Collaborating

Based on the above from with we had to for a contract and sign it

4 YCN Briefs

M&S

Package the perfect M&S picnic

Background

Marks & Spencer is famous for innovation, convenience and the quality of its food, and is often the first place you think of when shopping for a special occasion like a party or picnic. Anyone attending a summer event like Wimbledon or an open air classical concert will be familiar with a sea of M&S cool bags brimming with picnic food.

The creative challenge

Your brief is to create the ultimate picnic pack. It could be themed around a type of picnic or event, or around the type of food included eg. a romantic first date or anniversary picnic, a Spanish picnic, a picnic for an open air classical concert, a foodie’s gastro picnic etc. You should include everything needed for the perfect picnic: food (sweet and savoury), drinks, cutlery, plates, napkins etc. Think about the occasion, then devise the menu and decide on the physical packaging for all the food items and design of each item. Consider the overall carrier. It could be a picnic hamper, a cool bag or even just a cardboard box, but it will also need to be designed within the theme. Consider physical packaging; your design needs to be fit for purpose while creating minimal waste/refuse. The customer should feel like this is a fantastic treat and that M&S have thought of everything to make the occasion perfect.

Target audience

We have a wide customer base so you can aim this product at anyone from  young, affluent singles or couples, families, older people whose children have left home etc. Consider who your target audience will be and tailor the picnic to that group.

Mandatories

Your design must include the M&S logo which is available in the project pack.

Considerations

Consider print process and number of colours – all packaging should be printed from a maximum of six colours per item. Consider whether you will use four colour process (plus two specials if needed) or all specials. Bear in mind that M&S is a brand which is known for Quality, Value and Trust and we have a strong eco policy (refer to the Plan A website), so all designs should be true to the brand. Consider teaming up with other students - designers or illustrators. A physical pack designer could team up with a graphic designer - or an illustrator or photographer could be commissioned by a designer to create imagery. Teamwork is not essential but is much more representative of working in a commercial environment.

Deliverables, Artwork and Additional Information

For guidance on how to submit your work please adhere to the main deliverables information in the Student Awards section of the YCN website. Any additional supporting information referenced in the brief can be found in the supporting project pack.

The Feel Good Drinks Company

Get fruity, make people smile and kick start your career

Howdy

If you’re looking for an easy peasy pull-things-together-the-night-before type brief, then move along now. If however, you’re up for having some fun and producing creative work that’s so good your granny will weep, then this is for you. Why all the effort? Well apart from the chance of getting a commendation for your work, why not have a look back through our previous national campaigns? You’ll see that if a student’s idea knocks our socks off, we’ll go ahead and work with them to make it happen. Yep, we’re talking actual, nationwide campaigns. We should probably point out, we’re a small company and don’t have bags of spare cash, so if your work gets picked you won’t end up with your own private yacht. But you would end up with a stand-out CV and something interesting to tweet about for a change. And if you think we’re telling porkies? – just ask Debbie Hulme, a previous YCN entrant who saw her Feel Good Drinks idea on E4.

Background

In 2002 three guys who worked together at Coke decided to leave the rat race and form their own soft drinks company. They wanted to make healthy drinks that actually tasted good, create a brand that people liked and a business that made coming to work fun, even on Mondays.

Feel Good Drinks make 3 different ranges of delicious drinks in lots of fruity flavours including: Orange + Mango, Apple + Blueberry and Cranberry + Lime – we like to leave the boring flavours to everyone else. Every Feel Good Drink is packed full of 100% natural ingredients and absolutely no nasty stuff like artificial chemicals or spoonfuls of added sugar. (We wouldn’t want to drink that stuff, so we don’t expect you to either.)

The company now sells one Feel Good Drink every 2 seconds, but we’d like to sell more, and that’s where you come in.

The challenge

One word. Awareness.

We know that when someone tries one of our drinks, they’ll give it a big thumbs up. The trouble is, not enough people know who we are. So we’re looking for creative ideas that will dramatically raise awareness of our drinks, and just how darn tasty they are. We need you to think big - we want to see ideas that stop people in their tracks and make them feel instantaneously good, so good that they will grin from ear to ear. Below are two briefs. Let your creative taste buds be tickled and take your pick (of course if you’re feeling very industrious, we won’t stop you doing both...)

Brief 1

Make us famous.

Create a campaign that communicates 3 simple things: our brand name, what our drinks look like and that our drinks are choc-full of natural, tasty, fruitiness. And do all this in a way that is unique, memorable and makes people laugh.

Brief 2

Fruit not sugar.

We asked some people if they like their soft drinks to have lots of added sugar in them and they said no. No surprises there, then. Of course, we don’t add any sugar to our drinks – nada de nada, niente
di niente, absolutely zilch.

You might be surprised to hear though, that some of our competitors do add sugar to their ‘healthy’ drinks - and lots of it too. The ASA has banned both Vitamin Water and This Water from using misleading ads, which was in part due to the amount of sugar they heap in their drinks. They found that one bottle of This Water could contain up to 42g, that’s 8.5 teaspoons. A bottle of Vitamin Water was found to contain 23g, so just the 5 teaspoons then. 

We know you can make great tasting natural juice drinks without adding sugar – we do it everyday. We think that when someone chooses a healthy drink they don’t want or expect it to have heaps of sugar in it. We want you to come up with an idea that tells people the facts, so they can make an informed choice next time they’re at the chiller. Can you communicate this in a fun and feel good way?

Creative Requirements

Often the best ideas have the potential to work across all manner of channels. Do consider all types of new and traditional media, including on-pack and even point of sale if you want to. You may also have noticed that we’re big fans of digital, spending time with our Facebook and Twitter families and spreading our message virally. The idea is to spread the word, so talking to consumers directly can’t be a bad idea. Feel free to incorporate the Feel Good Drinks logo and images of our bottles into your work where appropriate. For this work, we’d like you to focus on our small bottle still and sparkling juice drinks. Images of these can be found in the brief’s project pack.

Target Audience

16-34 year old adults who are happy to pay a little bit more for a healthy, tasty soft drink that isn’t full of junk. They are an up-beat, look-on-the-brightside, sociable bunch, who like to work hard but always find time for some feel good fun and games.

Tone of voice

PMA people - you can’t call yourself Feel Good Drinks and be miserable! The message should always be friendly, fun, and just a little bit cheeky. Please don’t get all serious on us now. It’s about talking to people on their level, making a connection and making them smile.

Additional Information

No cutting corners! Read all about us at our site and stay up to date with what we’re doing by becoming aFacebook fan or a Twitter follower.

And remember, Drink Good...Feel Good!

Deliverables, Artwork and Additional Information

For guidance on how to submit your work please adhere to the main deliverables information in the Student Awards section of the YCN website. Any additional supporting information referenced in the brief can be found in the supporting project pack.

Heinz Salad Cream

Get the young eating Heinz Salad Cream again!

Background

Heinz Salad Cream was the first brand to be developed exclusively for the UK market by the HJ Heinz company in 1914, it took 8 years to perfect! The brand has been a UK favourite for almost 100 years. From the 1920s to the 40s, Heinz Salad Cream had it all its own way: it was simply the only salad dressing on the market. During the Second World War, it was particularly popular, giving the often bland wartime foods more flavour.

But times change... new dressings and seasonings became available and the growth of foreign travel inspired people to try new food! Salad Cream, a treasured taste of the past, now had real competition.

Consumers expanded their sauce consumption to include mayonnaise and other salad dressings and the fortunes of Heinz Salad Cream started to decline. By the 1990s it was clear that the brand needed some fresh thinking and impetus, or due to declining sales Heinz may have to stop making Salad Cream. This news was met with a huge public outcry of affection for the brand ‘save our salad cream’ so plans were reversed.

Later that year Heinz Salad Cream received a new bottle shape reminiscent of the 1914 original as well as quirky advertising across TV, radio and posters, and an interactive website. Since then other memorable campaigns from the brand have been the sponsorship of Emmerdale (2006), Ladybugs Picnic TV advert (2008) and Gran TV advert (2010).

More recently Heinz Salad Cream has been included as part of the ‘It Has To Be Heinz’ TV and radio commercials. Heinz Salad Cream is still the ‘Original Tangy Taste’ that makes it one of Britain’s best-loved sauces.

From a goodness perspective, Original Heinz Salad Cream is at least 50% lower in fat than the standard mayonnaise market leader, has no artificial colours, flavours or preservatives and is rich in Omega 3. The company launched its first ever flavoured salad cream in July 2010 – Lemon and Black Pepper, which expanded its usage to chicken and tuna. A second new flavour – Cucumber and Dill was launched in March 2011, delicious with burgers and fish. Both have brought in new salad cream fans and brought modernity to this heritage brand.

The creative challenge

Today Heinz Salad Cream holds a special place in many people’s hearts as a brand they remember from their childhood; happy carefree summer days. The unique tangy sauce adding taste to favourites like cheese and cold meat sandwiches and salads.

However, over the years as food choices have become more varied and there are more sauce alternatives on the market, many consumers have slowly forgotten about Heinz Salad Cream. Recent research has shown that some consumers perceive it as being old fashioned and less versatile/relevant than other sauces. Although the product is very widely stocked in supermarkets some consumers struggle to find it when dining out (it’s not often found in cafés or pubs) and as a result it’s not at the forefront of many people’s minds.

What we do know is that when people try it, they really love the taste of Heinz Salad Cream and start buying it again! We need to re-engage consumers to remind them of the great taste Heinz Salad Cream has. Our challenge is to get more 18-29 year olds eating Heinz Salad Cream, a young consumer market who may favour mayonnaise instead or haven’t eaten salad cream for years. We want to embed new eating behaviours for Heinz Salad Cream, making it more relevant for ‘today’s’ foods e.g. pizza, chips/potatoes, chicken and fish, sandwiches, wraps or as a dip. Mayonnaise adds moisture to food where salad cream adds both moisture and taste.

Brief

Develop a creative campaign that attracts young people to Heinz Salad Cream, encouraging them to eat it on or with ANY of their favourite foods. Reinforce the message that Heinz Salad Cream is a tasty and versatile sauce for today.

Creative Requirements

Get young people to either discover or rediscover the brand. Generate excitement around this unique quirky brand and engage consumers through upbeat/fun messaging. Get young people talking about Heinz Salad Cream again and be proud to say that they eat it!

The idea can take any format you feel appropriate. It would be ideal to have the potential to work across all manner of channels (new and traditional media, packaging, new products ideas, even the name is up for grabs!). Feel free to incorporate the Heinz Salad Cream Keystone logo, ‘It Has To Be Heinz’ logo and images of our packs into your work where appropriate. All assets can be found in the project pack.

Target Audience

18-29 year old adults, who are looking to add taste/tang to their favourite foods and sandwiches. They are an up-beat and sociable bunch, who love their food.

Brand Benefits

Heinz Salad Cream adds a unique zing to food.

Mandatories

Heinz to be used in capital letters. Creative/campaign must have food values (but not high brow food). Creative/campaign brings modernity to the brand. The ‘It has to be Heinz’ logo is also included in the brief’s project pack. If you wish to use this, please note that it shouldn’t be used as a standalone logo, but rather within a sentence/context, eg. To zing up your sandwich ‘It has to be Heinz’.

Some Links

Read all about us at our site (www.heinz.co.uk), or become a Facebook fan (www.facebook.com/HeinzSaladCream) and chat with other fans who adore the taste of Heinz Salad Cream.

Previous TV advertising links:

Heinz Salad Cream - Turning Salad
Heinz Salad Cream - Pizza
Heinz Salad Cream - Poster Eating
Heinz Salad Cream - Tramp
Heinz Salad Cream - Lady Bug Picnic
New Heinz Salad Cream Advert

Deliverables, Artwork and Additional Information

For guidance on how to submit your work please adhere to the main deliverables information in the Student Awards section of the YCN website. Any additional supporting information referenced in the brief can be found in the supporting project pack.

BRIEF THAT I DONT LINK THE LOOK OF

Peacocks

Develop a piece of communication, or a campaign, to increase brand awareness of Peacocks

Background

Peacocks is one of the UK’s leading value fashion retailers offering clothing, shoes and accessories for men, women and children.

Peacocks was founded in 1884 by Albert Frank Peacock. From the mid-1990s onward Peacocks experienced significant development and growth, with a greater emphasis on fashion, which helped to propel the brand into today’s market.

Currently, Peacocks has over 600 stores in the UK and 112 international stores. The majority of UK stores are in secondary locations on local high streets or in small shopping centres.

Peacocks’ stores can be broken down into 11 Fashion stores, which are in prime locations such as St David’s Centre in Cardiff and Metro Centre in Newcastle. There are 220 Concept stores (these stores have the new black fascia) and 353 Main Chain stores, which still have the old fascia with the purple and yellow logo. Peacocks also has 6 concessions in Morrison’s, 27 concessions in Co-operative stores and 1 Alliance concession store.

As Peacocks grows so does the support for its company mission: “to be the best value for money clothing retailer, always delivering outstanding customer service.”

In 2009 Peacocks launched its Pearl Lowe range, shifting the company to a new position in the market. Since then the brand has grown in reputation, picking up a number of new fashion-inspired customers. Peacocks continues to strengthen its fashion credentials with more Pearl Lowe ranges, also involving Pearl Lowe’s daughter, model Daisy Lowe.

In the early part of 2011, Peacocks introduced the ‘Boutique’ Collection – which, as well as encompassing the Pearl Lowe range includes ‘Peacocks by Design’, a catwalk-inspired premium womenswear range and several bought-in brands.

Peacocks’ transactional website was launched in late 2007 and currently has a database of over 200,000 customers and over 55,000 Facebook fans.

The challenge

To increase brand awareness of Peacocks and enhance Peacocks’ fashion  credentials, without excluding the existing ‘family’ customer. This may involve using above the line marketing channels, such as devising an advertising or digital campaign, sponsorship, or through below the line marketing activity, including PR, window schemes/displays, promotions, in-store point of sale and packaging.

Target Audience

Women and men between the ages of 18-45, who:

• Are price conscious
• Fashion orientated
• Need clothes to be functional
• Seek value prices and good offers
• Follow trends
• Seek quality
• May have families and are not just buying for themselves

You may want to focus on a specific customer group within the target audience or create a campaign that has broader appeal.

Preparation

Suggested preparation might include store visits and an assessment of the website.

Deliverables, Artwork and Additional Information

For guidance on how to submit your work please adhere to the main deliverables information in the Student Awards section of the YCN website. Any additional supporting information referenced in the brief can be found in the supporting project pack.

OUGD202 EVALUATION

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

I have learnt a new piece of software (After Effects) and a completely new set of skills to do with motion graphics, as I have never before worked with time. To begin with I found the software incredibly complicated, there were so many small tweaks that could be made to a composition, and at the start it took a while to get my head around how to even place a key-frame effectively, however the Silent Movie brief I started to get the hang of the basics and found the whole program much more enjoyable. I now understand and can work in 4D. In this program I have learnt how to use layer masks, different variations of speed, layer effects and how to accurately match audio to movement. Over this whole module I have learnt how to storyboard and use this as a backup for when my ideas go wrong on after effects. It helped me to think about the beginning, middle and end effectively as well as the pace of how the sequence would go. I think that one of the main skills that I have developed over this module is organisation. I have found that this is the module where even the slightest slip in organisation can be detrimental to your sequence. I now label every layer, photograph, illustration, vector and file, something that I never did before – this is a skill that I will now carry on for the rest of my career and can apply to every part of my life and work.  I have also learnt to render every part of the composition weather it is good or bad, it is the same concept as showing all the work that I have done for a project weather I like it or not. This is something that I was not doing most of the way through the module until I realised that without rendering every experiment in After Effects, I would have no evidence to show.

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

I have a boarder understanding of motion graphics though researching and looking at videos online and on TV and always thinking about how they enter and leave the composition, what effect they have on the composition and how I can integrate this technique into my sequence.

I have learnt how to story board effectively, and through this I have a clear backup plan for when and if my work goes wrong – in the early part of the module (for Silent movie) I learnt how to explore every single option there was available to even the smallest type of motion. Although I found story boarding for images and longer compositions slightly harder in the Top 10 Brief, I still understand the importance of this method.

What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?

I feel that my research into different types of videos and how text and images come together has been stronger in this module than another other, but there is always room for improvement. My organisation skills have really improved over the course of this module and it has really helped every part of my work. I feel that I am thinking more about the target audience in this module; something that I have always not focused on so much in pervious modules. I also find that I am now a lot more aware of the 3D space around the frame. I think that I chose an effective colour scheme that was relevant to my subject matter.

What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?

Storyboarding was my main weakness of the Top 10 project. I Started the whole project with the idea of creating a similar video to all the festival promotion videos – however the difference between them and my project was that they were all showing footage from the festival and not still images. I kept having mental blocks about how to start and end a sequence, I think this was because I was trying to make my ideas far too complicated and not have a defined style. Due to there being too much going on, it meant that when I was thinking about how my indents would go, the start and end would be completely different and I could never join the dots on what to put in between. Another reason why I feel I didn’t do so well with the storyboarding was because I didn’t grasp how short 10 seconds really is, I kept trying to story board for the 60 second title sequence instead of breaking the designing down into manageable chucks. I found it incredibly difficult to begin with (with the top 10 project) to think in motion and how one piece of text and image would flow / move into the next. This wasn’t a problem for the silent movie brief as I was just working with one word and trying to portray one motion.

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

1. Define a style of working before I start the project – I need to chose if I am going to do just type, type and image or just image before I start working as throughout the project I found that I kept changing my mind. To start with I wanted to work with a predominately image based sequence,  however my strength and interests are in typography – this is something I should have played. Even if I had decided to chose to use mainly images, I feel that my Photoshop skills also let me down when trying to change photographs.
2. Research more techniques that I have learnt in the after effects sessions and ask for more help about the program – I found that because I was in such a muddle for what I wanted to put in the sequence that I spent a lot of time trying to story board out my ideas which then didn’t leave much time to create the video, this then panicked me and so I just used basic tools in after effects. If I had more time I would go back and master some of the more advanced effects so that my video would look more professional
3. Keep it simple – from the start to the end of the top 10 project I was trying to bring too many pieces of information / ideas / photographs together to try and make the project more complex but in the end it just made the compositions look cluttered, unorganised and not very clear.
4. Time management – I spent too much time worrying and attempting to story board rather than selecting the appropriate media, testing out, rendering, getting feedback and making adjustments to my idents and title sequence. This meant that I soon began to run out of time and I feel that I may have rushed the last part of the project.
5. Planning ahead – always have a clear plan of what I am going to create, how I am going to create it, the time it will take to create it and leave time for any improvements. This will make my projects more professional and finished in my opinion. 

CD packaging design

I wanted to keep the design and format of the CD packaging fairly simplistic but keep it in theme with the idents so I used the same types face and colour scheme of the E4 endings for each of the videos. 

For the inside I wanted to use the main picture and the speakers - just a clip out of one section of the second ident. 

I chose a simple 3 page open out (gate format) for the packaging because I feel that it was appropriate and was designed just to promote what was on the disk rather than to be mailed out to people. It also means that the inside of the packaging can be opened up and used as a half an a3 poster which people can pin up on their walls showing the list of the top 10 festivals. 

OUTSIDE

INSIDE

PHOTOGRAPHS

Open publication - Free publishing - More graphic design

I am very happy with the way the packaging has come out. I printed it on 245 gms matt paper giving the packaging a strong, sturdy and protective casing for the disc and ensuring that it doesn't get damaged. I think that the packaging successfully reflects that theme of my project and the right target audience. 

Title Sequence

Title Sequence - Top 10 Summer Dance Music Festsivals from emily fairbank on Vimeo.

POST PRODUCTION SCREENSHOTS

Open publication - Free publishing - More graphic design

In progress title sequence

First 14 seconds


Part 1 - intro to main video from emily fairbank on Vimeo.

The motion graphics in this video only last 14 seconds even though the clip says it lasts 1 min. Here I was just looking at how to begin the whole title sequence and I felt that the changing colours of the sunset was a good place to start. Even though the blue of the last sunset image is not as dark as the night sky as a festival would be but I think that the transitions between colours are successful at representing the change from afternoon sun to the night at a festival.
I wanted to open the sequence with a line - something to sum up what a festival is about and why people go there. Personally I go there for the experience of the festival, to be with friends and have a good time. When choosing a festival I would look at the location, the price of the ticket and the line up, but primarily I would find out who else would want to go to that festival because there is no point going to a good festival with a bad group of people or people who don't share the same music interests as you as it will be a waste of money.

First 28 seconds

\
Final Video in Progress from emily fairbank on Vimeo.

For the second part of the video (after the sunset intro) I think that the pink haze over the image of the decks works very well and also bring in a new contrast to white of the text. It also makes this video stand slightly apart from the rest of the idents. The pink also has a slight gradient on it - giving the video more depth.

I have used the centrally aligned y-axis revealing method for half of the festival titles - I think that is is a very strong part of the video. I have divided the top 10 festival names into two - 4 of the titles that are just mentioned in the first half of the video are from the UK, Hove is the only non UK based festival. I thought that is would be better as the rest of the festivals are more popular and I felt were more important to mention - hence would need to share more information about. Unfortunately there was not enough time in the 60 second clip to show all the information about all the festivals and it would also make the title sequence fairly dull.

I am happy with the way I have brought the best bits from the idents into the main video and made sure that the whole composition is not overly complicated like some of the idents were.

There are two main sections to the clip which I think both do and don't work. I think that is was important to divide the more famous festivals from the others however I do feel that the second part of the title sequence does look like it belongs to a differnt clip altogether.

I have divided the 5 main festival names into sections and colour coded them - I think that this gives the video more structure and order.
Creamfields - pink
Glade - green
Hideout - Blue
Exit - Yellow
Tomorrowland - Orange

Overall I am happy with the way that the title sequence has turned out. I do feel that the second half could have done with more effects and maybe used more pictures - I also think that I should have included images of the main headline acts at each of the festiavls - something that would stand out in the video however I was worried that this would over complicate it like some of the idents were.

Ident 1

IDENT 1 from emily fairbank on Vimeo.

Here I have used the old typeface again, even though I said that I thought it was too distracting but I do think that in this ident it does work because I wanted to create the list effect for the names of the festivals rather than pick out individual names and focus in on them - I wanted to create the impression of when revealing the line up, almost like trying to build up the excitement when the line up is revealed.

I have added in more layers of the spinning vinyl's because I wanted them to spin fast and in time to the movement of her voice in with the fast movement of the decks.

With the other idents I have kept the shapes in the same place though out the compositions but for this ident I felt that it needed something extra and I feel that it does work however I don't feel that this ident is as strong as Ident 2.