Trent Media Calendar Is Finished

The Final Calendar looks as follows:



I have used the distinctive balls from the posters, the characters from the mobile screensaver and the background images from the leaflet. Overall I think that it looks quite good and the majority of people agreed saying it is something useful that they could use and would look good on there wall. Bonus!

I have now finished all my Ident Material and here they all are:

Mobile Phone Wallpaper/Screensaver and Key Ring Completed

I have finished my mobile phone screensaver and it looks like this.



I decided to develop the characters for the mobile screensaver as it would add more appealing and attract more people to download it. Many people agreed that these characters are more appealing as they have more character. I will be using these characters on the calendar, key ring and the mobile screensaver as it shows a link to trent media, but also works well on its own, with people stating that they would buy a product with these characters on as they look "cool, funny and funky"

I did have some problems with the animation. Originally I had the Trent Media animation at the bottom, but because of the size, the animation developed lines and was very bad quality. Therefore, i decided just to show the logo. However, i felt that this worked quite well in the end as it was less complicated and this also redeced the file size which means that it would take up less space on peoples mobile device.

As an extra screensaver, i decided to make another one with just the Trent Media animation on its own.

I have also finished my Key king that looks just as ace. Here they both are in all there glory!

Identities Leaflet Complete

My leaflet is now complete and has turned out 'reasonably' successful. The leaflet pulls out to make a square, with four sides, which has information about trent media on each of its sides. More information on how the leaflet can be found from this earlier post, http://kacarevicp.blogspot.com/2007/02/identities_04.html.

So, this is how each side looks.

Fly FM





Platform





Trent TV












Trent Media





Many people have commented on the leaflet saying that it is interesting, innovative, colourful, and fun to look at. This has proved to be a huge success and been very popular. The main objective of the leaflet was to encourage people to pick it up and look at it. Most people I ask said they would pick it up, which was encouraging. However, I did receive some feedback about the manufacture of the leaflet such as the cost of making the leaflet and the amount of material that the leaflet uses and its effect on the environment.

Firstly, I have used as little amount of ink as possible by using white backgrounds, which would reduce the cost of the leaflet slightly. As for the material, the leaflet could be made from recycled material, which would again, lower the cost and can also be recycled therefore being less damaging to the environment. The leaflet contains a lot of information, and also has information printed on both sides which make use of the material used. The plastic screen used on the TV side of the leaflet allowing you to see the inside of the leaflet was required as the leaflet was weak without it and was prone to tearing.

Identities Poster Complete

I have finally finished my TWO identities posters and this is how it looks.





I wanted to keep the poster relatively simple, similar to the Trent Media animation. I decided to use a blue, green and orange ball to represent the characters and the circles used in the logo. These colours and shapes will be used in all areas on the Ident material as it will show a clear link between all the promotional materials and shows a clear link with Trent Media. The aim of the balls is to capture people’s attention as they are bright and stand out. After asking a few peoples opinion, I found that the designs were successful as people said that the posters attracted their attention and that they were easy to understand and very distinctive. This was good news, but to get to the final poster design I had to make various changes.

Originally I added eyes to the balls so that they made up the recognisable Trent Media characters. However, some people interpreted it as people juggling with bowling balls! Obviously I would hate to encourage this, and after making a few changes many people said that they preferred it without the eyes.

Trent Media Animation

Although I had not originally planned to make any animation element I decided that I would attempt a simple Ident that could be used on a web site or Trent TV. It contains a simple jingle that could be used on the radio station as well. Although its only two notes I felt that it was quite effective as it represents the serious and fun side to Trent Media.

Trent Media Logo Development

I have completed my final designs for my Trent Media logos. Firstly I decided to give each of the 3 media logos (FLY, TV, Platform) a different colour character as this would give each media a distinctive colour that the audience could relate to each media. For example, Fly FM is associated with the colour blue, Trent TV with the colour orange and Platform which the colour green. I found this is a common strategy used by all major broadcasting companies who have a number of different stations, for example, ITV and the BBC. ITV1 is associated with the colour yellow, ITV 2 is green etc.



I used Green, Blue and Orange as i felt that they worked well together and were bright and vibrant colours that capture peoples attention.

I experimented with the Trent media logo, trying different colours and layouts.





For my Trent Media Logo I used three circles that represent the three Trent Media characters. This would create a clear link between the three logos. I used the font 'Teen Dreem Magazeen' as I felt it was fun and shows more creativity (which would appeal more to its targets audience) as opposed to a more corporate font.

Fly, Trent TV and Logo Development

I have developed my three logos. I received feedback from staff and students along the way which helped me develop the logos.

Fly FM

I used the character from the current logo as this was very popular with a lot of people and was very well established. I decided to build on it and add a circular design around the character to give the effect of a signal being sent from the character to represent radio waves. I played around with the text and I decided to use the font 'FM University' as it was relevant to the logo and was a typical (fairly retro) radio font that was popular with many people.



Trent TV

For the Trent TV logo I created a new character similar to the FLY FM, except the character was holding a remote control.



The font I used was called 'Technicolor' and I thought it work well. The 'T' was made to look like and Arial and the 'Trent' had similarities with the old BBC logo. This helped the logo to show clear links with television and broadcasting. I experimented with a TV image but this became unpopular with people I asked. Therefore I decided not to use it.




For the final developed logo I added the character on top of the T in order to make it look like the character was sitting down, as you do when you traditionally watch television. It also had similarities with the fly logo in that the character blends into the logo to create an environment that links to the media.



Platform

I decided to use the same font for the Platform logo as it was well established. I decided to update it to make it look like it was been written as it would represent the writing of the articles. I added a magazine in the background with the character behind to make it look like he is reading Platform. For the final logo I made the magazine image slightly bigger so the overall logo was less wide and was a simular size to the other two logos.



The logo has been very popular, which a lot of people has said this one is their favourite. However Roma has suggested that the logo is not a 'clean' as the other logos. The reason for this is that I wanted the logo to look like it has been drawn, which makes it look a bit more creative, and more relevant to a magazine.

Web Accessibilty Pratical

Today’s Web Accessibility Practical gives us a chance to assess a particular website's practical accessibility using a variety of tools. The first tool we used was Lynx which is a text only browser. This is mainly used by blind people. As such it does not show any images and instead shows the alternative text (alt text) that the web developer has given to the image. One of the main problems with this method was that it was very difficult to understand some parts of the website such as the lottery results.



Using the tab key to select the lottery numbers proved to be an impossible task! There was no order when moving between numbers. It was very frustrating and I eventually gave up.



When I checked the contrast of the web site i found that it was actually quite good and did pass some tests. I used the AIS toolbar to check the contrast and some parts some scored quite highly and some parts even passed the test.





Finally, when changing the text size on the Playmonday site there was very little change as the majority of the site is made up of flash applications and images. Also the background and text colour would not change when I changed the internet settings. This would be bad for people with colour blindness or other visually impaired disabilities.

Trent Media Logo Development

I have started developing my Trent Media logo. The image below shows how I have developed my logo design.



I have decided not to use red and blue which are used in the Nottingham union logo as many people felt that it did not work very well.

After further research many people stated that they really liked the Fly FM character. This has given me the idea to develop the character further and add two new characters to the platform and the Trent TV logo. Therefore I have diverted from the cube theme slightly and have decided to use circles as this would show a link between the trent media logo and the characters.

I have still kept the 3D text as it was very popular, but I added a circle background that I thought worked quite well. At the moment the circle is blue to link with the fly fm character, but this may change as I develop the logo further.

Identities Timescale

I have made a Gantt chart showing my time scale that I will try to stick to ensure that I will be on target for the deadline which is Week 42.



The presentation is all complete and is ready for Wednesday. I have made a PowerPoint presentation and a design board.

Identities

I am now clear over what I am going to do for my identity package. I am going to produce the following:

Leaflet: This will be available during fresher’s week and also handed out to students in the union and outside the library. The leaflet will open up into a 3D cube that will display information on the three media’s on each side, as well as info on ‘Trent Media’. (See ‘Ident Testing’ post for more info on design)

Calendar: I wanted to create advertising material that the students could use. Through my research I found that A2 wall calendars were very popular and used by the majority of students. Therefore I plan to produce an A2, 2007-08 term calendar advertising Trent Media.

Mobile Phone Wallpaper: Almost all students have mobile phones that they carry around with them regularly; therefore I intend design a collection of funky wallpapers that students can download for free off the internet. This would appeal to the 87.5% of people who said that they would like free download for their phones and mp3 players. Pod casts are soon going to be available from fly FM which students can download.

Poster: Posters are a good way of catching people’s attention around the university buildings and union bar. The posters will be simple but will hopefully capture people’s attention. This could be done by using a combination of popular bands and celebrities, as well as bright colours and interesting images.

Key Ring: The most popular form of marketing I have seen aimed at students was the Co-op key ring. The key ring was given out for free during fresher’s week and is on the majority of keys of students staying in halls as is was in the fresher’s welcome pack in everyone’s room. Personally it was the first thing I noticed in the pack so I therefore found it quite effective.

Ident Testing

I looked at various leaflet designs for insiration for my design.



After looking at various interesting designs for leaflets i have decided to test these by making scale paper mockups to decide what paper is suitable, how it will be printed and to get a sense of size and weight the leaflet will be. I was also able to ask people which leaflet idea they prefered and they were able to get a true sense of what the leaflet would look like, as oppsesed to a verbal explanation or a drawn diagram. The final developed leaflet design is shown from different angles below. The leaflet will be handed out flat but will open up into a 3D cube shape. One each side it will have information on Fly FM, Trent TV, Platform, and information on Trent Media as a whole and how to get involved.

One side you will be able to look through a whole to make it look like a television. The Middle fold will represent a magazine, and the back will be like a radio for Fly FM.



To test sizes and designs for my mobile wallpaper I reaseached mobile screen sizes. I found that there are 3 standard mobile screen sizes that the majority of models use. I tested this on numourous phones and it was successful. Wallpapers that you download off the internet are mainly jpeg as this is now a standard for the majority of phones with a camera and colour screen.

Ident Logo Design

I am currently in the early stage for my logo designs. I have been experimenting with Photoshop and Flash. I have got inspiration from the Nottingham student union logo such as the shape and the colours.



At the moment I have just been starting from scratch and tiring to create some completely new logo designs. However, I am not currently sure if I will completely scrap the current Fly, TV and Platform logo.

After the survey I discovery that a lot of people did not like the 'Trent Media' Logo with the glasses, therefore I am pretty sure that I will scrap this logo, although I am not going to 100% rule anything out at this stage. Another thing I noticed from the survey is that a lot of people like the fly FM character therefore I may consider keeping this.



So far here are a few of my initial designs which are completely original, and have no obvious link with the current logos.

Fact Exercise Update

Today we performed our Erasmus Darwin Fact Exercise in front of an audience of 13 people (12 more than we anticipated). The sell out performance was a huge success. Our performance was done at a bar over looking the canal as it was not practical/possible to ask our audience to travel to Lichfield and watch our performance at the 'Erasmus Darwin House'. The canal was relevant still to Darwin as he lived during the industrial age and one of his established inventions was a canal lift which was used to life canals (surprisingly). We also brought the Darwin house to Nottingham (not literally), but in the form of a short film beautifully shot and edited by Les. Les also but his photography skills to good use and took some photos of the exhibit.





I was in charge of the Erasmus Darwin Bingo (renamed Darwingo Bingo) which was fairly successful. The winner coincidently was Joules who is now the proud owner of an Erasmus Darwin pen and bookmark, which I’m sure he would agree, is a fantastic prize, and one he will cherish forever!



Suckdeep did a fantastic job of introducing the performance and taking the audience through the key points in Darwin’s exciting life and Isaac created an interactive timeline as a visual aid to Suckdeep’s speech.




Overall we worked well as a group with very few fights. This is the first time we have all worked together but I’m sure we will work together on many more projects in the near future.