National Trust brief

One of the selection on offer is the National Trust I have looked through the brief and picked out what I think are the key elements of the brief. The highlight words I have placed in order they appear on the brief and have add a few connecting words so it reading it makes sense.

National Trust Brief

Reintroduce powerful connectors between people and places. Rebuilding connection to a modern audience. Importance of nature and heritage. Elderly equals cream teas. Reposition the National Trust away from its current perceived image. Integrated campaign, nature and beauty forever. Consider, make time for areas of natural or historic beauty. Change perceptions, old fashion benefits people's lives. Think campaign relevance to reach audience. 25-40 years olds nationwide in the UK. Integrated campaign, print, digital experimental. Main deliverable first. Video. 

Having written it out like this seems to have given a clearer under standing of what they are looking for from the brief.  

New Brief Ba Live design

We have now been set our new brief. We have to choose one of the following from a list of brief set by D&AD New Blood Awards. ASOS, BBC, D&AD, Digital Cinema Media, National Trust,  N Power, Unilever, WPP and  XL Recordings.

We have to bare in mind our strong points and  our experience and which project might be approprate for my personal learning and development. If we choose we can work as a team for this brief, however we must present our case to the course leader and get the go ahead.

Key dates

Wednesday 15th January Planning deadline
Wednesday  12th February Crit
Thursday 28th February Deadline

We may also take the opportunity to submit our work to the D&AD New blood Awards, submission by the 19th March 2014

Post Crit

This Project is finished and I have to say I am quite happy with the results. There were only a few minor point put forward with regard to changes that could be made. The strongest being the addition of a menu bars on the screen so that you could have a pointer to the hidden sub menu. I had used the device of glasses to indicate reading and if i had though it through from reading the iso7 manual I would have gone with a more reconcilable symbol.  I think this is the most complete design I have done with clear stages of development leading to the end result.

I hope you enjoy it

Crit visualization

I have been working on the visualization of the storyboards over the past couple of weeks I had to rejig some of my AI files to use them in after effect as sub layers are not accessible ones taken into after effects. Also had to think them down a bit they where carrying to many layers that would not be used in each set of files, ie Doc, Maps, TV, ect.  I have not been happy with my panoramic it seemed to stutter so I have gone back to basic and remade it from scratch. I had been using a screen grab movie in QuickTime as I paned around the screen and then I went to a series of still frames animated in Photoshop. But I still could not get a smooth pan.

Old version of panoramic video

I have gone back to the first thing we did in year one and have created a long photographic panoramic strip. I have also taken out most of the cars and some of the more modern building that where not there in 1963. This I have animated in after effect adding filters to make it look like old movie film.

New panoramic

Story boards

Yesterday we had to hand in our story boards. I felt that creating the different elements would not be a problem. I felt I had a road map to what I wanted to produce. Wrong! Maybe I had not asked the right questions when showing the last lot of designs, or maybe the wrong range of designs.

Four tab layout

The page shown above has four tabs and is the introductory page from this point touching the tab name take you to the content of that tab. I what I had not thought through was how to get back to the introduction it had no tab it only existed at the start. What I simply need was a fifth tab. I was already along way in the creation of art works for the story board. I had to stop and regig every thing This small omission had now created a lot of extra work.

Five tab layout

Thankfully I had a complete set by Wednesday morning.

Further visual developments

I have developed the theme of my app further I have generated more folder images. With the idea of the user testing I have sought more feed back about my designs. Again I presented those I ask with a range of design.

1st of the new designs

I was careful to show these designs in order so I could gauge the reaction to my design path. After using real folders to create texture and coloured back ground I have taken it one step forward, making the page look like it contains folders with the navigation on the bottom.

2nd of the new design

Though this similar to the first I wanted to include it to see if the enhanced stamp look would be of interest.

3rd of the new designs

Playing on the theme of folders I introduced more of a folder look still withe navigation on the bottom.

4th of the new designs

Again expanding on the folder look the content is against folders with the navigation for the first time on the top.

5th of the new designs

Taking the next to me seems like a logical step the folders have become index card with the content on each card.

6th of the new designs

Suddenly late in the game I want to do something different. I felt I had the basic idea of content and navigation I just wanted to see if I could present it in a different way.  Utilising the curve form of the index card to give a separation to the grey and the white. The navigation is now housed bottom right filling what seemed to be a dead area on the page.

7th of the new designs

I created one last design as I was not sure about the curved area. Now I show these new design to gauge a reaction to them. most of the people I spoke to went for the 5th design the felt it had a secret service look to it. I had one very strong reaction to the grey look, with comments that they felt it was a respectful way of displaying the information. All understood the navigation of the 5,6,7, design. Some where not so happy with the earlier designs. I concluded that the 5th design was the one to go for.

User testing

 I have created a number of different looks to my opening page and turned them into card. I have design a set of question to help guide me through the design process.

I want people to put the card in order of preference, the card on the top of the pile that the most like and the card on the bottom indicating the least liked card. Numbering the cards 1 to 5.

 

Testing cards

1, Which of the cards was the easiest to read.

2, What do you think of when you see the word Maps at the bottom of the card.

3, What do you think of when you see the word News paper at the bottom of the card.

4, What do you think of when you see the word Tv Radio at the bottom of the card.

5, What do you think of when you see the word Doc at the bottom of the card.

6, Do you feel any of the card look like official documents.

7, Why did you put them in the order you did.

Correlating the response.

Depending on the number of people asked there should be an indication as to which background is the most popular. Question1 should indicate which is the easiest to read agist a coloured back ground. Question 2 to 5 should indicate weather they understand the navigation. Question 6 is a leading question and I expect them to answer 5. Question 7 is to illicit some personal feed back about the look and feel.