Evaluation of the Process

Overall I think that we have succeeded in carrying out the processes needed to put on a good end of year show. There were difficulties in timing and matters of personal opinion but I think in the end the best course of action was taken every-time. I am satisfied with my overall level of involvement with the organisation and facilitation of the show and the actual experience of the exhibition will be a positive one.

I've learnt many things about the ins and outs of putting on a show, through either anticipation or hindsight and I'm sure there are many more things to learn before the exhibition is taken down on Friday.

Copyright Law

As part of our Personal and Professional development module we had to learn about copyright law.

Copyright law covers literary works, dramatic works, music, art, typographical arrangement, sound recordings and film. These works are covered under the use of broadcast and public performance, copying, adapting, issuing, renting and lending copies to the public.

Eventually copyright expires if it is not renewed. The duration it takes for copyright to expire varies depending on the item:

Literary, dramatic, musical, film or artistic works - 70 years after the last remaining author dies.
Sound Recordings and broadcasts - 50 years after the last remaining author dies.
Typographical arrangement - 25 years after the date of its first publication.

In some cases copyrighted material can be used by 3rd parties, this is known as 'Fair Use'. the factors for fair use to consider are as follows:

"

1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work."

Source: http://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/fair_use.html

Business Cards Arrived!

Today I went to the collection office to pick up my new business cards:

Overall I'm pretty happy with how they turned out, although the print quality could be very slightly better. Next time I think I'll opt for something other than the cheapest option to hopefully get a better quality product.

Printing Business Cards

To make the most of networking opportunities for the show I decided to design and order some business cards. I went for a plain front with basic contact details on the back:

I ordered a total of 100 of them on 300gsm paper so they look and feel very professional.

Responsive Site

The main thing that I liked about using tumblr to host my website is that it easily applies responsive templates when viewed on a mobile device. When it detects a mobile user is viewing the site is disregards any styles I applied to my site and uses the follow one, possibly using the Masonry Javascript Plugin:

It annoyingly uses my avatar for tumblr for a header image instead of my own though, which will need to be changed.

Linking URL

In order to get tumblr to recognise my newly purchased domain name I had to do several things. The first was to modify the A and CNAME DNS records to point towards tumblrs servers:

This meant that when people accessed my url the DNS redirected them towards and basic tumblr server. To get the chain to fully complete I had to gave tumblr my domain name so it could listen out for a request to their domain.tumblr server and serve up the appropriate page.

Registering my Domain Name

When creating a tumblr page for my personal website I found that I didn't like the fixed tumblr URL and decided to buy my own patch of the internet at andrewpledger.me. After getting some advice from people I used the domain .me instead of .info because although its a little more expensive, it has much better search engine optimisation.

Printing Invitations

Yesterday I received the art files from Jess and Connor to print out for the invitations. Although I'm not in the printing department the best price for printing the invitations was from a shop down the road from where I stay so I volunteered to go get them done. In order to save on costs and maximise our options we decided to print out 2 to a single A4 sheet in each colour and guillotine them up ourselves:

Although it ended up being a very time consuming task the end result and money saved were well worth the effort.

Portfolio Website Planning

In order to promote my own work in the context of the show I have decided to create my own person portfolio website. After talking to my tutors I found out that using a tumblr powered site would fulfill the requirements of the brief. Given the time constrains for this part of the project I would definitely prefer to do it through tumblr then to hand code a full site from scratch, tumblr is also inherently responsive. The way I plan to do this is to use the tumblr API to create and edit a theme to place my content into. Below is a view of the editor when viewing my existing tumblr page:

After studying and researching tumblr as a platform for networking and career building I think it is going to be a huge advantage to me in terms of professional development and promotion. The key positive points I found in my research were:

• Easy to communicate
• Building up a following is facilitated by a well used tagging system
• Maintaining a following is easier because you have to actively opt out of viewing someones content one you follow them
• Posts are able to generate latent popularity long after they are originally posts via 're-blogging'

WIP Gallery Space

Today I started to design the inside of what the show would look like so that I can get some feedback from my class on Monday. In order to maximise hanging space and not just have a boring spread of stuff just hung on the walls I have designed some pieces to fit in the middle. These will be single struts that hang from the joists on the roof and on the floor below, with fishing line and clips to secure the work in the middle.

Mapping out Exhibition Space

As part of my role as Exhibition Space team leader the responsibility of making sure everything fits in the gallery space and getting it looking good falls to me (with opinions coming from the group as a whole). To help me keep track of what we were filling the gallery space with I went on a quick visit and took extensive measurements of the building:

I then took these measurements and created a SketchUp model of the gallery with people inside to give a sense of scale:

Then using the build in share facilities I uploaded the model to Google's 3D Warehouse library:

The link to these models was then shared by me to the Facebook group we have set up for our class for discussing things when we aren't in lesson. Through this URL my classmates are able to view the model online as well as download and manipulate it through Google's free SketchUp program. I think this will provide a valuable asset to our group and speed up decisions about where to hang things and other stylistic choices. It also means we can put on a more extravagant show given the time constraints for set-up, because we can accurately model things before the day rather then trying to decide when we don't have the time.

Research Into Professional Portfolios

In order to get a better idea of the different ways people present their work online I decided to find a few examples of web portfolios.

The first example I really liked was the website of James Paterson. It is presented in a very informal blog style with a detailed breakdown of projects as well as a journal of works in progress.

Although I really like this informal style I don't feel like I would have enough to write about each project to be able to pull a website this detailed off.

The next one I looked at was Tim Lahan's personal site. I really like the more simple menu with a single tile representing each piece of work, if I use something similar then adding more items shouldn't be a problem in terms of design changes.

The final site I looked at belonged to the Dutch design agency Studio airport. Its very similar to the previous one but with a horizontal menu. I think I with pursue something similar to the two of these for my personal portfolio, keeping things clean and minimal with a single image for each piece of work that leads to a separate page.

Promoting My Own Work

In the brief it explains how we are supposed to promote our own work within the context of our end of year show:

To do this I have chosen to make a website portfolio of my work. The main reason for this is that it is something that I have been wanting to do outside of Uni work anyway as it is the industry standard for presenting the best of your work in a professional environment. Because its not a physical thing I am definitely going to go with the brief and produce a small business card with my contact details and URL of my portfolio. This will be very useful to me when it comes to networking during the show as well as after it.

Visiting Brighton Media Centre

Because I live the closest to where we are going to hold the exhibition I decided to travel down there and take a few photos for the group to get a better idea of what the final show would look like:

Sponsorship?

As quite a lot of our budget is taken up by drinks for the opening night I thought it would be good idea to research into getting a company to sponsor our drinks for the night in return for advertisement. After talking to a few people that have done this kind of thing I found the company Diageo, who supply drinks for events and catering companies. On their website they have a contact form specifically for sponsorship requests which I have filled out in the hope of getting them to supply drinks:

Spreadsheet Organising

So that we can see what the group is doing I devised a spreadsheet using Google Docs to share what we have on the written plans. I also included an interactive progress chart and a budget calculating spreadsheet as well as the weekly planner and submissions tracker. These spreadsheets were shared to the group via a URL which can be used to access them at any time.

My Pitch for Branding

As part of out brief we have been asked to submit a proposal for a poster/branding identity. Below is what I came up with for the show:

I decided to go for a clean look with a bit of a quirky edge to make it seem more fun and less basic. In the end it wasn't chosen because the group put forward some really strong designs that better suited what the whole class had in mind.

Dividing Into Groups

In order to better organise and effectively spend our time we decided to divide in to groups and assign a group leader and list of responsibilities that each group will have to carry out. This means that people wont get too stressed out about the show as a whole, but can concentrate on one specific part of the running of the show. The committee (Ollie, Me and Hayley) will oversee the organisation of the group and make sure that each group is taking care of the responsibilities assigned to them, as well as ensuring that everyone has their opinion heard when it comes to group decisions. Below is the write up of the group divisions:

Timetabling

So that we could always keep track where we were in terms of development over time with the show we set some targets for getting all the things we need to do done by. Anything we need to get done by a specified time in the brief is generally allowed a week more on our timetable in case of any problems or unforeseen delays. Below is the write-up of our timetable we have pinned up in the classroom:

New Brief: End of Year Show

Our next project for this year is to put on an exhibition with BA group to promote our work, as well as self promote throughout the project. Our final exhibition will take place on the 12th and 13th of June at the Brighton Media Centre. My initial feeling towards this project is excitement as it means me are able to showcase what we've been doing for the last 2 years as well as network with professionals in our industry.