Leadership Reflections & IMC WIP

As the leader of my group for the Integrated Marketing Campaign, i feel responsible for the progress of my group. Honestly speaking, sometimes i’ll feel rather stressed up if my group’s progress does not go according to plan.

I’m worried that i’ll have trouble getting everybody together to meet up if we do have discussions to be done together. In fact, i’m starting to face a little puny problem already. Sigh. As i do admit that i’m quite a perfectionist, i’m worried that my groupmates will feel that i’m asking too much? But, i guess im getting on quite well with them. The ice cold rock that we initially have between us is somewhat breaking apart. That’s a good sign.

As for the time, we didn’t really plan one actually. We’re intending to stick pretty much to the one that Azhar had planned for us.

Right now, we have settled on our concept, the 3 articles. We have a whole long list of advertising strategies that we have crazily came up with. The problem now is on how to link the concept and these advertising strategies together. Planning to talk about it again on Friday.

Meeting the client next Friday! Yikes. Progress: 40%??

ITP WIP

i sent over approx 15 plus emails requesting for internship to various companies, for the past 2 weeks. Only about 3 replied, saying that they aren’t hiring interns, or requesting to view my portfolio. Then, i sent a few more out just 3 days ago, and Bates141 replied, requesting for an interview.

So i had an interview with the Creative Director this morning, and it went pretty well. Though i was late for 15 mins, cause i couldn’t find my way up to the office at the 30th floor. Only some lifts go up to that level! But he was so super nice about it.
He liked my portfolio, esp the illustrations that i did. When i told him that i’m interested in advertising, he wasn’t too excited about it. He mentioned that almost everybody he had met said they were interested in advertising. He said something which i kinda think its really true: We should not focus on just one thing in mind. We should always learn to be flexible, it’s always better to have a variety of skills, than just to have one.
When i mentioned that i’m not really a good illustrator because i don’t have a personal style, he said that that was actually a good point. Cause that makes me flexible and versatile. If i only have that one kind of style, only people who likes my style will be able to work with me. I was really inspired by what he said.

Overall, i guess the interview went pretty well. He agreed to accept me immediately, and asked me to settle all the paper work with another lady, through email. Yayness!

Then, went i got home and checked my email, i realised that another company has replied, and invited me to have an interview on Friday. Its like, when i’m frantically looking for a company to reply, nobody did. >< How do i reject an interview through an email, when i previously said i was interested?? Mr Lau, HELP!!! D:

BDS WIP for Metro

The brief for this assignment was to create a transport advertising poster campaign for Metro.

I’ve filter out the more important key objectives:
1. Promote Metro as the best way to get the latest news.
2. Metro = Personality, not an ordinary newspaper
3. Make Metro a friendly and well-liked brand
4. Shout outs and stands out from other poster ads.
5. Promote the fun/colourful side of the news

Urbanites are:
- rich/ lots of money, curiousity, and ambitious
- growing young population
- social butterflies, enjoying hectic young lives
- hardworking, time-starved individuals, time-poor
- information hungry
- trend sensitive
- media literate
- deeper relationships to brand (urbanites identify themselves through brands)

Currently, right now, this instant, am waiting for my consultation time with Sawanee. Have prepared a list of about 30 straplines, and scamps for the concept of the poster. Kinda worried about the production of the ad as i’ll be using loads of photography, which i’m not really confident that it will work out great. Oh well. *fingers crossed*

Money money money

What is money? Well, to me, money is something valuable that i can buy stuff with, for goods or services. Right now, as a design student in a polytechnic, money is rather important to me. Without it, I won’t be able to survive. I would probably be living along the streets in torn rags. I need it to get my basic necessecities, like food and transportation. I also need it to pay for my assignments (materials and printing costs cost a bomb. It always leaves me with a big fat empty hole in my pocket that always seems to be getting bigger. Without it, I might not be able to do as well for my grades as the quality of the finished artwork often plays a huge role.

Money also allows me to fulfill my wants, like getting new clothes or catching a movie for entertainment purposes. In other words, money is extremely important to me right now. Just to get money to spend while i was in Korea, i had to work as a miserable Soyjoy promoter for 3 weekends. Can’t help it but to go through all these trouble as I was kinda broke at that moment. ):

If i had a million dollars, i would get myself a macbook pro and get rid of my hp laptop that is still under repair, i would get myself a new room so that i need not have to share it with my sister, i would get myself that pair of shoes that i have always wanted, i would get myself a pet cat and dog once i’m rich enough to live in a condo..and the list goes on and on.

Money is never enough to satisfy one’s needs and wants. Even the richest man on earth is constantly looking for ways to earn himself more money. Why is that so? He already has enough money to last throughout his entire life. Is money really that great? Is money really that powerful? Perhaps that’s why many people have said that ‘money is the root of all evil’. Just to get their hands on money, people could go all out to get them, even if they had to do something wrong, like robbing someone, or even stealing funds from their company. Or perhaps it’s just the greed that almost everybody has. Once you had your hands on something, you would naturally want something more as your expectations grow.

However, money cannot be used to buy everything that exist in this world. Money can’t buy friendship. Money can’t buy love. Money can’t buy the special relationships and feelings you have with your beloved family. Even in drama shows, the rich families tend to always have a weaker family bond between members, as compared to the poorer families. Perhaps it is because the poorer families are not blinded by the greed and want. They tend to treasure what they already have, rather then hoping and dreaming to get more. As for the wealthy, they are always fighting to get their hands on more money. It’s always good to balance out these two groups. Having too much of one will make you suffer in either way.

Mr Lau, i’m sleepy ): It’s already 3am. I’ll follow up on the next few questions tomorrow or something. Yawns.

Koreaaaaaaaaaaa!!

Seoul Design Olympiad. It was quite an eye opener experience for me. It was much better and grander that i thought it would be.

However. perhaps the time given to us wasn’t enough for us to admire all the great works being exhibited. Especially the gradshow that was put up by the university students, outside the stadium. Time spent at the Korean Ginseng company thingy could actually be spend in the design Olympiad, rather than wasting our time knowing more about ginseng.

Oh well.. It was a pity that we didn’t manage to take a look at them all. But nevertheless, we still did learn something, and gain some experience and inspiration.

Just outside the stadium.

And the moment we stepped into the stadium, i was amazed by the huge number of white flags that were hung across the stadium. And the following are some of the works put up.

Overall, a greaat experience. Not forgetting, the shoppppping! Hehehehe!

Reflections on preparations for ITP interview

Honestly speaking, i haven’t really done much about my portfolio during the holidays. The only thing i’m working on now is a piece of graphic illustration that i wanted to submit for a competition, but i didn’t had time to complete. I rather like the concept behind it, thus i decided to work and improve on it to include it in my portfolio. I’m also planning to include my other past works, like maybe include a mini photo album in to show my photography skills? And one fabric illustration that i have done when i was in year 1, which i’m quite satisfied with. And may be the Gummy Bear advertisement that i have done previously too? But that needs quite a bit of touching up.

I guess photography and graphic designing are my strengths? (Though i know it’s not really up to standard yet, especially illustrating. Boo D:) However, i’m quite interested in advertising. Hence, i have decided to put my focus on advertising and photography? May be graphic designing as well? I’m not sure.

I have already set up an online portfolio using flickr and Behance, hopefully those will come in handy? Most of my namecards are given out, so i have to make some more by this weekend. I’m also intending to create a smaller version of my portfolio and saved it in pdf format for easy reading when i meet the client. Perhaps i’ll have a printed version too, for convenience? I’m still thinking of other ways to do it to make it a more memorable and interesting experience.

Oh well..i’ll see how it goes? ><

And one more thing to worry about. I have no idea which company I wanna intern for. Yikes!

Pffft!

I’m tired.

Learning Journey

Ps: I’m lazy to cut portions of my learning journey. Shall just plonk everything here.

I was rather eager to start on this assignment. Probably because my logo design was not selected by the previous client from Boys’ Brigade, I was determine to a better job. Although I have already expected it to happen because I felt that it did not really stand out from the rest of the designs that are done my course mates, I was still hoping it would be. However, ha ha..the secret wish of mine did not come true. Though I have already put in tons of effort in that assignment, I still want to further improve myself and do better in future.

Honestly, the process of doing this assignment was rather interesting. Playing around with colours and layouts, trying out different kinds of folds for the brochure publication was quite a fun experience. Although coming out with new and interesting ideas was quite a tedious process, overall it was still productive.

I started sketching my draft ideas on the eve of National Day, when I was not inform of the postponed assignment submission deadline. It was a good thing that I was not inform though, otherwise, I would have started working on it on a much later date. My first few ideas were rather typical, nothing much out of the ordinary. Hence, I was not very happy it.

Then, I went to the library to look for books about brochures. Unfortunately, most of the books were already on loan, so I had to settle on books about different kinds of publications and bindings. They still did help anyway. A few designs caught my attention, and I was quite intrigued and inspired by them. Thus, my pop-up brochure design was strongly inspired by one of the invitation cards that I saw in one of the books.

From there, I started working on my layout of the content. I took a long time to finalised my idea as I could not get idea that I was really satisfied with. Also, I had to keep in mind that the target audience are tertiary students and busy working adults, aged 18 to 35. Thus, I had to ensure that my design is not too youthful and glaring for them. However, one thing that I had trouble understanding was that, Young NTUC wants us to bring out the vibrancy and fun-ness in them, yet they want us to target the working adults. I find that they were rather contradicting. However, I just decided to continue using colours to bring out the vibrancy of YNTUC, but not making it too overpowering.

I found out that it was rather hard to simply just sketch out my ideas, without being able to see the actual thing. It was rather hard to visualise the real thing with colours. Thus, I started working on it in Illustrator over the weekends. I worked through day and night on Saturday, as I did not want to rush during the weekdays, when there will be school and lessons going on. Thus, I suffered quite a bit over that weekend, only sleeping at about 4am and waking up at 10am, finding myself back in the same chair, and facing my laptop’s screen.

When there was BDS studio lessons on Monday, I printed a draft mock up of my brochure and consulted Mr Azhar. As I had trouble with including the application mailer page into the brochure, I managed to solve the problem after a few trial and errors, while playing around with the layout and whole outlook of it.

I was also told to take note of my typography, and the empty spacing around my graphics and text. Even after doing so, I still was not happy with the final look and feel of it. I felt that the colour of my cover was not suitable. Thus, I started playing around with the colours, and printed them out to look at it. I also got comments from my classmates. It was then did I manage to finalise on my design. Viola!~

I did not face much problems in this assignment. Firstly, I was quite motivated to do well for this assignment. Secondly, I stuck tight to my personal schedule that I have planned, and did most of the work over the weekends, and was able to consult with lecturers during the weekdays. The only problem I faced was when I sent the finished artworks for printing. It cost a whopping $42 in total, just to print and to get over sized mounting boards.

I find that I am always killing myself by coming out with such weird designs. For example, I spent a huge sum on my Boys’ Brigade assignment as well, because I had to print on 2 A1 sized poster paper, all thanks to the elongated accordion fold design that I had come up with. And now, I had to create a landscape version of the brochure, with pop-ups and flaps.

Sometimes, I really regret experimenting all these weird designs, as I always end up paying so much for it. But then again, I can’t deny that I will always get a sense of satisfaction every time I submitted assignments as I felt that I have put in effort, and had came out with designs that I am happy with. How I wish that I am rich, without worrying about the cost price of my design production.

A big fat sigh from me…………………

Communications Model

WIP for YNTUC & Coffee Table Book

Hmmm..sad to say, i have yet to start on the YNTUC assignment. I think it’s really crazy to only give us a only week to complete a brochure design. It’s totally impossible!!!! Sigh! Nevertheless, i’ll start researching and planning by this weekend. Probably going Starbucks again. Bugger!!!

As for the Coffee Table book, hmm, i was thinking what topic should i work on. I don’t even know what i like. Was thinking, should i work around the colour, turquoise? Since i like it so much. Hence, i have already borrowed a nikon camera from rahim, hoping to get it tomorrow. Shall go on a photography trip this weekend to start the ball rolling!

Saturday: Starbucks-ing for YNTUC

Sunday: Photography trip

And where’s my play time??? Boooo ):