Final Banners and Posters

Posters and Banners

For the MediaCast blog we have to create posters and banners. The posters have to include high quality photos taken by us. 

I took some photos of an old Sankyo-Movimat video camera that I had bought at a market, and a clapper.

 I plan on creating minimalistic posters, that are simple but eye catching.

MediaCast Banners

This is a banner I created for the Mediacast Blog. I used Photoshop to create it. I started out by choosing a number of words that remind me of  what Mediacast actually is. I created various layers containing these words, and used different kinds of grey and different sizes. I'm pretty happy with how it came out, but maybe it's a bit too busy.

MediaCast Blog Design

MediaCast blog design 

( all the schemes were found/created on http://colorschemedesigner.com/)

Color Scheme 

This blog is going to be aimed for a number of students, both male and female, with ages varying from 16 to around 27. The thing that makes these people a group is their interest (and for many their school subject) media. Obviously since the target audience is so vast, I will chose a neutral color scheme, but without making it boring and normal. I want the colors to be welcoming and pleasant for people that will be using the blog for long periods of time. My initial plans were to create the blog using colors such as grey and light brown.

I also looked at more elaborate color schemes but still among these lines 

I decided to change my plans, because these colors may be too bland and not welcoming/eye catching enough for a blog that is going to be used by creative people. 

I started looking at brighter color schemes, but keeping in mind the variety of people that are going to be using the blog.

  I particularly like this color scheme, obviously not all the colors will be used, but I think the mix of blues and oranges will give the blog a fresh look.

This is a more toned down version of the one above

I like this one also, but maybe it is a bit too feminine. 

Media Cast Blog Research

MediaCast Identity 

Who is the audience? 

The audience of this blog is specifically the media students that attend Mcast Art and Design, but it will also be accessible to all the students, lecturers and staff that are interested in this subject. 

What is the brief? 

The brief is to create an interesting, creative and easy to use blog for the MediaCast. Since MediaCast is still quite new, the brief also requires detailed research about the audience in order for us to create the blog that this audience needs. Apart from the actual creation of the blog, which includes banners, color schemes and overall design, the brief also includes marketing the final blog to the audience.

Market Research

Since MediaCast is still quite new, we had to conduct our own research to understand what market we were working on.In order for us to do this, we conducted interviews, and questionnaires and gave them to some of the media students. From the results we obtained, we realized that the our market was quite diverse, but the fact that they were all media students put them under one category and gave them all something in common. Apart from understanding our audience , we also understood what they would like form the blog, and what they were expecting from us. Basically this research helped us focus on what is essential for the blog and what is irrelevant. 

Marketing 

 The marketing research starts from researching to understand your market’s needs and how you can reach these needs. A good way to conduct research is by actually speaking to your market and get familiar with what they want and what they are looking for. One can accomplish this by the use of questionnaires, surveys and interviews. After understanding the audience, one has to create a marketing plan, which is essential for a successful marketing strategy. Deb Roberts, an expert in product marketing said that ‘ A marketing plan is good for focusing your energy towards the right actions that will deliver on what you want to accomplish’. The reason for creating a marketing plan is to make general things more specific, and this means that the client and the market will have a clear view of what you are offering them .Whilst creating the marketing plan, one has to keep in mind a number of important factors , like, the available markets, other competitors and  budget for the marketing sector. Many big companies use the term 8 P’s to represent what they should be concerned about, these are :

1. Price - The amount of money needed to buy products
2. Product - The actual product
3. Promotion (advertising)- Getting the product known
4. Placement - Where the product is located
5. People - Represent the business
6. Physical environment - The ambiance, mood, or tone of the environment
7. Process - How do people obtain your product
8. Packaging - How the product will be protected     

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_plan)

Obviously these are more relevant to tactile products, but even though this brief is to create an interactive product, some of these elements are still important. The actual plan has to be:

• Clear- this means that everything should be stated clearly.
• Quantifiable - meaning the outcome of every step is explained, so that monitoring can be done. 
• Focused - revolving around only important topics and not straying to other irrelevant subjects.
• Realistic - every part should be achievable, it is useless to make a plan for something impossible.

Another important part to a marketing plan is to create targets, for example setting a particular number of people( form your market) that you have to reach.

The actual marketing can be done in various different styles, the main two are traditional or internet/online marketing. Traditional marketing has been used for many many years. This type of marketing includes flyers, posters, prints on newspaper and magazines, billboards and other tactile media. Nowadays, experts say that internet marketing is much more powerful. Internet marketing, or online marketing is much more widely spread, this means that more people will know about your product. Social networks are a perfect place where one can place his product so an entire society of people that otherwise would have little chance of coming across it , especially when it is in another country. 

Confidentiality 

Privacy and confidentiality are things that we have to take into consideration as we are building this blog.When you post something on the internet such as websites, blogs, mailing lists, or chat rooms, you generally give up the rights to the content and any expectation of privacy or confidentiality. In most countries, anything you post to a public space can be saved, duplicated, distributed, and published, even years later, by anyone in the same way as a photograph taken in a public space like a city park, even though this is technically a crime. 

For one section of the blog, we have planned to create an archive for the works of the media students to showcase. To ensure that we are safe, this will be done by asking the students if they would like to showcase their work , and to sign a release form.

Technical Considerations

As we are creating this blog, we have to keep in mind that we not building a website. This means that we may be limited to the functions that we can insert in it. Another important thing to keep in mind is that we are not professionals. When we are planning we have to plan things that we are capable of producing, and not something that is impossible for us to create.

Marketing research

Marketing research 

(http://managementhelp.org/mrktng/mrktng.htm)

In one assignment I have the role of marketing a blog created by my team for the MediaCast. Marketing is basically finding ways in which to tell people about your product and making them understand it’s aim. But before actually marketing your product, one has to understand what the customers need and how you can reach their needs. So to start off this project, me and my team are conducting some research about MediaCast. The research is mostly being done in the form of questionnaires and interviews, but I am focusing mainly on marketing this blog. 

Deb Roberts, an expert in product marketing said that ‘ A marketing plan is good for focusing your energy towards the right actions that will deliver on what you want to accomplish’. So an important thing I have to do is create a marketing plan or strategy. Obviously I have to take into consideration that we are working on basically no budget, so I have to plan activities that are cheap. 

To create my strategy, I have to really know my target markets (the audience).I know that my target audience are all the media students attending Mcast art and design. Needless to say, their interest in media is what makes them fall under one category. So to get their attention, I will focus on creating market products that I know will reach this audience easily. For example; I will create posters , make advertisements on social networks that are very popular with these students, advertise the blog by speaking to these students face to face etc.

After conducting more research I will have a proper marketing plan, including deadlines.  

MediaCast

MediaCast

Me and 4 other students from my class, are working on creating a blog for all the media students attending Mcast Art and Design. The main aim for this blog is to have a virtual meeting place for all the students, where they can share their projects, ask questions and know what is going on. Since MediaCast is still new , we have to conduct a lot of research in order for us to actually understand what needs to be in this blog. 

To start of our research we are going to ask some questions to the HND media students. The questions we plan on asking them are :

1)What does MediaCast mean to you ?

2)What to do you think MediaCast has to offer to media students and why ?

3)Do you think it is a good idea to create a blog for MediaCast ?

4)Should the blog be open to media students only or to all students? 

5)How do you plan on using it ? 

With the answers of these questions we can have a clearer idea of what we have to put inside the blog and what the media students are looking for. 

We are thinking about filming some of the interviews . Giovan (a member of the group) has offered to bring his camera, so we can use it. We need to book a pocket recorder from the school ( since not all the interviews are going to be filmed). As a location we are going to use the school grounds to make it easier for the media students that we’re goind to interview and even for us.