Change of mind – change of strategy: Let’s be funny!

So, quite a lot has happened since my last post. Let’s see if I can remember everything!

Since the presentation of the Zoo graphics, all the students who were involved in the projects have received an invite to come along to one of the “Zoo Nights” on the 24th May – which is nice. What exactly the “Zoo Nights” are is a mystery to me, but no doubt I’ll find out on the 24th!

We eventually got our results back from the Creative Industries Essay project, and I’m pleased to report that I received another “Pass” from Alex G. for this particular project.

We have also started new classes at college in which we are being taught the intricacies of the motion graphics software “After Effects”. This appears to be quite an extensive piece of software, one that is often used in movies and on TV, so I’ll be interested in discovering just how much we can be taught about this software in the time left to us (after all, we have lots of work to on our final Graded Unit Project, and there are only six weeks to go before the first year of HND Graphic Design comes to an end in mid-June!). Still, it looks like a cool bit of software, so I’m looking forward to learning what I can!

I showed my “Fakery” sketchbook and Action Plan to Chris H., and i said that it was looking pretty good, but he asked me why I had chosen to do the “Fakery” Brief. I told him that from the seven different Briefs we were given, “Fakery” was the Brief that jumped out at me. “Why don’t you do the ‘Comedy‘ Brief instead?” he asked me. I shrugged my shoulders. “I think this would be a very good Brief for you to do, David. I’m sure you could do a good job and bring some humour into the Project. Besides, nobody else has chosen the ‘Comedy‘ Brief, so I think you should do it”. Well, if you put it like that… 
So, I abandoned the “Fakery” Brief and handed all the research I had done for this Brief over to a fellow student who is also attempting the “Fakery” Brief, as I thought that some of my research might come in handy for him, and I started my research into the Comedy Brief. I quickly discovered that the Comedy Brief was in fact the Brief to do, as this Brief has to do with putting together an exhibition at an Edinburgh Art Gallery, telling the history of American comedy, and the research for this Brief involves looking at a lot of comedy, which is a lot more entertaining and less soul-destroying than researching the world of fakes. I’m hoping to tell the history of comedy in America, right from the early days of vaudeville and radio, through stand-up comedy, all the way to comedy in TV and movies. I’ve been looking into the work of such comics as The Marx Brothers, Abbott & Costello, Laurel & Hardy, Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, etc. to tell the story of comedy’s beginnings. Then I looked into the Jewish influence on American comedy, especially the work of Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Seinfeld and the New York comedy venue “The Friar’s Club“, with it’s tradition for Roasts and Jewish stand-up comedians. This brought me to researching American stand-up comedians like Bill Hicks, Bill Maher, Steven Wright, Jon Stewart, George Carlin, et al. This has been highly entertaining, and has brought me upon the idea of using YouTube clips, Keynote and iMovie in putting together a documentary all about the evolution of American comedy. I have absolutely no knowledge of iMovie (except that it exists!), so I’m hoping that it is as easy to use as everyone tells me it is, otherwise I’m going to find myself up a certain creek without a paddle!

I’ve rewritten my Action Plan for the comedy Brief, and looks looks something like this:

As you can see, I have taken the liberty of changing the name of the Brief from “That’s Funny!” to “Funny Business“, as I thought the original title was a bit vague and that my chosen title was, well, better! I am also considering making this an “Adults only” exhibition, as a lot of the comedians I have chosen (especially the stand-up comedians) use a form of language that is perhaps unsuitable for young ears. This also gives me carte blanche for gratuitous use of the word “Fuck” … which is nice!
(Apropos nothing at all, this puts me in mind of an album from Monty Python that I used to own – “The Album of the Soundtrack of the Trailer of the Film of Monty Python and the Holy Grail” – which began with an introduction that went something like this: “This recording contains little or no offensive material, except for four cunts, one clitoris and a foreskin, and as they only appear in this opening introduction, you’ll pass them now”!
Well, it made me laugh!

Anyway …. I’ve done quite a bit of research into this comedy malarky, and I’ve already got plenty of ideas of what I’d like to do, but I’ve been really struggling with getting these ideras down in my sketchbook! I still struggle with sketchbook work, and I find it much easier and more productive to create my ideas directly on my iMac. Oh, I am well aware that this makes absolutely no sense what-so-ever, as sketching out ideas with a pencil is always going to be a lot quicker and therefore more productive than using the Adobe Creative Suite, but somehow I feel more comfortable using this software, and the creative possibilities that it offers seem to fire my imagination. However, the sketchbook work is an integral part of our Projects at college, so I really need to get my pencil out!
(Incidentally, whilst working together with the agency Lewis Design on the Zoo Project, I was surprised to discover that the professionals also aren’t all that keen on using sketchbooks, as they do their most of their research and designing directly on their Macs!).

 

A week ago I had a bit of a set-back with this Project when I was struck down with a terrible toothache. I was in severe pain for a couple of days, and when I went to the dentists, I was told that I needed to have a wisdom tooth pulled and that I’d need to take a course of antibiotics for a week before they could perform the operation. Fuck! (I did warn you!). I have heard from several different sources that having wisdom teeth extracted is quite an operation, one that can put certain people out of action for a few days, and I can’t afford to be put out of action for a few days. However, when the time came for the operation, it all went quite smoothly and quickly. I have spent the last couple of days feeling a bit woozy and trying to stop myself probing into the huge hole in my gums with my tongue, but although it kind of screwed up my weekend, it hasn’t been as bad as I thought it would be (I had the tooth extracted on Friday, and it’s now Sunday and I feel just fine). Unfortunately, the extraction of my wisdom tooth revealed that the tooth next to it was stricken with caries, so I need to go back to the dentists in a couple of weeks for some further work. Oh joy!

I’ve been sitting here in front of my iMac all day today, and I threw together a few ideas for posters for the “Funny Business” Project. I looked for appropriate images of the various comedians I’m thinking of including in my exhibition, then I vectorised them in Illustrator.

They are obviously just roughs, and if I choose to use them for the “Funny Business” Brief, then they will require a fair bit of tweaking, but I think they look OK considering how much time I spent on them (about 3 hours). However, looking at them now, I notice that the American flag in the background is a bit too dark. Whaddya you think?

Right! Where’s my bloody sketchbook?!

 

Zoo Presentations and Awards, and the first stages of the Final Graded Unit

Well, that was an interesting day …

It started off with Alex G. telling us to get our essays about the Creative Industries finished, but as my essay is already finished and submitted, I spent my time in the LRC doing some research into my chosen subject for the final Graded Unit. I looked into the different meanings of “Fakery” and “Fakes” and did some research into fakes in art, history, religion, and the history of photo-manipulation.

Later, Chris H. showed us examples of how he expects us to put together the Action Plan for our final graded unit of this year. He showed us some of the Action Plans that the 2nd year HND students had put together – a run-down of the resources and the time needed to complete the Graded Unit in good time – and I think that the Action Plan that I am still working on is pretty close to what he’s looking for.

After Chris’ class, I went back to the LRC to continue my research and to get my research and my thoughts and ideas into my sketchbook. This involved a lot of writing on my behalf as well as a fair bit of resolve not to rant too much about some of the aspects of Fakery – in particular the fakery involved in the concept of “beauty” and the nonsensical myths and legends that most of the world’s religions demand that we believe. I spent most of the afternoon doing this, and I stayed in the LRC until 18:00Hrs, which is when it was time to head up to R310 to hear the feedback from Edinburgh Zoo on what we (and the other groups) had presented to them last Wednesday.

I arrived to find the classroom chock-a-block with people. There were us 1syt year HND students, the 2nd year students, a selection of mentors from the different agencies we’d all been working with on this project, a few big-wigs from the Zoo, a couple of photographers (who insisted that we all sign release-forms for the pictures they were taking), tutors Helena G., Alex G. and Chris H., as well as a cameraman making a video of the proceedings. They had also laid on quite a spread of sandwiches, vol-au-vents, wine for the mentors and guests and orange juice for us students.

A few words were spoken by Helena G.; how proud she was of us all, how generous the various agencies had been in offering their time and efforts, and how the work we had produced in such a short time had been “the best she’d seen in all her career”. Oh bless, Helena! Then the people from the Zoo got up, and they went through each presentation, commenting on what they had liked and what they thought hadn’t worked so well. We (Team Lewis/Jumanji) were first up, as we had presented first at the Zoo last week. They really liked our “Explore” logo and the print stuff we had produced, but they felt we had fallen short on our research into the Zoo’s main competitors, especially for the target group of 18 – 36 year olds. They even mentioned that the target group would probably rather go to the pub or to a nightclub than visit any of the attractions that we had listed as their main competitors (Edinburgh Castle, Sea World, The Edinburgh Dungeons, etc.), and I’m sure they were correct in their assumption. However, the same would apply to the concepts that the other groups had come up with, and they didn’t even mention the zoo’s main competitors (or any of the thousands of pubs/nightclubs in Edinburgh!). They also said that they liked our ideas for the Guerrilla Marketing Campaign we had come up with, but questioned the costs of producing them. In our defense, the original Brief had not stipulated anything about a budget, so therefore we were told (by our tutors and our mentors at Lewis Design) to assume that we had an open budget. Apparently, that assumption was wrong! Ho-hum!

They went through the other presentations, and from their comments, it became clear to me that they favoured the concept that Team Rapp had come up with, even though they had produced no digital work (their entire presentation comprised of Scamps). The faux BBC News report that Team Heedi had produced went down a storm – very entertaining! – and the work from Team IL (who had produced a concept that was closest to our own) received the praise it deserved. In the end, it was Team Rapp who won the prize of an honorary membership to The Zoo, a guided tour of the Zoo and a note pad (paper, not digital!). Congrats to them. I wonder if any of them will ever return to the Zoo?

After the presentations and the “award ceremony”, we chatted with the mentors from Lewis Design for a while (they were also surprised that the winning team hadn’t really answered the original Brief), and hen they left sometime after 19:00Hrs, so did I.

I now have to get my Action Plan written up, as we are expected to present our plans and our concepts to the tutors tomorrow. No peace for the creative!

Presentation of our concept for Edinburgh Zoo and the briefs for the Final Graded Unit 2013

So, that’s the Zoo Project finished, refined,  tweaked, handed in and presented. Or is it?

On the actual day of the presentation, we all (about 20 students from 1st and 2nd year, divided up into four groups) jumped onto a bus which was especially hired for the occasion and headed off to Edinburgh Zoo. Upon arrival, we were told that the room we would be presenting our concepts to the bigwigs of the Zoo in wasn’t spacious enough for everyone in each group to be present at the presentation, so therefore the presentations would be made by one or two people from each group, and the rest of the group would be invited in for the Q&A session at the end of each presentation. All the groups were asked to wait in the viewing area of the Chimpanzee enclosure, and we nervously stood around in our groups, going through the final rehearsals of the impending presentations, whilst the chimps slept behind the glass, bearing their arses to us.

We (Iona, Olga, Emil, Craig, Jordan and myself) were “Team Lewis“, but for the presentation, we had changed our name to “Team Jumanji“. The reasoning behind this? No bloody idea! All the other teams were named after the agencies they were working together with, so I shudder to think what our mentors at Lewis Design thought of our name change! Anyway, we had asked to be the first to present, so Iona & Olga went in to give the presentation whilst the rest of us stood nervously outside the room, holding on to our examples of our logo, posters, etc. which we had had printed and mounted onto art-boards for the presentation.

What follows is a very rough version of how we presented our concept to the Zoo:

After introducing ourselves and informing the Zoo of our understanding of the Brief, the research we had done into Edinburgh Zoo and it’s main competitors, we discussed the challenges of the Brief:

as well as discussing the statistics referring to the amount of visitors to the Zoo and their popularity on Social Media sites:

before revealing our concept to attract more visitors and our main logo “Explore the world in one place”:

We are all quite proud of this poster/logo, as we had put quite a lot of work into creating this new typeface comprising of animals in their natural habitat (although I’m still a bit unsure about the Meerkats in the luscious green grass of the “L”, as I believe that Meerkats live in desert areas), and for the presentation we had had this poster professionally printed in a large A1 format.

We then explained the different types of media we were intending on using to get our message across and to get people to visit the Zoo:

before going into detail about our ideas for the varying types of advertising we had thought up.

First up was our idea to create a Prank Video which we hoped would go viral over YouTube:

The prank would start by filming people as they waited for a lift to arrive:

When the lift doors opened, they would be presented with a jungle landscape and a tiger’s tail would be swinging from the ceiling.

Then from hidden speakers, a large “ROAR!” would emit from the lift:

scaring the absolute bejeezus out of our unsuspecting victims:

but of course they would soon realise that they had been duped and would laugh at their own reaction:

and the video would end with the message “It’s a jungle out there!” and of course the invite to come to Edinburgh Zoo:

This video prank was inspired by the viral videos on YouTube showing people’s reactions to being stuck in a lift with a scary little girl, and to be brutally honest with you, I don’t think it worked particularly well as a viral video or as a way to get more people to come to the Zoo, but what do I know…?

We then presented our Guerrilla Campaign, which involved installing bizarre things in outlandish places. For example, an Iceberg in Princes Street Gardens:

or a giant bin for Rhino-Poo in The Meadows:

or even surrounding the many classical statues around Edinburgh with piles of bananas!:

We felt that these outlandish installations would grab people’s attention, get them taking photographs and posting them online, and also grab the attention of the Press, providing the Zoo with some free advertising.

Other forms of advertising included using our poster in bus stops or Adshels:

or on the side of buses:

or the advantages of running ads on CatchUp TV websites or on Spotify:

We also presented our proposed changes to the Zoo’s interior, changes that would with the addition of model buildings and printed backdrops within the animal enclosures, provide the visitor to the Zoo with at least an impression that he or she was viewing the animals in something that resembled their natural habit, and that their visit to the Zoo had been almost like travelling the world in one place (which was, after all, our concept!):

We also showed the Zoo that we had thought about the future and how we could expand our campaign to take in merchandising, special-themed events, phone Apps, etc., although for some reason or other, we didn’t show these in the presentation (perhaps due to time constraints?):

We ended the presentation with the final slide of the presentation being our wonderful, eye-catching”Explore” logo:

After around 15 minutes, the girls had finished their presentation, and the rest of Team Jumanji were invited into the small conference room. There we were asked to sit at the oval conference table, around which already sat the Head of the Marketing Department of Edinburgh Zoo, Elena – the woman who had originally given us all our first guide of the Zoo an month or so back – as well tutors Helena and Alex. There was also a cameraman in the corner filming the proceedings. We all took our places around the conference table, and we were offered soft drinks and sandwiches, before being asked some pertinent questions about our campaign by the Zoo personnel, questions that I think we answered quite well. We presented our mounted artwork to them, and they were suitable impressed with our “Explore” logo (as well they should be!), before moving out to allow the next groups to present their concepts.

As Team Lewis/Jumanji were the first to present, we had to hang around the Zoo until all the other groups had presented their concepts, before being transported back to the college in the late afternoon, where Team Jumanji wrote an eMail to Lewis Design to inform them how well the presentation had went. We were informed that the Zoo would now be considering the various presentations, and that they would get back to us all in a week’s time to let us know which team’s project had impressed them the most and how they plan to continue.

The following day at college (Thursday), we eventually got the chance to get to see what concepts that the other groups had come up with, as we all asked to present to each other. What was quite incredible about these presentations was to see was the variety of concepts that had all come out of the same Brief!
http://www.welovedesignetc.info/2013/04/zoo-concepts.html
However, although the other teams had come up with some amazing ideas, executed very professionally, I got the impression that the only team that had actually stuck to the Brief and had answered the Brief’s demands, was Team Lewis/Jumanji. Still, maybe the fact that the other trams came up with completely different concepts might prove to be the ones which grabbed the client’s attention? We’ll have to wait until next Wednesday evening to find out, as that is when representatives from Edinburgh Zoo are coming to college to inform us which team has won the contract (although I envisage that the Zoo might suggest a collaboration between different teams). We’ll have to be patient and just see!

I handed in my Creative Industries essay on that Thursday, and later we were presented with our the Briefs for our final Graded Unit of 2013. All in all, we have  choice of six different Briefs, ranging from creating a title sequence for a movie produced by the 2nd year film students of Edinburgh College (I really like this challenge, but a lot of it depends on the feedback that I get from the film students), or creating a Brand for a music venue in Edinburgh (also very interesting, but I think that it’s a bit too close to what I did for my graded unit last year: https://davelaidlaw.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/wednesday-perh/ . Or there’s a packaging Brief, which involves designing the packaging for a range of food products for M&S. Then there’s the Brief to create all the Advertising, Event Graphics and the overall look of an installation for an event at the Fruitmarket Art Gallery in Edinburgh which will promote the history and rise of comedy in the USA; from vaudeville to silent movies to TV series or stand-up comics. However, the Brief that grabs me the most is one which looks into the various types of fakes that have been produced over time, whether it be art forgeries, fake products, falsehoods in the media, whatever, and for the Brief we have been asked to create the branding and content for a touring exhibition that explores the world of Fakery. I have read through all the Briefs several times, and I still haven’t made up my mind which one I’ll be attempting, but at first sight the one’s that leap out at me so far are the Film Title Sequence and the Fakery Brief, but this might change in time. We are required to write out an Action Plan detailing the entire creative process of completing our chosen Brief, and the writing of these Action Plans should help us decide which Brief we are going to attempt.

All in all, we all have a helluva lot of work to get done before the end of this year in mid-June. I’m hoping that we will be able to get on with our chosen Brief without too much distractions, but it remains to be seen if we will have to complete other “surprise” Briefs working on our Graded Unit. We also still have to present our 12″ Album Project Brief, which – as I’m sure you’ll all remember – is an animated Dreamweaver file which describes the process behind the creation of an album cover from the vinyl era. I still struggle with the html-coding, but I think my website telling the story of Pink Floyd’s Animals is looking OK for a first attempt at building a website in Dreamweaver.

Another bit of good news is that I have received written confirmation that I have been accepted into the HND2 year, starting in autumn 2013 and finally graduating in the summer of 2014. So, I have yet another year of creative projects ahead of me. A year in which I can hopefully prove to myself that I do have the drive, self-confidence and creativity to be a successful and respected Graphic Designer. I know what needs to be done, I just have to do it!

Easter Break Over – Back to the drawing board

Well, that’s two weeks of Easter Break almost at an end. However, it’s not entirely been a fortnight of late nights and lazing around watching DVDs (although there has been a fair bit of that!), as we at Team Lewis (now called Team Jumamji – Don’t ask!) have been putting the final touches to or Zoo Presentation. Personally, I think it’s looking quite good, but as we have yet to present our concept to the Zoo this coming Wednesday, I’m afraid I still can’t tell you much about what we’ve done (it’s all a BIG SECRET you see, and my fellow students seem to be a bit paranoid about some kind of plagiarism happening if all is revealed too soon), but hopefully I’ll be able to tell you all about it on Thursday!

In the meantime, I’ve been working on my essay about The Creative Industries. The essay was originally divided into three parts each 500 words long, but these parts have since been combined into one long, illustrated essay of a minimum of 1100 words. There was a helluva lot of research necessary for these essays, as we were asked not only to define the Creative Industries and the different sectors that make them up, but we also had to describe the history of Graphic Design, explain it’s economic and cultural importance, identify the rolles and opportunities available with the Creative Industries, as well as going into the differences between employment and freelance work and identifying the issues and support mechanisms that influence “an elected vocational area within the Creative Industries sector” (I chose “Graphic Designer”, naturally!).

Like I said, lots of research necessary and lots of writing. Of course, I wrote much more than was asked of me, eventually getting it down to 2800 words! Using the InDesign template that I’d set up for my previous essay on the Printing Process (https://davelaidlaw.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/hand-in-for-the-taboo-project-and-the-print-report-and-a-bit-of-illustration-too/) I set about layouting my essay about The Creative Industries in the same way. I intend to write all of my essays using this template, as I am considering stringing the essays together and getting them printed in the form of a book.

Anyhoo… this is what my latest essay on The Creative Industries looks and reads like:

So, whaddya think? Did I do a good job in explaining and/or describing the industry I choose to work in? Well, I suppose I’ll find out when I receive my assessment for this particular project! That’s assuming I get any feedback at all, as I still haven’t received any feedback (or assessments) for the work I did on th BMI and the Bacardi Projects! I have asked my tutors for these assessments, but to no avail. Still, I live in hope…