Digital File Prep Overview

After finishing Digital File Prep yesterday and really studying my final project outcome and saw what I could and would have changed I learned what I would do differently. I learned the importance of the digital file when creating a project, something I never thought about before. I even understood how to package but never really understood what the purpose was. This class is probably one of the two classes I've learned the most in this semester.
I really love most of my projects and will probably edit my blog a bit more to showcase the projects I'm most proud of. Even this morning I showed off my notepad to some people at work and I was able to put one together for them this morning.
I start my internship in January and I asked specifically for more advertising opportunities. I think I can walk away from this class being able to use my advertising skills the proper way and in an organized way.

Final Project

For my final project I decided to do a portfolio of all my designs I've done, both in my Technical Writing based classes and in my Graphic Design classes. I found two blog posts that inspired my idea for the way my portfolio was going to be set up the main one that inspired my project was at this link http://design-muse.blogspot.com/2009/05/graphic-design-brooklyn-nonprofit.html. I started by creating a template just based on what I could see in the pictures they posted of this "Brooklyn Project" and I started with a 12" x 18" paper. My target audience would, of course, be my potential employers who wanted to see my work not just in a file format. This kind of made it tough since my big Tech. Writing project I wanted to add to the portfolio was created in a Word Document. 
The only major specification we were given was to either make the project fold or bound so it would be a multiple page document, something we hadn't done before in Digital File Prep. Although I printed twice. They final version ended up being $2.30.

My folding dummy ended up turning out something like the photo above.

 And my rough draft/template came first and looked like the picture above.

My final project ended up looking like this. After printing I realized I should have picked paper that was easier to fold the amount of times I chose to fold it and I also had some margin issues. 

Front ^

 Back ^
Coffee bean image came from dreamstime.com
Popcorn image from http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/images/results.aspx?qu=movie&ctt=1#ai:MP900430953|mt:0| 

Magazine Ad

For my magazine ad I decided to do an ad for Signet Coffee Roasters in Pittsburg. I chose to advertise it in Kansas Country Living for a magazine where potential customers would most likely read. The target audience would be residents of Pittsburg, Kansas, since they would be the most likely to visit the store. The ad was to be an 8 1/8” x 11 1/4” full page ad, CMYK color with a trim of 7 7/8 x 10 3/4, and bleed of 8.125 x 11.25. Fonts had to be embedded and a proof had to be submitted but a file form could be submitted as long as it was a PDF or InDesign file. In the end it was to cost $3,121 for a one time feature in the magazine.

I started by developing 5 thumbnails.

 

My final version.

Coffee bean image came from dreamstime.com

 

Collegio Newspaper Ad

For our next project we drew out own image to be scanned and used in our project as a bitmap. We had  to do a newspaper ad using the prices that our campus newspaper charges. We were given a budget of $197 and my ad cost $180. I chose to make my ad 5 columns (9.67inches)x9 inches. I chose to advertise the services at my job at Gorilla Geeks. We had to keep the ad black and white because color cost extra and would not allow us to stay in our budget and if the wrong color was used it wouldn't look good when printed in the newspaper.

My cost formula was 5x9=45    $45x$4=$180

We had to come up with 10 thumbnails. The following picture shows my ideas.

I chose to do the middle one, my bitmap was just an outline of the image. I added color once I put it into Photoshop.

I drew the whole geek but then just used the half that looked best after I cleaned it up in Photoshop.

After I did quite a bit of cleaning up the lines and I filled in some of the colors, the final product ended up looking something like this.

Variable Data Postcard

Two classes ago we started discussing Variable Data and how direct mail is important for sales and for saving companies money by only targeting those more likely to purchase particular products.

For my variable data postcards I chose to focus on movie ticket sales, specifically couples and family sales. I receive deals for movie tickets or concessions at the movies in my email and I realize I sometimes will go to a movie just because I received a coupon for free popcorn. Realizing this and after researching demographics for movie ticket sales it seems that whether targeting families or couples the best chance for sales is to send deals to the females. Statistics show that Caucasian females 25-39 buy movie tickets more often.

Picture and statistics from http://www.mpaa.org/Resources/091af5d6-faf7-4f58-9a8e-405466c1c5e5.pdf

To cater to families more I think they would be most likely to respond if given a percentage off kids tickets after purchasing an adults ticket. For couples during the Valentine's Day holiday I think the best chance for sale would be a cocession deal, such as buy one drink get another free.

For my project I plan on specifically focusing on sending deals to the females of both groups since females are the most likely to attend movies more frequently. When I signed up for my movie deals in my email I was asked to take a survey where I was asked when my birthday and anniversary (if I had one) were. Now I get deals around my birthday and my parents get them around their anniversary. I think it would be beneficial to have customers fill out surveys like the one I took so we could send out deals to the female half of the couples group around the time of their anniversary.

 My variable data postcard, front and both backs, one for family night and one for date night.

 Curtain image came from http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/images/results.aspx?qu=movie&ctt=1#ai:MP900442484|mt:0|

 Popcorn image from http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/images/results.aspx?qu=movie&ctt=1#ai:MP900430953|mt:0|

 Ticket image from http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/images/results.aspx?qu=ticket&ctt=1#ai:MP900403704|mt:0|

Personal Notepad

For the past week in Digital File Prep my class has been assigned our first project, personal notepads. We had to make it represent us, our major, and/or our interests for potential employers. It is to have a black and white image, call to action, and QR code on a 5x7 sized document. We also had to produce this notepad by steps starting with a word matrix to give us ideas and then thumbnails of potential notepads before our final product.

Word Matrix

Thumbnails

Final Draft