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Thursday 25 July 2013

Who am I, Who are they? - Study task 5

Graphic design is within the tertiary sector, the service industry and I feel in terms of client groups - most of the client groups also belong in the service industry within the private and public sectors. Some of these client groups that commonly use graphic design are:

List of client groups within graphic design:
  1. Retail
  2. Publishing
  3. music industry
  4. fashion industry
  5. food industry
  6. web design
  7. education
  8. Sport
  9. animation
  10. film industry
  11. theatres
  12. personal buyers
  13. retail packaging
  14. Brand and identity
  15. advertising
  16. tourism
  17. digital medias
  18. radio
  19. television
  20. government
  21. Charities
Retail-

A client group I feel best suits me and my creative ambitions is mainly within the retail client sector. However this is only something that I have recently sat down and thought over, nothing at this stage is definite in my life.  It is hard to pin down one client group at this stage in my practice as I'm interested in quite a lot of these areas and also haven't fully experienced working for such a client group professionally.

I think a skill that I need to develop for my work to be more successful in this area is audience consideration. When I'm designing I need to consider more the needs and opinions of the customer rather than what I personally like. This is a very important aspect to develop as ultimately it will determine the success of the design. Being able to attract the correct consumers to create interest around an item and have something desirable that they will want to buy. I would also like to learn more about the cost of products and how much it is to produce certain things, this also links with the audience and would they be willing to pay a higher price for a better quality item.

My professional and creative aims going forward link very strongly with the skills I want to develop, relating to gaining knowledge on how to appeal to different audiences. This also goes into the placements of products within a shop and where in context will the item be most successful. I would also like to cover a larger range of aspects regarding the retail sector, for example packaging, point of sale, promotion and the design of the product itself. I think by increasing this range will create a stronger body of work.

What skills / interests you have and how they relate to the needs of your client group?

Skills & Interests

The idea of something being simple and effective that has been printed to help inform people a swell as gratify them. I have a range of skills that I believe will help me relate to the client group that suits me best, such skills involve illustration, layouts, developmental skills & conceptual thinking. I believe these skills are needed as producing effective designs must incorporate such skills. This is important as you want to produce a relevant, original design that stands out to your target audience. I also believe that having such illustrative and editorial design skills is a key asset within my chosen client group as modern design is moving to more clean, precise designs that are not overly complicated. Having knowledge within print and how a publication would be printed will be very valuable as it will allow me to produce designs that will be correctly printed without costing excess money. A key skill that will allow me to produce most of my design would be working within softwares such as Illustrator and Indesign, as these are industry standard I would be expect to be and expert within these.

What skills are needed and what skills do you want to develop?

Many skills are needed within the client group I have selected, such as Time management skills which will be essential for organisation and managing various clients and jobs. In terms of the Retail industry this will mean that a large  amount of material will be needed as well as content. My time management skills at the moment are good however I think within  the industry they will be a lot more pressure and responsibility which will mean improving my skills and making sure I practice this throughout my practice currently.

Presentation skills and confidence is needed within industry, this is an essential skills that you will need to develop when talking to clients and presenting work effectively. if a presentation isn't understood or presented well the clients will not listen and most importantly will not remember you. First impressions are always good and this comes with confidence. My communication skills at present are not great, i have come quite far with this since the beginning of the course. However with little experience when communicating with professional clients and organising meetings etc i believe i will need to improve a lot more. This however is an area which would develop itself and has to, any experience obtained beforehand will be incredibly useful and create a better first impression.

Print skills and Proofing is another skill that I need more work in. I have knowledge within printing and various processes and techniques that are on offer to me. However I feel that the preparation and organisation of a printed document is something that I am lacking skills within. Working with print restrictions is a down fall and within the retail industry this is something that will be needed and a process that will be commonly used. This is something that I have learnt within the course however I haven't had much experience within actually going through the process of printing professionally and sending work off. Proofing documents is a major concern within my work, I have many mistakes within spelling and prununctionation, which within retail industry this could be a concern and make me look unprofessional. 

What are your professional/creative aims and how do they relate to the needs of the client group?

My professional and creative aims are to develop a professional portfolio which explores the work within the areas of graphic design that I see myself working with in the future. Within the areas of graphic design such as editorial, publishing and promotion, I aim to  experiment with more hands on approaches and innovative and inventive formats and installations. I also want to experiment with unique layouts and develop my own style through doing this using variety of different grids and scales within my designs. I aim to improve with my illustration skills as this is something I really enjoy and think would allow me to create more personal and profession designs in the industry. I want to keep pushing the boundaries within the briefs I receive and extend the brief producing work that the clients do not expect. This will make sure the clients know you are engaging with the brief and going that step further.


I feel that the client group will look for professional and innovative designs that will stand out from what is already existing. Fresh new ideas is what alot of design agencies are looking for. I also want to develop my skills within a range of processes and mediums such as print and web. Creating unique and inventive design solutions which challenge the format and the topic is something i aim to develop professionally.


The main thing I need to do is develop my concepts... trends are temporary and originality is key.

Investigation into the four P's

  • Key principles to understand within marketing 
  • Marketing- understand a range of factors that satisfy trends and requirements driven by success
  • What is a market?
    "The management process is responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customers requirements, opportunities, profitably and success"
    Chartered Institute of Marketing 2010 
  • Based on predicting the market
Marketing Roles

1. Identify customer needs to develop new products
2. Develop pricing strategies
3. Promote products to a target market
4. Identify distribution networks
5. Add value to your product through customer benefits
6. Monitor the performance of the products

The 4 P's
The 4p's- basics of any marketing- produce, price, promotion and place 
  • Product
  • Price
  • Promotion
  • Place 
  • Product- A product is seen as a item that satisfies what a consumer needs and wants. It is a tangible good or an intangible service.  
  • Pricing- the price is the amount a customer pays for the product or the overall cost of a product
  • Overall cost could be impact on environment, social and political 
  • Promotion- represents all of the methods of communication that a marketer may use to provide information to different parties about the product 
  • Place- refers to providing the product at a place or in context 
  • Underpins everything in relation to marketing
  • Relationship between what is needed for success
  • Collaboration- successful practice 
  • Comes with a better understanding of the market
  • Relationship between studios and freelancing 
  • Nearly 70% of professionals operate at a loss or under 5K a year even if the work is busy 
    Facts/Percentages
  • 87% of design businesses employ less then 10 people
  • 16% of design companies are in North England
  • 57% of design companies say they collaborate with other companies or practitioners on clients briefs
  • 28% of designers are free-lance 
Income patterns in the visual arts



These diagrams and visually informative and reveal the findings of the ways in which artists spend their creative time and also shows their income levels. This may be quite depressing and shocking to use as graphic designers but this also allows us to see and understand the different sectors and the limitations they have in there careers.

  • What is a creative entrepreneur?



  • Only 16% of adults in Brazil are entrepreneurs. 
  • Only 6% of the people in India are entrepreneurs
  • United Kingdom the figure is only 5%.
  • Need an understanding of all aspects to be successful 
  • Knowing you can offer specialism to the market 
  • Different ways an entrepreneur can work 
  • Comes with experience 
  • 5% entrepreneurs in the UK 
What kind of creative are you?
  • Thinking about the person I am and the individual skills I have- how can this be applied/developed for the market 



  • Evolutionary/revolutionary
  • Manager/opportunist 
  • Cautious/risk taker 
  • Where do you sit in this?
  • Ideas and opportunities
“Great minds discuss ideas. 
Average minds discuss events. 
Small minds discuss people” 
Eleanor Roosevelt 

  • understand and control both for success 
  • Great minds discuss ideas 
  • Must develop this for successful practice/career 
  • Ideas can happen anywhere or at anytime 
  • How you act upon these 
  • Enthusiastic to push ideas forward- perseverance and work to push them 
  • Success comes from ideas failing 
  • Opportunity- need to recognise them- come from right situation- grab it 
What is an 'Idea'?
  • Can occur at anytime 
  • Can occur to anybody 
  • Can happen anywhere 
  • Can be inspired by anything 
  • Is generally random 
  • Seldom materialises 
  • Rarely succeeds
“In the realm of ideas everything
depends on enthusiasm…
in the real world all rests
on perseverance”
 
J.W. Von Goethe


What is an Opportunity?
  • The People are Right 
  • The Place is Right 
  • The conditions are Right 
  • The Time is Right
  • Right place, Right time.
  • PEST analysis- political, economic, society, technology 
  • Positives and negatives
  • All need to be considered and recognised 
  • Design strategy 
Where do opportunities come from?
  • Trends 
  • Technical developments 
  • Political change 
  • Economic boom and slump 
  • Human need 
  • Problems 
  • Research
Assessing the competition
  • Think about competitors and your relation to this 
  • Assessing the competition 
  • who are they?
  • What are their strengths and weaknesses?
  •  what haven't they thought of? 
  • what worries them? 
  • what can I improve on or avoid?
Strengths:
What are they good at?
Why are they good at it?

Weaknesses:
What are they bad at?
Why are they bad at it?

opportunities:
What don't they do?
Why don't they do it?

Threats:
What could go wrong?
Why could they fail?
  • SWOT analysis- strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats 
  • This analysis can also be applied to yourself. Somthign that can look at within any company, service or sector. 
  • Competition can become collaboration 
  • Internal environment 
  • Micro environment 
  • Macro environment 
  • Assess quality of opportunity 
  • For me- for the customer- for the planet- for other stakeholders 
  • Relationship between is needed and to be in balance with one another 
  • Works in a circle/cycle with the meaning of marketing and its roles first looked at
  • Marketing basics: PEST,SWOT, 4P'S

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