided another medium for fans of the show to get information.
The site and campaign was constantly updated, adding new sections, new puzzles, new characters and themes, keeping the Lost fan base alert for new information that could emerge any time. This kept the campaign held in people's discussion for a long time.
The Campaign - Television Adverts
The Television adverts were very short, vague but had powerful themes throughout. For example, in this advert, powerful images move around the screen. These show the ideas of science, architecture, genetics, space travel and religion. However, it also very briefly zooms in on a sinister looking man, overlooking the world. It would be easy to not notice this as it is not very clear and the images are much brighter and attention-grabbing than the dark figure. However, it is a very unsettling image and certain people would feel compelled to look into this organisation a little.
The Campaign - First Website
This was the website that existed before the television campaign began. It was very dull with no extra information for people to discover. I imagine that this was not to draw attention to it. The Hanso Foundation logo appeared a few times on things during the first season of Lost so it is obvious that this website had been planned from the start of the series.
The Campaign - Second Website
This was the second version of the website, relaunched to coincide with the television campaign prompting visitors to go there. This was the main website for the campaign. It used web technologies such as flash, video and streaming audio to create a game for its visitors. On first glance it's just a regular fancy website for a company that has lots of money to make one with. However, when exploring it you can find secret links to new pages, pages that require puzzles to be solved and passworded pages with passwords that can be worked out from watching the show. It is highly unusual to have such a big scale show reveal clues about an Internet game. This website has its own themes such as the projects that the foundation does, the people and also its opposition. The page is frequently attacked by a fictional hacker revealing a different perspective to the website and questioning the foundation's motives. This adds a whole new depth to the user's experience as it puts them somewhere between the foundation and the hacker, searching for information.
The Campaign - Current Website (27/04/08)
The current website seems to show the end of the Internet side of the campaign with a final page displaying an ending letter by the foundation's leader. However, even within this, there is a secret word you can click to display a haunting, unsettling video loop. This suggests that this isn't the end because even with this apparent 'conclusion' to the campaign, there are secrets within it.
What was the Brief?
What is the problem to be solved?
The campaign was needed to promote a new incredibly expensive television series that was a very high-risk project. The television show was hoping to be a cult-hit with a variety of themes including religion, mysticism, horror, science and philosophy. The campaign needed to tie into these themes and create more excitement about the show.
What is the solution going to be?
The solution would be to use a mixture of advertising techniques to draw more attention from the audience building up the shows reputation. This would then advertise the show further by word of mouth.
How will the solution be implemented?
The solution would have a main focal point, a website. The website would tie in with some of the show's themes.
The website would make the user want to find out more information.
The website should hold the user's interest through the duration of the television show which was to be screened at the same time as the website was active.
Who is the target audience?
The target audience is existing fans of the show. They have to be existing fans of the show or they will not understand the references to it on the website. Indirectly, this will cause a lot of discussion interesting new potential viewers and causing further excitement for the existing fans. The existing fans are interested in themes like science, philosophy, religion and technology so it is likely that they will be aged between 14-60 and mostly computer literate.
Over what time scale is the campaign going to be active?
The web campaign should keep users interested whilst the show is being aired on television. To do this, new parts of the campaign should be added over the time scale. This could be done by getting user's to use information from the television show to unlock new parts of the website. To add further interest, the website should have a fictional hacker that strikes occasionally giving the user a different perspective.
Where will the campaign be located?
The campaign will stretch across several areas. These include television shows, television advertisements, call centers and on the Internet.
How will the campaign be executed?
There will need to be communication with the show's scriptwriters to create a fictional foundation and storyline for the website to follow.
There will need to be discussion with set managers so that hints for the website are shown on the television show.
Call centers need to be set up worldwide to allow people to phone the fictional Hanso foundation.
There will need to be a script of when and how the website will update.
Conclusion
This campaign was interesting because it used a tactic that is very rarely used. Sure, interactive tie-in websites aren't all that uncommon but the way that this one is executed is very unexpected. A 'secret' advertisement campaign? In theory it should completely fail but because the creator's new the audience on such a personal level, it completely worked. I think that it's important to learn from this campaign that it's ok to break the rules of advertising and to go with what you feel will work for the product.
I have chosen to investigate a recent highly popular campaign. It was special because it connected different media to create something that intrigued people and got a lot of people talking. I am looking at Lost's season 2 advertising campaign.
The nature of the television show Lost is one of cliffhangers, hidden themes and withheld information. This causes it to be addictive because people are always wanting to find out more about the show's themes and narrative. Knowing this, the creators of the series decided to do something new and interesting, give them the option to do this, but not by using the actual television show.
Background of Lost
The show is the result of collaboration between ABC Studio's Damon Lindelof, J. J. Abrams and Jeffrey Lieber. The concept of the show itself is a mix of ideas taken from both book, television and video games. The main influences were from the book Lord of the Flies, the television show Survivor and the video game Myst. It became one of the most expensive television shows to create, causing one of the executives at ABC Studios to be fired because of the risk.
Who commissioned the campaign?
ABC Studios commissioned this work to promote their shows above other television network's shows.
The Hanso Foundation Campaign
The series has never shied away from having a big budget and this side-campaign for the show stayed true to this. It started by showing adverts on television. The first one advertised a rather vague foundation's website to go to. Strangely, there was not even a hint that it was to do with the television program Lost. Even if you were inclined enough to visit it online, the actual website at first glance didn't seem to tie in to the television program. This I find is a rather strange tactic. To advertise a foundation in the hope that some people will be curious enough to visit their website and then explore it enough to realise that it is a television-show tie in seems quite risky. However, people did do this and were very excited that they had found something out to do with the television show that they immediately started telling everybody who was interested in the show. This created quite a buzz because suddenly everybody was on the fake foundation's websites looking for clues about the show.
Soon to follow was another television advert with a phone number to the foundation. This provided another medium for fans of the show to get information.
The site and campaign was constantly updated, adding new sections, new puzzles, new characters and themes, keeping the Lost fan base alert for new information that could emerge any time. This kept the campaign held in people's discussion for a long time.
The Campaign - Television Adverts
The Television adverts were very short, vague but had powerful themes throughout. For example, in this advert, powerful images move around the screen. These show the ideas of science, architecture, genetics, space travel and religion. However, it also very briefly zooms in on a sinister looking man, overlooking the world. It would be easy to not notice this as it is not very clear and the images are much brighter and attention-grabbing than the dark figure. However, it is a very unsettling image and certain people would feel compelled to look into this organisation a little.
The Campaign - First Website
This was the website that existed before the television campaign began. It was very dull with no extra information for people to discover. I imagine that this was not to draw attention to it. The Hanso Foundation logo appeared a few times on things during the first season of Lost so it is obvious that this website had been planned from the start of the series.
The Campaign - Second Website
This was the second version of the website, relaunched to coincide with the television campaign prompting visitors to go there. This was the main website for the campaign. It used web technologies such as flash, video and streaming audio to create a game for its visitors. On first glance it's just a regular fancy website for a company that has lots of money to make one with. However, when exploring it you can find secret links to new pages, pages that require puzzles to be solved and passworded pages with passwords that can be worked out from watching the show. It is highly unusual to have such a big scale show reveal clues about an Internet game. This website has its own themes such as the projects that the foundation does, the people and also its opposition. The page is frequently attacked by a fictional hacker revealing a different perspective to the website and questioning the foundation's motives. This adds a whole new depth to the user's experience as it puts them somewhere between the foundation and the hacker, searching for information.
The Campaign - Current Website (27/04/08)
The current website seems to show the end of the Internet side of the campaign with a final page displaying an ending letter by the foundation's leader. However, even within this, there is a secret word you can click to display a haunting, unsettling video loop. This suggests that this isn't the end because even with this apparent 'conclusion' to the campaign, there are secrets within it.
What was the Brief?
What is the problem to be solved?
The campaign was needed to promote a new incredibly expensive television series that was a very high-risk project. The television show was hoping to be a cult-hit with a variety of themes including religion, mysticism, horror, science and philosophy. The campaign needed to tie into these themes and create more excitement about the show.
What is the solution going to be?
The solution would be to use a mixture of advertising techniques to draw more attention from the audience building up the shows reputation. This would then advertise the show further by word of mouth.
How will the solution be implemented?
The solution would have a main focal point, a website. The website would tie in with some of the show's themes.
The website would make the user want to find out more information.
The website should hold the user's interest through the duration of the television show which was to be screened at the same time as the website was active.
Who is the target audience?
The target audience is existing fans of the show. They have to be existing fans of the show or they will not understand the references to it on the website. Indirectly, this will cause a lot of discussion interesting new potential viewers and causing further excitement for the existing fans. The existing fans are interested in themes like science, philosophy, religion and technology so it is likely that they will be aged between 14-60 and mostly computer literate.
Over what time scale is the campaign going to be active?
The web campaign should keep users interested whilst the show is being aired on television. To do this, new parts of the campaign should be added over the time scale. This could be done by getting user's to use information from the television show to unlock new parts of the website. To add further interest, the website should have a fictional hacker that strikes occasionally giving the user a different perspective.
Where will the campaign be located?
The campaign will stretch across several areas. These include television shows, television advertisements, call centers and on the Internet.
How will the campaign be executed?
There will need to be communication with the show's scriptwriters to create a fictional foundation and storyline for the website to follow.
There will need to be discussion with set managers so that hints for the website are shown on the television show.
Call centers need to be set up worldwide to allow people to phone the fictional Hanso foundation.
There will need to be a script of when and how the website will update.
Conclusion
This campaign was interesting because it used a tactic that is very rarely used. Sure, interactive tie-in websites aren't all that uncommon but the way that this one is executed is very unexpected. A 'secret' advertisement campaign? In theory it should completely fail but because the creator's new the audience on such a personal level, it completely worked. I think that it's important to learn from this campaign that it's ok to break the rules of advertising and to go with what you feel will work for the product.
Wednesday, 23 April 2008
Portfolio Surgery
Today was the portfolio surgery. Unfortunately, there were no video game developers invited. Because of this, I decided to chose a surgery with Plum Digital Media. I am familiar with them because I went on a work experience interview with them and it was the sort of small company that I would like to work in. There was the choice to attend two surgeries but as no companies were majorly tailored to what I wanted to do, I felt I should just go to one to get some general advice on improving my portfolio and use the other time constructively on work.
The surgery was with Gary Hinton, the director. I came in wanting to know the best way of presenting myself as a creative person with original ideas with an interest in developing interesting styles. I feel that this is important in the games industry.
I presented my work to him straight from my pen drive. I chose not to develop a fancy interface for this because I wanted the focus to be on which work I should have in my portfolio to give the impression that I want rather than my ability to create a nice interface.
I asked him whether his small company did any games design. He told me that sometimes they get work to create publicity games on micro-sites. I found this surprising because the company was such a small size that I wouldn't expect them to be able to deal with that. I also asked him if my work gave the right impression. He said it did as it showed that I had quite personal ideas. He did suggest that I need to show my work-process a lot more. I showed him one project blog and he said that blogs are often seen as a little geeky and not as easy to use as flicking through a sketchbook. I agree with this. He put a lot of emphasis on people showing how they work and how they get their ideas. He feels that it is more important to see the thought process and the ablity to lay down clear ideas as they can be explained to clients easier.
From my personal portfolio presentation, I came away feeling that the work I have in it gives the right impression but that I need to supply more sketchbooks to explain the thought process.
I also watched one other person's presentation. His interest lied in graphic design and animation so it was a little different to what I was interested in. However it was still interesting. Because he wanted to be a graphic designer, his work was criticised more than mine. This makes sense because graphic design is about giving the right impression and feel. He also did not have much supporting work and was told that he should bring some more.
When concluding the interview, Gary started to discuss ways of getting noticed. He suggests developing something interesting and mailshotting it to employers and other people to draw attention to yourself. He also suggested finding a way to draw attention to myself at the degree show this year, even if it is by doing something like playing loud music. I think that playing loud music would show a disrespect to the other peoples space and work but it is definitely a good idea to find some way of draw attention to my own area.
In all, the session was really useful. It made me feel more confident about showing my work and gave me lots of ideas on how to improve my portfolio presentation.
The surgery was with Gary Hinton, the director. I came in wanting to know the best way of presenting myself as a creative person with original ideas with an interest in developing interesting styles. I feel that this is important in the games industry.
I presented my work to him straight from my pen drive. I chose not to develop a fancy interface for this because I wanted the focus to be on which work I should have in my portfolio to give the impression that I want rather than my ability to create a nice interface.
I asked him whether his small company did any games design. He told me that sometimes they get work to create publicity games on micro-sites. I found this surprising because the company was such a small size that I wouldn't expect them to be able to deal with that. I also asked him if my work gave the right impression. He said it did as it showed that I had quite personal ideas. He did suggest that I need to show my work-process a lot more. I showed him one project blog and he said that blogs are often seen as a little geeky and not as easy to use as flicking through a sketchbook. I agree with this. He put a lot of emphasis on people showing how they work and how they get their ideas. He feels that it is more important to see the thought process and the ablity to lay down clear ideas as they can be explained to clients easier.
From my personal portfolio presentation, I came away feeling that the work I have in it gives the right impression but that I need to supply more sketchbooks to explain the thought process.
I also watched one other person's presentation. His interest lied in graphic design and animation so it was a little different to what I was interested in. However it was still interesting. Because he wanted to be a graphic designer, his work was criticised more than mine. This makes sense because graphic design is about giving the right impression and feel. He also did not have much supporting work and was told that he should bring some more.
When concluding the interview, Gary started to discuss ways of getting noticed. He suggests developing something interesting and mailshotting it to employers and other people to draw attention to yourself. He also suggested finding a way to draw attention to myself at the degree show this year, even if it is by doing something like playing loud music. I think that playing loud music would show a disrespect to the other peoples space and work but it is definitely a good idea to find some way of draw attention to my own area.
In all, the session was really useful. It made me feel more confident about showing my work and gave me lots of ideas on how to improve my portfolio presentation.
Sunday, 20 April 2008
Personal Skills - Japanese
When I started the course, I wanted to have a skill that would set me apart from other designers. I decided that learning a business language would be a good idea. I decided to take up a Japanese course. Throughout the course, visitors have spoken about their Japanese clients and how they have trouble talking to them as it takes a lot of time to translate. After a little research I discovered that Japan is recently emerging in terms of design. For a country that makes heavy use of interactivity and screens, a lot of what they produce has poor graphical design. I feel that by learning the language I would be able to open both myself and employers up to a large mostly-untapped market.
I have now been studying Japanese part time for almost 3 years and this June I will be taking GCSE exams in it.
London Trip
I had not been to London since I started the course so I was excited to go back and visit the museums with a new perspective.
First we went to the Design Museum. I found this really interesting as it had all kinds of areas of design which is similar to the Sion Hill campus but on a higher level. There was a lot of interesting work on architecture of the future. I found this really inspiring because there was such a high level of detail from things like where the actual building would go and how exactly the space would be used. There was also some work on fashion and furniture. I really like the furniture and lighting ideas. I liked the work at the museum but I was disappointed that they hadn't even considered having a digital design section.
In the afternoon we went to the Tate. I was surprised how big it was. It really had every kind of work there. I found something inspiring on every floor ranging from sculpture and paintings to creatively-shot video and sound installations.
We finished the trip with a visit to Harrods to explore how London's most prestigious department store presents itself. I found it to be a little tacky. The Egyptian style elevator was a very random installation and had no reason to be there. We also looked at some of the packaging and how the space in the shop was used. It was very easy to get lost in there. I personally found Harrods to be have a cheap and tacky appearance which wasn't well suited to the products they were trying to sell.
I really enjoyed going back to London with a more developed artistic perspective and it is definitely worth it to keep going back there to see new exhibits.
Thursday, 10 April 2008
Entrepreneurship Seminars - Conclusion
The seminars today were very useful. I came not having much knowledge on business and left feeling I understood quite a bit about lots of aspects of them. From deciding what I want my business to be, how not to run it and how to make it appeal to the bank manager. It also sparked conversation with Sally and Allister (who I work with on many projects) about the possibility of starting a partnership. I was surprised on how much emphasis was put on personal attachment to the business and its values.
The things that I will remember from the seminars are the importance of satisfied customers and the best way to accumulate more is through word of mouth and networking.
The things that I will remember from the seminars are the importance of satisfied customers and the best way to accumulate more is through word of mouth and networking.
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