Fianl 1 minute Video

Action Plan

How I intend to enhance and develop my skills and knowledge base:


I have subscribed to Campaign magazine, which I think will greatly increase my knowledge of current issues, creations and so on in the world of design. I think it will open my eyes to the industry and give me a better understanding of whats going on within it. It will also help me see existing jobs within the industry and get a wider understanding of the industry giants.


I need to begin reading a broadsheet magazine on a regular basis in order to have a better understanding of the world around me, especially the Monday Guardian as this is the media issue. This should begin as of immediate effect.


I have recently joined Twitter for the purpose of following designers, advertisers and agencies. I need to follow this through and check on it regularly to keep updated.


Attend any possible guest speaker/lecture type opportunities to increase my knowledge span at any chance possible over the next 2 years.


After being given a reading list by Mel I have bought a couple of the books and taken some out at the library in order to broaden my knowledge about both current and past design and I intend to continue doing so. I am slowly getting through them and already have found that a lot of the subject matter and designer names are reoccurring through these, lectures etc. 


I feel that the next 2 years of this course will continue to open my eyes to this industry, learning new skills throughout this time, being guided by course leaders, tutors and lecturers. It is important that I have the best attendance possible and gain as much from these 2 years as I can. 


It would be beneficial for me to gain extra experience with live briefs through live competitions such as D&AD and so on. Any opportunity to take part in competitions I aim to  do over the next 2 years.


Although I am not planning on doing a placement year between my second and third year I feel it is important to gain experience working within the industry, working hands on and getting a real feel for the jobs I could be doing in the future. I intend to take part in placements at some point.

Strengths and Weaknesses

“ …one which causes us to make sense of what we have learned, why we have learned it and how that particular increment of learning took place. [...] Reflection is equally useful when our learning has been unsuccessful – in such cases indeed reflection can often give us insights into what may have gone wrong with our learning and how on a future occasion we might avoid now-known pitfalls …. (reflection)evaporates away unless we stop in our tracks to make one or other kind of crystallisation of it – some evidence.” - Race (2002)

Now that I have completed the majority of work on this project, I have began to reflect on my strengths and weaknesses within this project as well as within my professional life.

I think that my main strengths are that I am hard working, organised and ambitious. Throughout this project I have always kept to deadlines, produced all work that was asked of me and kept on top of everything. I think that working in a team has worked well, although I find I tend to take more of a leadership role which is something I need to work on. Im a good listener and me and my partner worked well at bouncing ideas off each other, joining different ideas together and talking about what media to use and so on. I think that often I am very creative and have interesting ideas and concepts, although sometimes I do become concentrated on one idea that I cannot move on from - this is something that I need to work on. In this module I think I have had a really good insight into advertising and how the process works from the brief to having a set of final ideas ready for creation. 

I feel that my weaknesses within this module have been a lack in previous knowledge, I didn't know a lot about how advertising has developed from the 1950s and what it used to be like. However, after watching a documentary within class called 'she's not a moron she's your wife' I felt I got a really quick, yet deep insight into how advertising has changed, although it was specifically orientated towards women. This over view has helped me to understand a bit more into the history of advertising and why it is how it is today. Another weakness I have is knowing about different techniques - i was unaware of guerilla advertising and other methods, although I feel I am now beginning to learn about these more. I have began reading some advertising based books, some which are on the reading list we have been given, and also some others. I've found already that these have taught me a lot about the industry, job roles within advertising agencies as well as the industry giants and important people within the industry such as John Hegarty. 

So far I feel I have began to gain a grasp of the basics of advertising; how to generate ideas, mock up ideas, develop ideas and apply these to media. I have also learnt what strap lines are, and have a better understanding of how to create them (and a good one hopefully!) I have learnt that the first ideas are usually the ideas that everyone has, but usually it is essential to get these out of the way before you can begin to think of something new and interesting. 

Final A3 Pieces

Below is my visual mark up on A3 for the web banner, I have split it into 3 simple stages to get across what would happen. Simply: As the car drives along with flat tyres the de-icer can drops from the sky in front of the car and prevents it from driving along whilst damaged. The strap line 'love your car' then also appears. Using a bit of almost pathetic fallacy as the can comes down the weather gets good, also suits the idea that de-icer melts ice which ties the whole theme in together well I think. 

Blow is the idea for the bus shelter/stop piece. 

Below is the magazine spread page mark up visual.

Off The Shelf - John Hegarty

Yesterday evening I attended Off The Shelf by John Hegarty. He covered many interesting and valid points during the lecture, but several points stuck strongly in my mind. 


Firstly was all his work for Levi's jeans. He focussed on the idea tat 60 seconds can change anything and everything, and as for one particular advert, where there is a man in a laundrette in boxer shorts, I was surprised to just how much this could effect a society. At the time of the advert launch, Y fronts were the preferred mens choice on underwear, but as this was classed as indecent exposure, boxers had to be worn for the advert to air. And because the attractive man in the advert was wearing boxers (which at the time were seen as American and outdated) they suddenly came back into fashion, and still are today.


Similarly, the Black Denim campaign by John Hegarty for his account with Levi's is one that I really love, the image I find is so powerful and something at the time that was possibly risky, innovative and something that hadn't been done before.

Hegarty spoke about how he wanted to answer the brief given to him by Levi's, but doe it differently.. the focus was on the fact that the jeans were black, so this is what he focussed on.

Focus Group and Research

I found it interesting that Hegarty spoke about his beliefs that focus groups and research don't create good, creative solutions to briefs. He claimed that throughout all his work, if he had carried out research and taken the idea to focus groups none of them would have been successful, but his intuition told him that they would work. I found this interesting as throughout my education I have constantly been drilled with the idea that more research will always lead to greater success.

Throughout the lecture Hegarty showed us many other interesting pieces of his work, as well as example of work which he felt were great too.

Another interesting advert he showed was a K's shoes advert. Where there was a woman with a crashed porshe, and a woman pouring food over a moans head. These adverts contradicted many before it. They showed women as strong minded, successful and clever, compared to the usual patronising adverts previously used. 

Finally, Hegarty spoke about creating space for a brand and how many copy cat ideas there are out there. About how competitive the creative world is and how much hard work needs to be put in. Over these recent weeks I feel I have began to become much more aware of the advertising world and how dedicated and unique me and my ideas need to be in order to be successful! 

Hegarty spoke about how important it is to follow opportunities rather than money. I think this is true, I feel that its better to get experience doing placements and getting a good job eventually rather than settling for something with less prospects and something I dont really want to do. Its nice to hear someone say that you dont have to come straight out of University and into a Full Time job as this is something I think many of us are concerned about. 

As I'm sure he intended, the image which stuck in my mind most after this presentation was this 60 seconds of advert, Hegarty had been continually returning to this concept and I feel this advert completey sums it up..

Working on A3

For our latest task we had to draw up our final 5 ideas onto A3 to present to the group on Tuesday, in my team we split the work into 2, so I have drawn up 3 out of the 5 images in rough, I am currently looking at the layout, sizes and shapes, making sure that they are in the right places and that they are working as we had hoped. Once I am happy with this then I can begin to draw up my final drawings!

Still in quite a rough outline, above is the piece that will take its role as a magazine spread. It could be found in car magazines, but also in home magazines as well as many more. The circles aren't amazing, although I did use references to create it.. However the main purpose of this is to communicate with the client the idea at this point.

Above: this is the idea that could be located on bus shelters, or perhaps other locations. It focusses on the 'empty' of the car. This could also be relevant for people stood at the bus stops, as this may be the reason they are in fact having to get the bus. It would also be in a prime location for drivers passing by to see the advertisement as bus shelters/stops are often on busy, commuter routes. 

Above, I have applied it to a possible situation.

Above is the rough template for our web banner advert. The principle is that as the car, with flat tyres moves forward, the deicer cans comes down, prevents the car from moving any further with its flat tyres and then the 'love your car' strap line will appear on the screen.

1 Minute Video - Ideas

We were given a short task to create a one minute video that included the Blue Star De-Icer. It was not allowed to be an advert. Below are my first 4 ideas and their outcomes, the quality is not great and neither is the photography skills but at this point we are still concentrating on the ideas more than anything else. Once we have decided on an idea in our teams which we like we will create our final version.

This video focusses on the idea of a driver getting into their car then frantically looking around for something, searching throughout their car, and then finally when they open the glove box there it is, Blue Star De-Icer. It was difficult to capture this as I had to go at quite a slow speed in order to stop the image being just a huge blur, however hopefully I captured the idea I wanted to portray. 

This video was a similar idea to that of the car, however I put it into a different location. My mums kitchen, the idea of a family home would suit the target audience we are aiming for. I also think that the fact that this idea is transferable to many different locations means it could work for a campaign.

The above video is probably my favourite, although its probably too advertising based and not random enough, I couldnt get it to rotate though so its on a 90 degree angle.

Looking back over these I think I have probably made the de icer too much of a main point through these videos, but will show them to the other half of my team and we can progress from there!