Evaluation
Overall the brief was a team effort and was answered well. There was a distinct split in the group in terms of ways of working and also what we wanted out of the brief. Despite the group agreeing deadlines for various things on several occasions these were not always met and this led to conflict and frustration (Mainly on my part or at least I was the only one to say anything about it).
Sarah and I made a good team and both worked really hard to pull the production and distribution off. We were keen to make this go live and as such we went down the screen print route as this is not only a cheap way to print in bulk but it also gave us the finish we were after. We were disappointed that on the day we had agreed to distribute everything the posters had not been printed out as agreed and it was only after much persuasion that we got them printed.
We managed to give out hot dog books and put up posters around Leeds however I think the most successful way of getting this to go viral was using Facebook and Tweeter.
I was conscious that although I contributed to the initial design ideas I did take a back seat in this area. This was because I recognised that Dom, Sarah and Matt all had stronger skills from me in this area. I think my role was the initial idea/concept and also the organisation throughout. I liked Dom's logo and felt the DO DAY brand is strong despite Matt pointing out later it is very "Easy jet'.
Although we received positive feedback to our presentation I don't think it portrayed how engaged we had been with the brief and the extent to which we had taken the production and distribution both physically and digitally. I have not managed to get a copy of the presentation to post on my Blog. Dom is a confident speaker and likes speaking 'off the cuff' whereas I would have be more comfortable presenting something more structured. As it was Dom carried his part off perfectly.
On a positive note the fact Laura Jordan invited us to do another Do Day is testament in itself that we had communicated our message.
Group 9 gave us feedback to our presentation. The feedback was very positive as they said the brief was well answered. The concept, content and method of delivery were clearly defined and described well. The font and stock worked well. Luis said he wasn't sure the stickers worked as they only had DODAY on however I explained the idea was to have them spread around Leeds and as you walked down the street there would be another poster or flyer explaining more. Amber agreed this was a good concept as it was drip feeding information. They felt the stickers and badges would work well to make people part of something.
A suggestion was made about making a physical event where people can exchange ideas and perhaps have workshops with ideas. We still feel the overall tone should be kept spontaneous and lighthearted. Sarah and I had been keen to set up an area marked out with poster, balloons, banners wearing tshirts so we could make more of an impact on Leeds on the day. Overall it was good to get the project live and out in the environment. The experience of actually handing leaflets out (difficult!) and also seeing and hearing people's reactions was useful.
The feedback also mentioned we did not put across how engaged we had been with the project in the presenation. We should have included more photographs of how far we had spread the word on the day and also the results of the survey feedback. Liv said it would have been interesting to hear what people had actually done (although it is recorded on the blogs).
We gave Group 3 there feedback. This is a link to Beljeet's design practise blog page. The concept which was to test how visually aware people are or tell a lie convincingly was answered. Niall gave a convincing performance as a guest speaker to the second year Graphics's students however we commented that they had not really delivered a graphic response to the brief. Their presentation had engaged us as much with the anticipation of seeing Niall and was some what diluted by the fact they had been unable to capture his performance on video. The photograph in the presentation was difficult to see so whilst we could imagine how good it was, especially with Amber's enthusiasm, we really only had videos of five second years to back this up.
We had difficulty answering the guide questions to the feedback as the group's work had mainly been focused on the character development. Equally it was difficult giving negative feedback to what had on the surface been a very successful live result. We considered how they could have answered the brief more fully, given more time. As the group had developed a website and business cards they could have actually used this more fully in the lie/cover up. The second year students could have been given time to look at the website and then videoed for their reactions. (This fulfilling the Graphics response). Another idea was to start spreading a rumour from one second year student (virally, word of mouth) that indeed Niall was a setup. They could have then monitored/recorded this.
We took the Hot dog fold book and the colour samples tested. Dom and Matt also had their Macs with them so could show Jo the poster/flyer ideas. Jo liked the concept DO DAY but asked if we had considered other names. We explained how we had explored several different concepts and vehicles for this including birthday cards and apps. This concept was more accessible and could be done live.
The main points from the crit:
- She recommended we think about whether this could become a regular event.
- Why we had chosen Wednesday 23 March. She recommended to think about how to make the day memorable. She felt Tuesday may have worked better. I was unsure as we had planned Wednesday as we had nothing booked in college that day and also it gave us an extra day for preparing any material we needed. I was also unsure as we had already gone live on Facebook/Tweeter with Wednesday. Matt and Dom were more receptive to the idea so we agreed to discuss with Sarah and then make a decision.
- She discussed the legibility and readability of choosing Capitals over lower case for our Do Day brand.
- With regard to the Hot dog fold book she said we could put more of an intro so people would engage on page 2.
- Shae also recommended we think more about what our 'new' ideas were and the order on the page
- We said we were thinking of just doing the Hotdog fold books single sided to keep costs down however Jo felt it was worth exploring having a poster on the back as people may take them to work with the.
- Re-visist Concept, Content and method boards.
We gave our pitches to Jo and Amber using the boards above.
Amber's initial feedback was she liked the essence of our idea and she felt we had something however we had to unpick what was 'new' and also what would motivate someone to actually try our new suggestions. Matt is going to research the idea of 'new'.
I fed back the idea of an App which acts as as randomiser throwing out suggestion which the user then tried, documented/photographed/videoed and shared with a group of friends or others in the App group. With the popularity of Facebook and other social networking sites. I thought this was an interesting way of making the concept go viral.
Amber said it reminded her of the Nike + campaign which I have researched further on my Design context blog.
Dom shared our idea about possibly making this with a 'business', Corporate brand angle as it is aimed at Professionals.
When we showed them our questionnaire which we have already published on freeonline surveys, they raised question about the title (Matt had questioned the very northern slant it gave earlier) and felt the survey would have been stronger if we had actually established the person was ion a rut through a series of questions. IE How long do you work? How do you spend your free time? etc which would maybe conclude they were indeed stuck in the same old routine. Rather than republish they advised to see what kind of feedback/results we get back. I said we had tried to keep the questionnaire as short as possible as from experience people are more likely to complete.
On reflection the survey is quite leading and depending on the results on Monday it may be worth revising it.
Amber had hooked into to the 'long hours' angle we had used when describing the concept and she felt this gave us an opportunity to research 'scare tactics' about the impact certain lifestyles can have on their health. Dom said he would research this further.
Sarah discussed her idea for the weekly calendar which had been the catalyst for the concept. We thought a suggestion per week could be enough for a busy working professional.
Other angles to consider, are we trying to psychologically change some body's life?
Think of novel ways of getting this out there, unexpected angles.
Amber and Jo said looking at books like 'how to change your world in under a fiver?' maybe useful. Jo's sister also keeps sending her inspirational emails from 'Mama jean's daily fluff'.
