campaigning 9 :)

We spent most of today trying to finish our leaflet, and were also told to make a powerpoint presentation about our campaign to show Chris from Shakin Moo's. We had a quick discussion in our group and i offered to do the presentation as i still dont feel confident using Photoshop. I was a little confused about what exactly to write on the presntation, so asked Mr Hind who said we needed to try to sell it to the audience, so i tried to think of some persuasive writing to do on the presentation, which makes our ideas and final leaflet look best. I made about 5 slides, which told the audience about our original ideas and why they were good or bad, our final 3 designs, our questionaire and what it told us about what designs people like, and our finished leaflet (which Aaron and Damon are still trying to finish!).

After break i was still trying to do the powerpoint, and put some relevent pictures in to make it more appealing and stand out, aswell as colours, fonts etc. I made sure the powerpoint didnt have too much writing though, as we would need to write a script as a group later so we wouldnt get confused about who is saying what. For example i tried to only put a few bullet points on each slide, and fill the rest of the space with images.

In the afternoon we had another discussion as a group, where i realised both Damon and Aaron had a go at making different leaflets, although decided we prefered and were going to use Damons as the layout was better, it had more images, and just generally looked more proffessional. I suggested making the font bigger and using the actual Shakin Moo font, becuase i thought it would stand out and people would recognise it as being Shakin Moo's. I was also quite pleased that the group wanted to use the tagline i made up, which was "In a chilly Moo'd? Treat yourself to a HOT shake!".

We were in a bit of a rush at the end of the day, so quickly got together as a group and did a basic script for us to read out when we show the presentation to Chris. We decided it was fair to say a line each as none of our group was perticularly confident at speaking in front of an audience, and we put in a little more information than i wrote in the presentation, including our own views on the designs.

In todays lesson i think i did a good job at working on my own as the rest of our group was working on finishing our final leaflet, and i also gave out lots of ideas for example about things which would make our leaflet better. Next lesson is going to be a bit of a rush, as we need to finish both the script and our final design before Chris comes to see the presentations, although im looking forward to seeing his opinions!

Hi Petra

Great blogging well done! Good reflection and thinking about your progress. Please try to include more images!

campaigning 6 :)

This morning we were told we would be visiting Shakin Moo's later on to take pictures which we would be able to use for our leaflet. We were told to make a list of some of the pictures we are planning to take, which i found a little hard as some of our group still wasnt entirely sure which design they liked best and what images we would need for each one. I wrote down obvious ones like the front view of outside Shakin Moo's, although noted down that we should do it at a slight angle so it gives it a better, 3D effect, and also to show customers where abouts Shakin Moo's is. For this image i also had the idea that when we edit it we could make just the Shakin Moo's shop slightly brighter than the other shops around it, so it would stand out when customers see it on the leaflet. Some of the other ideas our group had was to take pictures of furniture, and closeups of some of the ingredients you could have in a shake. I also thought it was a good idea to take a closeup image of a Hot Shake, then when we edit it put a subtle smokeyness around the outside to let the customer know its a hot shake.

When we got to Shakin Moo's we spent about an hour taking pictures of the shop, ingredients, and furniture. I was dissapointed that our group wasnt really working together while doing this, although we each have such different ideas from eachother that we decided to take turns with the camera, when decide on the best pictures later. I enjoyed this part of the day as we were left to decide for ourselves what to take pictures of, and i even got to dress up in the Shakin Moo outfit!

When we got back to class, our group split up into two groups, so Aaron could download the images onto the computer, and me and Damon could finish the questionaire, as our group still hadnt got a final questionaire, only the individual one that i made. Once the pictures were on the computer, we went through them and picked out our favourite ones, and we were quite pleased as Mr Hind used one of our pictures as an example of a good one as it had an interesting reflection, and was clear but not too busy. He used it to show the class how they could edit it on Photoshop, and suggested taking out peices of dirt from the image to make it look better. He showed us how to adjust the brightness and explosure to make the picture stand out, although not too much to make it look unnatural and too bright.

We then had a go using Photoshop ourselves, which once again i felt like our group woked less as a team as Damon and Aaron had different ideas to what i did and for half of the time they just did what they wanted and didnt let me contribute. They made one of our images extremily bright and unclear, which i suggested wasnt a good idea because the point of editting our pictures was to subtly change them. When i got to have a go, i cropped out an image of a Hot Shake, then editted it onto another image. I then adjusted the explosure slightly so the foreground was less dull and matched to the Hot Shake image. I then found a picture on the internet of some smoke, which i used as a Brush in the background of the shake, to make it look like its steaming.

Overall i think our group has worked alot better in other lessons than today, as usually we exchange ideas with eachother, but today we didnt communicate as much. Im hoping next week we will be able to work harder as a group and decide exactly which images and what edits we can make to them. I am also looking forward to learning more handy tips for using photoshop, and starting to edit some more of our pictures which we took today. :)

Hi Petra

This is much more detailed - well done. Also looks good with pictures. You need to catch up with last week's blog.

Campaigning 4 ;)

We started off the day with getting back in to our groups and carrying on with our designs. As one of our favourite designs had already been used by another group, we had to think up another design which was actually quite difficult. I tried to think of themes we could use for our new design, and suggested things to our groups like the sun, beaches, snowy scenery etc. This gave Damon the idea of having an image of a milkshake with a massive sun behind it, with the word HOT in bold. I really liked this idea and drew it out with a few changes i thought could make it better, for example instead of saying HOT, it could say HOT SHAKES in bold orange writing on the yellow sun so it would stand out. I also remembered some of the important things we needed to put on our leaflet, like the address of the place and an offer which would attract more people. For the rest of the morning we drew out our final rough designs, and made sure we did them neat and with all the colours we thought they should have. I decided to stick to similar colours to Shakin Moo's original colours, like pinks, purples, and blues, but also used some oranges to represent the hotness.

In the afternoon we were told to do a little more research, so i continued printing interesting facts about milkshakes and highlighted important things. I also found other leaflets advertising milkshakes and analysed them, for example there was one poster advertising a Mcdonalds which had an image of a cow on a trampoline in a field, which i noted down that it gave me the instant impression that the cow repressented milk and the trampoline repressented it being shaked.

We were then told to do some market research, so i typed out some useful questions we could ask people and printed about 6 copies out. An example of some of the questions i wrote down were "What is your favourite design and why?" and "Which design catches your eye most and why?". I then asked a few people to fill them in, then looked through their answrs once i got them back. Most of the responses didnt suprise me at all, as most people preffered the 3rd design best as i did aswell, and they said this was because they liked the image of the sun, and its wacky and fun. I also worked some more on my portfolio, which i quite enjoyed doing as i got to be creative and use colourful paper to make funky front covers.

Im pretty pleased with how i worked today, as i got to work in my group, and on my own, and got to show my creative side by doing drawings, sharing idea's, and making front covers.

Next week we are going to carry to be able to use photoshop a bit more, and learn a few simple skills we need to use to create our graphics.

Campaigning 3 ;)

We spent this morning in our groups thinking of ideas we could use for our campaign. I personally thought of the idea of "my shake is on fire", which had an image of a milkshake with flames coming from the bottom, but then i were told the name of it would be classed as copy right from the Kings of Leon song. Some of the other ideas our group had was a snow cow, basically a snow man with a cows head. I contributed in drawing some rough designs and sharing a few ideas, though it was actually really difficult thinking of good ideas we could used which hadnt been used before. We tried to think of some good tag lines we could use, one was "Feeling chilly?! Then treat yourself to a HOT shake", which we drew down with the word "Chilly" with icicles falling from it, and the word "HOT" in bright orange. These two designs were chosen as two of our final designs, which i wasnt too sure about as i thought in time we could think of better ideas. The final design we chose was a big image of a milkshake, which had photo graphical steam in the background showing its a hot milkshake, and smaller images of some of the ingredients behind it, eg. marshmallows, whipped cream, chocolate.

In the afternoon we were told to research some basic information on milkshakes, prices, competition, etc. At first i tried to find out statistics on milkshake consumption, which was actually really difficult to find. I then decided i was going to compare the prices of different milkshake brands, then noted them down. We were given the responsibility to do our own research instead of given websites, which made it a little harder, but i quite enjoyed the afternoon as we got to be treated like adults. I also copied and pasted some information about milkshakes onto a word document then printed it out, which i will then highlight some of the key information and usefull facts.

I have quite enjoyed today as we got to a bit of everything, team work, drawing, and research, although im really looking forward to properly starting the project and working more as a team. Im pleased with how i worked today as i did alot more indicidual work than usual, and liked having the responsibility from the teacher to work on our project the way we would of liked to. Im not sure what we are doing next week, although im hoping we will be doing more about graphics, and using the computers.

Hi there

You need to catch up!!!!!!!