Enterprise Lecture 1

The design council carries out all the major research into patterns of employment and income in the industries.

Small agency: 87% - 10 people
Medium agency: 11% - 50 -100 people
Large agency: 2% - 100+

Employ specialist small agency’s instead of big company’s.

What is marketing:

“the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably”.

Marketing roles:

·      Identifying customer needs to develop new products

·      Develop pricing strategies

·      Promote products to a target market

·      Identify distribution networks

       Specific industries

·      Add value to your product through customer benefits

·      Monitor the performance of products

1: understand needs>development concept>test concept>refine concept>market project>get feedback.

Value Proposition:

Services, technology, people, methodology, products, solutions, alliances.

Some tips for your value proposition:

·      Make it short

·      Be specific

·      Use your customers language

·      Pass the gut feeling test

Negotiate and close the deal:

·      How much it costs to do the job

·      Know how much your time is worth

·      Have standards

Customers:

·      Customers at the end of the line, consumers.

·      Business to Business customers

Basic principle of marketing:

Product: the service you offer the work you produce your creative input/

Price: relative pricing level. daily rate. Royalty. free.

Place: The best location to sell it, The sales environment. The services you offer.

Promotoion: Marketing methods. Branding. Your value propistion.

Study task 1 Why am i Here and What do i want to learn

Identify and explain 5 reasons why you choose to study on this course:

• The course offers Workshops and seminars not many other graphic design courses have for example on printing and enterprise. These extra workshops give me the edge on other graphic design students who will graduate at the same time as me.
• The college has top facilities i can use to my disposal to better myself and my work.
• I had come to leeds a few times to visit friends and i loved the city and the student atmosphere.
• The course offers really good tutor student opportunities which really help when im stuck on a project and just need a nudge in the right direction. 
• The course is very timetabled and has so much to offer, this drives me to work harder and to better myself.

Identify and explain 5 things you want to learn during your time on this program:

• I want to learn more about industry standard printing methods and techniques, printing has always interested me and its what drew me to graphic design initially.
• I want find out what direction within graphic design is the right one for me. 
• I want to learn more about building and designing websites using dreamweaver, i have always been very interested in the software side of graphic design.
• I want to learn more about magazine editorial and the type & grid system, i am still not sure what direction i want to go but type, grid and layout interests me a lot.
• I want to learn how to manage my time as efficiently as possible.

Identify and explain 5 skills that you think are your strengths:

• I am very confident when it comes to using illustrator i find that using this software can save me a lot of time to help me work more efficiently.
• Working with typography or creating my own typefaces is also one of my strengths this has so far saved me money instead of buying typefaces.
• I can confidently work within a group to brainstorm and generate idea's.
• I am a very process driver designer and after the initial idea process is over i can work very fast and efficiently to produce my final outcome.
• Always keeping a sketchbook, during my foundation program i was told to always keep a sketchbook to put idea's down and this is a skill i haven't lost, i will always write down whatever idea pops into my head and then refer back to it later.    

Identify and explain 5 things that you want to improve:

• I would like to improve my photoshop skills i feel like this is holding me back a bit as illustrator isn't that good in editing photo's, but i still havent managed to get my head fully around photoshop.
• I feel like i go onto software too quickly after a brief has been set i would like to improve my drawing ability or illustration skills so i can do more detailed work before going onto illustrator.
• Presentation skills is another thing i would like to improve i find myself still getting very nervous before talking even after a year of getting to know my year group.
• I would like to improve my printing techniques to make my work look more professional by trying different print methods and stocks.
• I would like to improve my organisational skills more, i seem to organise my time alright just not my work and briefs.

Identify and explain 5 ways that you will evaluate your work:

• I would like to put more examples of my work within my sketchbook and critically evaluate it more.
• Blog, blog, blog, blog. Blog each little stage of my work and projects this will help me understand my project better and spot cracks before its too late.
• More informal crits with students in the class, one of the biggest strengths on the course i think is that i can ask anyone for advice or feedback and in the majority of cases its really helpful.
• Student - Tutor progress crits are also incredibly helpful to evaluate my work and spot vaults and cracks.
• Keep referring back to my lists of things to do so i dont miss anything out. 

Identify 5 questions you want to know the answer to:

• How much can i charge for my graphic design services per hour?
• What type of Designer am i?
• How much money does a small design company make?
• Is a freelance designer a actual option or would i just run the risk of becoming bankrupt?
• Do i need to win any prizes to become noticed by employers?

End of module Self-Evaluation

What skills have you developed throughout this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?

• Indesign has helped do magazine layouts better and it has showed me that when working with type using indesign is much better than photoshop and illustrator
• My illustrator skills have improved A LOT, using it more and just getting better.
• Book binding skills and folding has improved did a few different variations of books this module.

What approaches to/methods of research have you developed and how have they informed your design and development process?

• Taking more photos has helped me always have at least some image to work with as a starting point.
• Getting statistics is always helpful cause u can make any info graphics images out of stats
• Using questionnaires has been helpful to back up my concepts especially and to have information i can then work with.

What strengths can you identify in your work and how will/have you capitalized on these:

• Working with Colour! finally managed to break through the wall of being scared of using colour and taking my work to a new more playful approach instead of just always designing for a serious professional audience. This will help me be a more diverse designer and i will be far more confident on briefs.
• Getting better at type and layout, im starting to be able to confidently do layouts they are starting to look a bit more professional as well.
• Using image has always been a problem due to my lack of drawing skills but illustrator has somehow helped me get my drawing back a bit, its improving and im now using illustrations in my work.

What weaknesses have you identified in your work and how will you adress these:

• Using my own drawings, not as good as i'd like to be but im getting better and finding my own style finally.
• Not as good as i'd like to be with magazine layouts and grids, going to practise this more to improve.
• My spelling is really bad, i need to spell check everything all the time.

Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?

1. Blog as i go along, this will help stop me do last minute blogging...
2. Screen print, when mass producing something. Will save money.
3. Keep my sketch book more neat so other people can understand it more clearly, The people who look at my work will be able to understand it better.
4. Document my work on illustrator better, i get really into my work and always forget to take screenshots, but i do usually note it down in my sketch book.
5. Do more big design sheets before moving into sketch book. 

Attendance: 5

Punctuality: 5

Motivation: 4

Commitment:4

Quantity: 3.5

Quality: 4
Contribution to group: 5

Indesign

Evaluation:

I like the photographs and how they work well with the grey and the black background, but the smaller image doesnt fit properly in the colour scheme. The text boxes feel far too structured, it needs a couple more paragraphs to fill the page better, it feels like my text boxes are kind of drifting around on the black background. Would look better if i used the purple for more then just one paragraph to try and break up the white text boxes a bit more. 

communications is virus feedback

After checking my e-mails from the Face to face group i found that i had 1 reply from someone who lives in leeds it said the following:

These were some of the photos he had send us! it was a good feeling knowing some people actually did get influenced by our project

speaking from experience Progress Crit

Speaking from experience

Rational

The Brief: 

How to find the ideal lunch

What do you need to communicate:

Best sandwiches, value for money, prices.

Why do they need to know?

 So 1st year dont stumble around wasting time finding the ideal lunch, this way they can get some advice from our year which can help guide them to the better places. A good lunch can make your day if your in studio all day, and to save time and money.

What will they respond to?

A book or a series of booklets, mailshot.

Where do they go?

They can be send to pigeon holes, to their halls of residence or their drawers and around college.

Evaluation

The books came out very well but i had minor problems when i came to double sided printing, in future i would use indesign instead of illustrator. The Stock i used for the covers also started to crack after a day or so, next time i would use a thinner stock which is more malleable. The Booklet on reviews felt very crowded compared to the other two if i had more time i would redesign this one as it feels to me like this book stands apart the most from the others. The mailshots were very simple if not too simple adding some description of what was in them would be an idea to try if i had more time. All in all i really enjoyed this brief but feel i got far too stuck in the beginning on the first two versions of the book which wasted a lot of time.