Intentions
For my final major project I decided to create an advertising campaign, for my project I was to create a practical piece of work and reflect on research, planning and production. In my project I have really enjoyed using all the software’s such as Photoshop, Affinity Designer and Wix Websites I have enjoyed this because I am really interested in advertising and being creative and is something that I hope to continuing on doing in the future, I really enjoyed making my posters, logos, packaging and websites as I could create it how I thought it would look good be advertised to my audience I also enjoyed working with my audience to help achieve something that I really enjoyed and looked good. Throughout my project I was able to develop lots of skills such as working with new people and developing my practical skills this will also have a good impact on me in the future. The intentions for my project was to create and advertising campaign for a new chocolate bar that aims at females using posters, social media sites and a website this is were I uploaded all my productions and a way to interact with my audience this also made my advertising campaign more interactive.
Here are some images that gave me some inspiration for my project although this is not what you would expect to see this is why it inspired me to do what I did..
These photos are what inspired me to make my own chocolate bar, as you see none of these chocolate bars really aim at a female audience except one they don’t really use any colours that aim at women or font and the name of the chocolate bar, although these are all professionally done chocolate bars and some might aim at women they don’t really get that across to there audience. I wanted mine to be professional like these therefore that is what I did. Some more inspiration I took from these existing chocolate bars was the colours, I really liked the variety of colours they all use and how they represent the name of the chocolate bar therefore this is what I did with my own chocolate bar by having caramel on the front as the name of my chocolate bar is Caramello. All these chocolate bars have a specific audience they aim at weather it being male, female or both and as I picked a female audience I presented this in my packaging by using feminine colours such as pink, feminine fonts such as serif and a feminine name this had a really good effect as I got lots of positive feedback from my target audience on my packaging, I have some of my audience feedback below from my other blogs too.
In my proposal I reviewed what I had done in college that has helped me become confident with advertising and using professional software’s, and example of this I have watch a lot of tutorials on how to use certain tools on Photoshop and Affinity designer and what they are able to do, I also had a lot of class time to look into these software’s and go over them with people and expand my knowledge and practical skills with these software’s and because of this I was able to be really creative with my designs and create something really good. An example pf what I learnt over my time using photoshop was the magic wand tool this enables you to remove any background fast and easily this enabled me to get objects or sections which I wanted to move somewhere else or make something stand out. Learning about advertising also helped me with this project it wasn’t just in class learning it was all around me such as social media, tv, radio and many more because of this I was able to expand my knowledge in it and be creative with it. If I had not learned any of this I would not have been able to create the project which I have done.
Proposal
In my proposal I had also written about my concepts and what I will be doing throughout my project and the decisions and ideas that I will be making and how I will look into different academic theory’s to help me with my idea, an example of this is I have looked into the semiotic theory to help me understand about visuals and linguistics which helped me put my idea together more and the things that I could do which would help me engage with my audience more. Another thing that has helped me was writing reflections at the end of my blogs and doing questionnaires as I am able to look back and see everything that I have done that has helped me with my project and will help me with my final reflection. With all this knowledge and planning I was able to come up with a really god idea for my project that I was happy with and very positive about, my production schedule also helped me keep on tract of everything and keep up to date with all my work and allowed mw to achieve my final project.
Pitch
For my pitch I was given lots of feedback from what am I doing and what to improve and obstacles that I could face in my project and the impact it could have, in my pitch I was asked ‘How am I going to manage my social media and post schedule’s?’ I answered that I would make a production schedule that would have specific post going out on certain days and certain times and that I would research into brands advertising on social media and social media statistics so that I was able to find out the best times of day to post when everyone was most active and what days people was most active on social media. Some other stuff which was mentioned in my pitch was strengths and weaknesses this was to improve my weaknesses so that it dint go down hill, I was asked what my strengths were and I said advertising, Photoshop, Affinity designer and being creative and my weaknesses were some tools I was familiar with on some software’s now I was able to know what I would struggle with I could improve them that is why I looked at many tutorials to help me achieve my goal.
Developing Idea
Developing my idea was the most fun part as I really enjoyed the creative side and its fun, practical and I enjoyed developing my skills doing it. The skills that I have gained during my final project are on Affinity Designer, how to create a website and colour connotations. My project was an advertising campaign for a chocolate bar were I created 2 posters, logo, 3 social media accounts and a website. The first thing was packaging to do this I had to do a lot of research into existing chocolate bar as I was able to see how they were designed, why the colours were used and the different fonts and how all this was represented to an audience to make the purchase it and why it would appeal to them. The second thing was logo I had to do a lot of research into this such as why logos made an impact on a company/brand learning about this was essential as to why I need one especially for brand awareness. I also had to do a lot of research into existing posters and why certain things are placed on them to attract the audience as I wanted my posters too look professional. the final thing that I am doing is a website, this is another thing that I had to do lots of researching into is existing websites and what they include on there this was also really essential to as I wanted my website to be professional as it would look good to other brands if they see it.
Most of my production was done using Photoshop and Affinity Designer this expanded my skills and knowledge when using it. I choose to use these software’s as I was confident in using them and I have good knowledge about the tools therefore this would give my good results on any of my production such as my posters, these were only the software’s that could get me the results that I wanted with my work. During my project I decided too look into some advertising techniques to help me with my production this was something that would have a big impact on my production as I included some of this in to help engage my audience and become more eye catching, I decided to use Photoshop and Affinity designer because these software’s were free to use and enabled me to be fully creative. For my website I used my previous experience and wix tutorials to create exactly what I wanted and to see the layouts which were available for free, when creating my website I kept to my colour scheme which was pink and white so it appealing to my audience and so it was feminine however this colour scheme was what my audience picked out. I know I achieved this by posting my questionnaire were I received a lot of positive feedback on it and lots of views. For my production I also created my 3 social media accounts which were Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to make these I did lots of research into social media statistics and the positives and negatives of the sites, I also looked into what chocolate brands used which social media accounts. Everything which I created was uploaded to my social media sites I did this so that my project was more interactive and so it was appropriate to my target audience because my audience was aging from 15-30 years and social media applies to that age I found this out in my research which I did. I really enjoy advertising and being creative and I intend to further my career into an apprenticeship by doing my project I was able to do all this and it will help me in the future.
Poster
Website
Packaging
Chocolate bar
From all of this I knew that my production was really appealing towards my audience and I was really happy with all the feedback which I received. Because I was able to expand my viewing by using social media accounts I received more feedback as I reached a more mainstream audience than I would of if I didn’t make any social media accounts through adding my social media accounts I was also able to interact more with my audience too see if anything could be improved or to way they liked certain aspects of certain things.
In my first ever questionnaire I asked ‘would you like to see a chocolate bar aimed at women?’ this was so I knew that my idea would be a good idea and that people would actually want to see a chocolate bar aimed at women, this questionnaire was also only sent women and advertised to them. I also asked if ’16+ was a good age range to aim a chocolate bar at?’ and over 50% of people said yes I was really happy with this feedback as I knew that the age range I had picked would be appealing to them therefore I knew that audience I had picked would be a really good idea. Some other questions which I asked was about my website, one which I asked was ‘What did you like about my website?’ and my audience responded with ‘It looks nice and girly’, ‘Very informative’, ‘Very feminine’, ‘I really love this website’ which was really positive feedback for me and it suggested everyone really liked my website and it appealed to my audience. Most of my post have feedback on them such as production and planning, I also have blogs on the insights of my social media accounts which you can see on this blog Social media insights.
I started my project by planning exactly what I was going to do, I firstly began by creating and equipment list and resources this is were I wrote about all the equipment such as a mac and what software’s that I was going to need. I also made a treatment for my project which talked about who my target audience would be, social demographic which would be lower class as doing more research I wanted my stuff to be affordable and that anyone could have it that why I picked my audience age to be from 15-30 years. I talked about using a mac and nothing else as I was able to access all the software’s that I need on there for free and it was available on all macs and pc. For my planning I also made a production schedule so that I was able to keep up to date with everything and finish on time. I also used YouTube a lot for my planning as I was able to watch lots of tutorials on there for different software’s and for wix website this also gave me a lot of inspiration to be more creative with my productions here is a link to my production blogs and the tutorials I watch to help me with my software knowledge.
I created a location recce and risk assessment to where I talked about the risk that could happen in the classroom this helped me because I wrote down all the ways that I could prevent something bad from happening, after doing all my planning my skills in this became more developed as I had written down all the planning leading up to my project I was also able to look back on all this if anything was to go wrong, this also taught me how to be more organised.For another major part of planning I did about the legal and ethical constraints as this was a big part when it came to advertising, I looked at all the negative things that could effect me and how I could over come it, an example of this was I couldn’t do a contest that offered money to people under the age therefore to over come this when it came to creating my website I made it clear that you could only claim over the age of 18 years or you wouldn’t be able to claim it.
Some of the issues that I faced was not being able to use photoshop all the time when it came to my production and wix to be able to completed everything on time and finish my project. To solve this problem I did some research into photoshop to find that you were able to get a free trial for 30 days this was a positive for me as I was able to download it quickly and easily and I could do my work from home if there was anything that I needed to improve, with wix website I also did some research into it and I found that it was also free for home computers and you could access it at anytime this also had a good impact on me as I was able to finish off stuff at home when I wasn’t working in college. Another solution I found if I wasn’t able to use these softwares was working on my study days, I was able to come in college on days that I was supposed to be off and use the computers so I could do my work this was useful too me as I was able too keep up with my production schedule and finish on time. Another issue that I faced was that I didn’t like my background that I had on both my posters, although I had originally planned them out how I wanted them when it got to the actual production I decided that I didn’t like them and that there was something that I needed to be done, this was quite a problem for me as I needed to think fast so that I could keep on time with everything my solution to this was going on a no copyright page on google and looking through the different backgrounds until I selected 2 that I thought would be good to represent my chocolate bar, after picking the select too I asked for my peers feedback and I received really good reviews and because of this I was able to continue on and keep my production on time.
Another issue that I faced while creating my project was when I was getting my name/font for the packaging of my chocolate bar when it was placed on my photoshop file it would go all distorted and you couldn’t see it, this happened multiple times and it wouldn’t stop to help solve this problem I went to my teacher and asked for help this issue was resolved when we found that the font had to be downloaded and placed into photoshop after we realised this I was able to continue on and complete my production, this also helped me when it came to doing my other productions as I could keep on time with everything and not have any problems.
Overall, I feel that I created some really good pieces of advertising, which were posters, social media accounts, logo and website. There are some aspects of this project that I really enjoyed which were working with Photoshop and being able to do my own designs and be creative when I was making my posters, I enjoyed learning about advertising techniques and why they are important to help sell a product, I have also enjoyed learning about fonts and colours and there meanings which I never knew before, this was a big part of my production as I wanted the colours which I used and the fonts to represent my audience and be feminine. Another thing which I enjoyed was creating a new website from scratch as I had never done one before it was fun looking into existing websites too so that I could get lots of inspiration rom them to help create my own and for it to portray my audience. I learned some different skills throughout my project such as learning new tools using Affinity Designer such as the curve tool and how to would help me in my final product. Another thing which I learned was about legal and ethical constraints and the impact that it has on advertising, I needed to consider many things when doing my project and looking into the ASA this helped me include the correct things and not have anything on my productions that could be copyrighted or effect me when it was published. My final productions didn’t fully come out how I had intended in all my planning and research, there was some changes throughout my productions such as background changes, colour changes that I did to constantly improve my final product.
Emily's Final Major Project 