Initial Ideas

Following on from the workshops in order to deconstruct the client’s brief alongside our own response to the brief in the form of a creative brief, some initial concept for how Cardiff Metropolitan University Accommodation Services could be improved.

Discovering that the service has enough information and resources however is significantly lacking in visual imagery, branding, and recognition. The brief mentioned specifically that posters are to be included, not mentioning any other forms of branding, however, due to the lack of branding within the service I think that the outcomes should include a larger amount of content that the client has asked us for, I think they may be unaware of how far this project can be taken, and creating only a range of posters would be ineffective as well as the current lack of visual identity makes it impossible to create anything interesting before at least an appropriate colour/type scheme has be created with logos, titles and slogans to support the visuals.

all that exists of the current branding can be found in the document below

Cardiff-Met-Private-Accomodation-Advice-Line-Postcard-02.15

From my research, I have found that the particularly difficult part of creating something aimed at students is hitting the mark without making your branding too centered around young people. Having subconscious student aimed undertones would perhaps be a successful way of responding to the brief.

A growing trend found on WGSN is the reducing amount of companies trying to act friendly in order to entice users into their world, and an increase of companies simply introducing themselves into the user’s world. Given that my target audience is students and (Generally) younger people who (Generally) are very digitally and socially aware, a digital campaign would be potentially very useful, however, the client has specifically requested a range of posters, so, therefore, the opportunity for a multi media-level campaign would both satisfy the client, as well as attract the largest audience. The posters can be used as a way to introduce viewers to the movement as well as an introduction to the digital elements of the campaign.

Initial brainstorms show that there are large amounts of potential media that could be used, from infographics to apps and posters. From reviewing the brief it seems as though the client may not be particularly sure of just how far their service can go. Unsure if this is done knowingly of if the client is simply slightly unambitious about the Cardiff Metropolitan Accommodation Service.

I think that the most vital part of this brief is the timing, ensuring that students are reached and understand renting housing before Christmas is so important that the entire campaign could be rendered useless if not done well. Therefore the option for promoting to students before the university could be an option, ensuring that they have adequate time to respond to the almost overwhelming amount of information that is presented to them once they enter university halls in the first year.

Some examples of visual language include using puns and friendly language/metaphors to express important messages in an appropriate way. This could be done in many numbers of ways, illustration, photo manipulation or even typography expressed as images could elude to the visuals In a more sophisticated way than just using the imagery outright. This concept could be explored in any undefined visual styles/colour schemes with any typeface of choosing, however, something contemporary would most likely be appropriate considering the audience that it is attempting to reach.

Looking back at my research, the general cliches of friendly, bright illustrations of houses are too be avoided. Reaching students with striking visual language rather than things like emojis etc, would be much more effective than trying too hard to deliberately reach out to a very specific target audience.

Property Pitfall

A workshop as part of the initial idea stage of this project was to quickly come up with a concept, disregarding the quality and seeing what others thought of it. My group’s outcome was focussing on the pitfalls of housing as more of a physical thing, coming up with not only poster concepts but also physical events that we could run. This was helpful in creating a quick brainstorm of what could be done to tackle the client’s brief. having a judgment-free space of multiple people allows for the fast flow of ideas and concepts, as well as allowing the group to explore the extremities of what we could create.