Client Project! Theme Change.

These designs have been completed as i have now decided instead of the ipod site the link to this micro site will be placed within the BBC Radio One site under the chart as this clearly targets the music industry and even if people are not downloading from here they make check here for the chart so it targets both music lovers and piracy users. It also narrows down the age for the intended audience to be at young adults which the colour scheme helps to capture as it is vibrant and fresh. The design i have decided to go with is the top one as i feel it has its own design but incorporates a bit of the 'parent' site with the use of the texture overlay on the cds.

The next two designs are a follow on from the first when a page is selected....

Client Project! Sitemap

Client Project! Tag Lines

Buy Something New Today.

Be Different. Be Legal.

Buy. Play. Support.

Chart Toppers. Means Piracy Stoppers.

Piracy.Rock The Boat.

Piracy. Break the silence.

Client Project! Final Designs

I have mocked up my final designs and thoughts would be appreciated! The first design is the design at present I am thinking of going with. The theme ties in with the campaign placement which would be from a link within the iTunes website as I want to aim the site at people who 'love' music and therefore 'hate' piracy' and specifically at music for my target audience. The colour scheme within the design is taken from the iPod Chromatic range to tie the micro site in even more. The bright colours also add interest and act as a navigation bar. The title on each page will be the question and the information will be the answer to it.

When the user changes page the CD colour will spread along the bar to form a banner across the page. Interactives used will be placed within this banner.

Within the second design I really wanted to reinforce the logo and the music theme, and I feel the bold neon headphones achieve this. They also draw the users eye towards the information within them and it keeps the information clean and precise. The tagline is positioned at the top so it is the first thing the user sees so hopefully the thing that sticks in there mind. The neon colour scheme gives a fresh vibe and the darker background also adds the effect of the piracy being the darker side. The navigation is situated at the bottom of the page, although not particular effective at standing out to the user it is still clear and easy to use and fits in nicely with the overall design.

The third design clearly shows the audience of the site with the large CD in the centre of the page. The image across the middle as a visual idea of the information being displayed as well as separating the text. This separation allows the text to become more digestible to the user. The navigation for this design is situated at the top of the page so would be easier for the user to locate. The footer also reinforces the navigation links so site navigation within this design is of a high standard.

So let me know which ones you prefer please and any general thoughts as all will be appreciated!

Client Project! Government Kids.

Alot of government campaigns have a child site for kids and therefore i thought i should research into them to give me an idea of what they aim at the target audience.

The key elements i have found are:

- Bright colours

- High interactivity

- Very visual

- Characters

- Ages split

The websites I looked at are:

http://kids.direct.gov.uk/main.aspx?firstObject=fire_station

- Animation was used throughout

- Characters - each representing different age group

- Bright colours

- Sound used to read text - can be turned off

- Ages split so information can be tailored to fit them

- Use a Click to interact theme - unveiling movies, photos games and other animations when you simply explore

- 4-7 age - hear stories, animations, games, quiz, videos, 999 call (hear)

- 7-11 age - comic strip, animation, quiz, 999 calls, video

- Help button - brings up page instructions.

http://www.dft.gov.uk/think/education/early-years-and-primary/

- Bright colours

- Characters

- Sectioned into 3 main areas:
- parent - q&a format with tips
- teacher - notes, lesson plans and curriculum links
- pupils - sub sectioned into 3 ages groups - under 5, 5-7 and over 7s.

- under 5
- visual representation of the menu
- see - pdf to print pictures - all image no work (parent input)
- do -colouring pdf
- read - pdf books (parent input)
- play - simple game

- 5-7 - Not Available!!!!

- over 7s
- visual menu
- read - pdf booklet - writing and pics, tips sectioned
- do - worksheets to fill in
- watch - videos and adverts
- play - flash games and quiz

Client Project! Simons questions answered.

1. Who is running the site?

The music industry as it is a site dedicated purely to peer to peer sharing of music.

2. Who is the target audience?

the target audience will be music downloaders and iTunes users as the link will be avaible on there site.

3. Are we discussing all medias or focusing on one in particular?

focusing just on music as i found there are more film sites avaiable then music sites.

PRP! Question finalised...I think...

Today after a meeting with David to discuss narrowing down my PRP topic I have now, I think got my final question. It is....

Can online gaming addiction traits be used to create 'addictive advertising'?

We discussed how previous choices on addiction didn't really leave much room for 'creative' artefact's and how this would not bode well for my portfolio. By having some artefact's that I actually design it allows me to gain portfolio work to show to future employees. As I want to progress into work within a more corporate agency on the design front we realised I needed some artefact's which incorporated design work. We discussed possibly looking into advertising as a way around this as this is often a part of the design work in corporate agencies, but I still wanted to include an aspect of addiction as this topic had really caught my interest. Therefore David came up with the idea of 'addictive advertising' and how by researching into addictive elements was it possible to make advertising addictive? This also then made way for my 'creative' artefact's as I would design the adverts myself and test user reactions to them.

Client Project! Further logos

I have completed a few more logo design ideas this evening both fitting a music copyright campagin and a government one.

Design #1 - Goverment ship

Design #2 - Headphones

Design #3 - Cd Pile

Design #4 - Skull and Microphones

Client Project! Logo Design Animation!

Had an idea for an animated logo and thought I would make a mock up, this logo is more likely to appear within the goverment campaign site as it contains the tag line "How to sink a pirate".

http://www.kirsty.sneakybox.com/swf_hosting2.html

PRP! Perosnalization=Gone!

I have decided that Personalization is TOO BIG as an area and limited on research with it being more of a future development. Therefore after hours of looking through web topics to find a new idea of interest i stumbled across web psychology. At a first glance i was put off as it seemed to involve colour association etc the been there done that topics of the past. However then i stumbled across Internet addiction and this really caught my attention. After researching further into this today i have decided i think this is now the direction is wish to take. a few possible questions i have at present are:



1. Internet addiction: does it exist?



2. Internet addiction: online gaming gone to far?



3. Internet addiction: have social networks resulted in addiction?



4. Internet addiction: is it really more prone in men?



5. Internet addiction: does is only exist in teens?



6. Internet addiction: Has the iPhone mobilised it?



So by far generating many more ideas with this one!

Client Project! Thinking audience

In the tutorial we discussed how we felt that the government schemes target audience would be broader and that we felt that the industry audience would be more focused. After research into the two areas and sites available I have decided this may not be the case! The government sites included clear sections related to each different user with specific information and had child sites aimed specifically at education and making them aware in highly interactive and engaging ways. Whereas the industry site was more broad in age range and person as a target audience however was more specific in target audience with theme (in this case being film and cinema).

Client Project! Research ~ Industry Perspective

The main Industry campaign I could think of against piracy and to base my ideas on was the piracy adverts shown in the cinema. These are run by a copyright promotion and protection company 'The Industry Trust' (http://www.copyrightaware.co.uk/). So I took a look at this site to see how the industry approach piracy.


- Main message 'Piracy its a crime!'

- Campaigns they have running
- screenthing - aimed at 11-15 year olds
- you make the movies (new adds aimed at thank you for buying dvds etc)

- They have a section explaining the company and what they aim to achieve

- News and media links - videos of the adverts included, FQAs and competitions

- Links to legal Downloading sites! (pretty essential!)

- Report it section with contact details

- What copyright is section
- where to legally
- legal Q&A
- punishment Q&A
- copyright theft! effects on the industry - statistics of losses

- The site is much more visually based then the government ones and many more images used within the site and a more fun feel!

- Follows clear theme of cinema and film and information tends to follow in this too.


THEREFORE does this mean there is an open niche for a site dedicated more clearly to the music industry and is this possibly the way for me to go??

Client Project! Research ~ Government Perspective

Ok so i have researched into existing government campaign sites so that i can get a feel of what they include and how the government goes about getting the information and issues across. I started by looking at the existing campaigns run by the government at DirectGov' (http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/campaigns/index.htm) and chose a few to look at from there.

http://firekills.direct.gov.uk/index.html

- The first thing i noticed was the use of the recognisable logo and that the colour scheme of the site was a continuation from this.
- The site was sectioned for different types of people e.g. parents, homeowners etc. Then within these sections there were further links to more specific information, condensing the text to a readable amount.
- There was a top tips section which was completely a visual representation rather than more text.
- Other sections were media and advertising (videos included), leaflets (down loadable) and a useful links section.
- There was also a game to help get across key points and a good use of interactivity.
- Finally there was a link to a kids site.

http://units.nhs.uk/

- Very visually appealing and interactive site.

- Bright colours used throughout and to define sections within the site.

- Tables of statistics used with images to add interest.

- Mini games and quizzes to add interactivity

- Text followed a question and answer format with the use of big bold bright headings to section text areas

- Steps and advice to follow was offered

- Myths section - works well as don't always know whats real or not and effective way of showing this to the user!

- Other key sections were FQAs, useful links and meadia and your stories.

- Each page had bookmark links at the top so easier to choose what you wanted to read.

- Has recognisable logo of parent site. = trust information.

http://www.dft.gov.uk/think/

- Animation image on each page links to different users of the site so you can find out more on a specific subject.

- Sections for different road user which were then sub-divided further for different areas of information, adverts were included in these sub sections.

- Quiz adds interactivity and reinforces messages.

- Poll and you think sections allows your say and the user to feel engaged with the site.

- Education link to kids site.

- Bland colour scheme

- Recognisable logo from the adverts and parent site.

-search bar for quick use.

-listed information for user choice.

-------------------------------

Overall within the sites i found ...

- They all had a clear tag line for the user to remember the purpose of the site.

- Sectioned so the user does not overload on information and to avoid vast amounts of text.

- Sidebar link navigation on all of the sites.

- Main image followed by text layout.

PRP! Tutorial #1

Well this was a tad scary! I have realised I have previously given myself such a large research area I am not quite sure where to start on refining it to a single question! Firstly personalization within the web is HUGE and secondly it is up and coming which I feel may limit my research material. Therefore at present after a few hours panick researching I have decided for now to look more closely at personalized recommendations within shopping sites as this has been around for a longer period so is likely to have research material available to me.

During the tutorial we disscussed what the research project is to include in detail reading through each section within the breif. We have set a deadline within our tutor group to have a mock sign off sheet completed stating both our question and the 6 related artefacts by next weeks tutorial.

So wish me luck!

Client Project! Tutorial #1

During today's tutorial we discussed firstly the client live project and where we were with that and that we should be in the process of finalising the client so we are ready in advance. That our client must be reliable and where possible well known or established so we are able to receive a reference from them. We discussed that the most successful clients would be a business or foundation as they already have a sense of business so it will make working with them easier whereas if you are working with someone less established they tend to leave you to do ALL the work and give very little input or time. Therefore I am thinking of moving away from my original client idea of a small self run photography business to avoid the previous issues!

It was suggested that we should keep minutes of meetings with clients and that we should provide ourselves and the client with deadlines so we both know what is to be completed and when, therefore practicing good time management.

We also defined the differences between the two projects. The simulated project allows us to be creative and explore whereas the client project allows us to become aware of client needs and learn to solve problems within practice.

The second part of the tutorial was spent looking over the brief and getting a more in depth feel of what was actually expected of us. We began to discuss who we thought the company was representing and what exactly the message was they were trying to put across and possible audiences we thought we could target. From this we decided that the company would either be working from the government or the publisher and we had to decide which route we would work from for our designs. It was also suggested we think about whether our site would be a stand alone site or a link from a main company site so we could start to think about the message we were trying to convey within it. And finally we discussed the interactive ideas and that perhaps we should look into visual interactives to help convey our message to the user.

We left the tutorial with 3 questions in mind...

1. Who is running the site?
2. Who is the target audience?
3. Are we discussing all medias or focusing on one in particular?

Client Project! Research

Yesterday I began researching into 'Pirate Bay' who and what they were and a little into the court case and outcome. I found that although not actually hosting copyright products they were still sentenced a year in prison and a damages payout of £3 million, for giving links to were the products could be accessed. One article discussing the pirate bay case and them as an organisation mentioned how a teenager directly found of downloading illegal files can not be touched by the law, whereas these people were sentenced purely for posting torrent links. This seems to be of injustice when you look at the two together. And piracy is not going to be conquered by one successful court case it has become to wide spread to start clamping down on, and many of the companies operate servers from abroad where the European laws cant touch them.

I also looked into the types of piracy which at present are the most popular, and out of server computer networks, hyperlinks and peer to peer, peer to peer most definitely triumphed. And with music downloads becoming more and more common place it is said to be damaging the economy, the companies creating films and music are becoming out of pocket.

From research I began to think about a possible target audience and thought about maybe creating a site tackling the issue at a younger age, as that way you can educate before about the consequences and it may prevent them from becoming a part of piracy. As tackling those already apart of it does not seem effective as they don't want and really why would they!?

Sneaky Box is launched!!!!

Sneakybox - UK Web Design, Development, and Media Production

This is my Friends web company and hopefully some day part of my future. so check it out guys!