Today I had a crit with Natalie, Jo and Charlotte due to missing Friday's crit. I found it highly beneficial due to having a variety of personal problems which although I tried not to let them effect my work, they have had quite a profound affect on this project. As the people in my crit were aware of my circumstances I found it easier to present my work, and their support was incredible and really helped me to focus, and get into the swing of things again.
The first point mentioned was to scrap calling the week, Trip Week. Jo thought it sounded quite primary school- like, this is something that definitely doesn't need portraying. Also Charlotte and Natalie said how the name isn't very motivational, they were two people that I found didn't do anything for Trip Week, but wished they had done, which is the general case I found in my primary research.
From here we began bouncing ideas off each other foussing on the fact that I found inspiration for my book project in London, so we incorporated the word inspiration to some taglines.
- Prepare to be inspired - prepare is one of the key words here, as you do have to prepare it yourself, and then obviously the word inspired is what hopefully people will be. This reminds me of the Alton Towers tagline for the ride Air, 'Prepare for Air...'
- Inspiration week - a better variation of trip week.
- Inspire yourself - this focusses on making people aware that it is down to them to sort out their excursions, as again trip week may bring across the idea of something pre-planned.
- Be inspired - this is quite instructional, as all designers need inspiration.
- Are you ready to be inspired? - This is just a question that may feature on posters around college as a reminder to students to get ready for the week in February.
From here, we began to discuss the potential products I had come up with, the idea of the DVD was pretty much all agreed, that not everyone would be bothered to put the DVD in and navigate around to find information, as people would be more likely to use a website, and from here a blog was mentioned. I had briefly covered this in a mind map but not thought of it any more, the blog could be a place to share experiences, or organise groups of people getting together to go on trips suitable to them.
Another interesting idea the girls came up with had a game theme to it, for example, sending people to a city to photograph 20 specific objects which may be of use to their future briefs. As something I got from trip week was building up a stock library of images, and they too could benefit from that.
Or creating an A2 photo frame that can be rolled up and carried around, and the idea is using the photo frame as a view finder, the students have to take the most interesting photograph in pairs, with proof of visiting that place which may include collecting items like receipts, travel cards, photographs, post cards, leaflets etc. again these are items that can have use at a later date. Once the week is over, the students can upload their images to a blog and get people to vote for it, with the winning pair winning something graphics related, or some library vouchers.
Tying in with the blog, to promote it, it was brought up that I could create small business cards. I could have one side with the slogan on and blog address on the other, this will be handy to keep in purses and wallets, and a place for other students to share their experiences to inspire the new students.
Another game idea is to provide students with a series of images in a specific city, it could be Leeds for those who can't afford to go elsewhere, or London for those who want to travel, and the students have to research into the images, and visit the places themselves. This would link in my next potential product, a road trip CD, this would combine entertainment with travel, the CD would feature songs picked from this years Graphic Design group in the response to the question, "If you could pick a song to listen to on a road trip what would it be?" The CD cover would have the design on that would feature on all the products, and the inlay would have a fold out section with small maps on it for towns and cities around Leeds. It is slightly gimmicky, but everyone likes a free CD!
The iPhone app idea was dismissed by all, originally it did seem like a good idea, and I did recognise that not everyone has an iPhone when making evaluation points on my ideas. And this was an agreed point among everyone, using my current group as an example, around 5 out of 57 have an iPhone, so this will not be a successful way of communicating to my target audience. However, it was mentioned that if I was wanting to communicate in an electronic way, I could design a multimedia message to be sent to mobiles, or an email to be sent out, which will be a great way of reaching out to my audience.
Overall it was a very positive and inspiring crit, and it was interesting to see Natalie and Charlotte's work as I had no idea what they were doing. And it was even more interesting to see how Jo's work had progressed from the last time I saw it.
