Final Project DVD Cover

This piece was our open creative minds that she wanted us to create something for our selves or that we love. I love movies so I thought it would be fun to design a movie cover for a dvd case. I was first going with a Audrey Hepburn look or a recreate of her movie "Love in the Afternoon" and then I had thought a little more and my idea kind of faded from her movie into my own design of Love in the Afternoon and I decided to make another one that I made up. I was very happy with the outcome of this project the Love in the Afternoon Case I felt that turned out way better that the All About Jane case. The target audience was women of all ages looking for a romantic comedy and seeking some mystery. The call to action to get women to see the movie and to buy the movie. All photos in this project were taken by me except the one with the couple kissing that one I purchased from Istock Photo. I had fun with this project making sure everything turned out right and designing was the best part. 

Publication Ad

This piece was the publication ad. We were to get a quote from a magazine and find the specifications. My Full page ad with bleed was 8 1/4 x 11 1/8 with the live area of  7 1/2 x 10 3/8 and the 1/3 page ad with bleed 3 x 11 1/8 with the live area of 2 1/4 x 10 3/8. The target audience were women from age 17 and up, my call to action was to have the reader or audience to go to the web site or to the store to shop. This ad's purpose was to get women interested in winter fashion that Target will be carrying and to have women start thinking about winter shopping and fashion. 

Direct Mail ~ Variable Data Piece

This Piece was the Direct Mail Variable Data Piece that was to create a mail piece that had two different target audiences. At first this I had in mind that we were to make two completely different items. But we were just to make the same theme but two different targets. I choose to go with a day spa and target the stressed working woman and the signal lonely woman that needed a day at the spa. The specifications were an 8x5 post card, with bleed and margins. This turned out way better than my original ideas that I had came up with. This project I put more time into to make sure I got everything perfect and I am very happy with the final. 

WordPress Site~Promoting My Self

 

http://amcahill06.wordpress.com/

This is my word-press site overview, this site I created as a class assignment and to promote my own work and about me and how I am as a designer. I love designing and I love making new things and learning new ideas and ways to create something extraordinary. This word-press site took sometime to get the images and files up that I wanted. I'm not completely satisfied with the site but I'm working on it still and I am going to be making up dates as soon as I can. 

Debate of Blogger vs Wordpress see how my thoughts changed!http://amcahill.blogspot.com/2010/10/blogger-vs-wordpress.html

Team Site~Gorillas with Swords

 

http://www.psuwebdesigners.com/fall_2010/gorillaswithswords/index.html

This was our group site project that we created for the Pitt State Fencing Team. I had created the header and the buttons for the site, but David the president and founder of the club had designed the men for the site. I just put it together and gave it the look that he wanted. Robin had done the CSS styles and attached the links, Victoria had created the blog and the slide show of the pictures David had given us. David had collected the content for the web page. I actually liked this group project for once everyone did there part and we had no problems with anyone. I felt that I didn't really do much but all of us put our heads together and gave the Pitt State Fencing Club an awesome site.

Research of Why Businesses and Bloggers~BLOG!

• Businesses blogs are more professional and are a way to help businesses upkeep there sites. Most of the time businesses have a tough time finding someone to udate the site and having a css style drivin site can be difficult for most businesses to hire someone. Bringing someone into update all the time can be expensive as well as time consuming.
• Keeping the blog form being personal to professional is hard but this can be done. This can be done by having a professional looking site and having formal and neatly put together. Personal sites can be more informal and out of context because its being used for personal use only. There are some sites that may have personal mixed with professional but this can be determined on how the user is setting up the site.
• Most Porfilo blogs contain a home link, an about link, a profilio link, and contact info. The site will also have a introduction, title, and what list of services that this comapany or person might offer. These blogs/site contain more info about the services and examples of the work that is being outputed.
• 5 Tutorials about Blogs.
  http://www.blogbasics.com/blog-tutorial-1-1.php
  http://tutorialblog.org/
  http://www.siteground.com/tutorials/blog/
  http://webdesignfan.com/20-best-wordpress-tutorial-blogs/
  http://blogs-tutorial.com/
• To understand where value is create in or with social media you must understand that social media is a series of software platforms. People read and type and click. The behind a two way mirror the corporations observe things and pay for the privelege. The social media corporations create a 'space' and are lucky enough that the visitors 'amuse themselves' by creating their own content and consuming it too. Almost a perfect business, if you get popular. Social media strategy might apply to the creator of the software and space, otherwise your should be behind the mirror or an advertiser or large corporation who observes what happens.

Class Site Page

Personal Page

VML: Impact of Emerging Media Presentation, Joe Crisby PSU Grad

On Thursday November 11th 2010, a former PSU Grad came to speak about The VML: Impact of Emerging Media company in Kansas City. He is the director of advertising. He spoke about how social media is taking over! Both education and marketing are attempting to connect to an audience with the intent if making an impact on the world. Social Media is controlling everything, from decisions that students make to decisions that parents make. If someone were to post on there facebook status that  a restaurant had bad food or service then all or half of there friends would see it and make a comment or take that in as a bad place to go eat. He talked about how all of consumers are influences on other consumers and that one little bad or good thing can help or hurt a business. This is why all businesses want to be apart of some type of social network, this helps business and can also show the businesses what consumers are saying about there business to help improve any imperfections that business may have. Joe also talked about the technology is getting better and every consumer has some sort of a smart phone or Ipad or some type of mobile device that allows consumers to access the internet and all the social networks from there fingertips! This makes a huge impact on most businesses and companies as well because consumers can control how well businesses do by just a few seconds, this makes it very difficult for most businesses to keep up with there consumers. Joe mostly works with businesses and getting there web sites up to date and gets them into the social networks to help get there name out in the eyes of consumers. This usually helps businesses find out what consumers want and how they are willing to get the information they are looking for. I think that Joes presentation was very helpful into understanding that social media is taking over and that soon everything will be digital and easier to get the information we want faster and easier than ever

News Paper AD

The process of making the newspaper ad was harder than I thought it was going to be. I thought that thinking of an idea would be easy and coming up with a variety of thumbnails would be easy but not so much. I had the "Date Night" idea and it turned out really well but coming up with different ways to design the ad just kept turning out the same without variety. I was hoping to think of more ideas but then when i got to the computer more ideas just started coming out and the final piece turned out very creative.  I felt that the newspaper ad really helped with designing in a black and white or a gray scale scheme for a newspaper to get the experience of designing in black and white. I was trying to hit the target audience male to get the attention of males in the idea of taking there girlfriends  out  around Valentines day and to have a fun night out without breaking there wallets. The target audience was towards the college male students and the male faculty members that would want to take there girlfriend or wives out for a romantic evening under the stars. I was going for a simple look because men like simple and to the point. The words bolder and simple fonts are more eye catching to the male eye than loud crazy fonts that distract you from the actual content the audience is drawn to.

Blogging Services Free vs Paid

Blogging is FREE better?
Not always, free is good for businesses looking for budget tight advertising. Free is quick and easy to use, you don't have to know html to have a free blog. You are in control but not having your domain name can be a little bit of a downer. Most free blog sites like blogger.com is yourname.blogspot.com which is not very professional, and the blogging can get a little confusing.
Blogging is PAID better?
Not always as well, paid is good for enhancing your themes and having someone customize you for a small price. You can make more money by advertising, and can have your own domain name as well. The down side is the hosting services are not always reliable. You must know html a little to understand the paid sites. This can be costly too. Having your site built for you can range from $275-$375 with extra charges for framed photos and quotes, linked side bars, and custom side bars. It might just be better to design the blog yourself if the confidence is high in your background of blogging.

Blogger vs Wordpress

 Blogger vs Word-press! The thoughts about having your own custom page and just putting your thoughts and feelings out on the web would be more of a blogger page. Blogger is powered by Google, Google tends to take away and add things whenever they feel like which can up set people. The blogger can also benefit businesses with sharing with there customers, asset in business opportunities, help share info about products, and is a free low cost way to advertise. This can be professional by purchasing a domain name for only $10 a year. This can help businesses in a way to have there site updated daily. Most blogger's have came to the conclusion that blogger is less professional than word-press. Blogger is more recommended for people who want more customizing features and an easy quick set up of there own page.  
Word-press is more of a business blog. This is a more professional out look or professional way to promote a business or your own name. The word-press software is always updated. Word-press comes out on top compared to blogger. Most blogger's have come out to say that Word-press is way better and more professional with the pages and Word-press has way more hosting services to have your own domain name in the URL. Blogger's have also came out and said that blogger has a tendency to change gadgets and remove things off your blog, which can make people very angry when they worked hard on that piece of work for them to just throw it away.

Image source | blog.smartbuzz.in

Why We Blog??

We blog to get our thoughts and feelings out there. We blog to show what we can do and to let others see how well we can design, write, or put our thoughts in writing. Blogging helps companies get there name out in the business world, and is a easy way to advertise on a tight budget. In most cases blogger's are people who think that the thoughts and feelings they have about politics and issues in the country matter. Blogger's are very free and open with how they strongly feel about Obama, and the War against Iraq or when the soldiers are coming home for good.

Blogging is more about getting the work that we do everyday out there for potential employers to see and to show how well spoken we are as well. Blogging also helps potential clients see who you are and if they can trust you with the work they are paying you for. Blogging also lets you be in control of the site and to add things to the site as many times a day that we want too. To Blog is to publish your thoughts and feelings and the hard work that we do everyday to get us out in the corporate world.

Brenden Murphy former PSU Graphic Student

Brendan Murphy came back to Pittsburg State University where he started his education, to give an inspiring speech about his success in graphic design to help the graphic communications students see the success that has happened to him. His most important advice was to pay attention in school.  This is the advice that anyone can really give a student. This concept is so much easier said than done on some days.

Brendan Murphy came to Pitt State in 1985 with a track scholarship and didn’t really know what he wanted to do, and then the opportunity came to him with graphic design. He says that the technical writing aspect of his career is more important than he thought. Murphy says that he does more writing about his work than actually designing. His communication skills had to improve for him to climb the corporate ladder.

Having Murphy give us this advice was very helpful to how I think that I can do this by climbing the corporate ladder as well. This just shows that there is much more work into this career than some people think there may be.  I want to do layouts and designing for huge companies but to get there I have to be the little man for awhile. I felt that Murphy was very helpful in helping me understand that there is more writing involved in the design world. I thought it would be drawing but in his experience this has come to my attention that the writing is more important in this field.

Note Pad Recruitment Piece

word matrix

thumbnails

drafts for final 

final project

Business Card Remake

Gap Logo Change

The Gap  company had wanted a new logo to coincide with what it says was its updated image, including having more modern designs of jeans, pants and other clothing. They were wanting something more modern and up to date with the logo change. Gap was looking for something that would attract the younger crowd and looking for something that would help the company in sales, and to compete with the rival stores like forever 21, Levi's and Crew.  Unfortunately the decrease in sales and disappointment at its continuing sales slump, and how gap had spent weeks meeting with brand presidents discussing how to make the stores stand out from their rivals.  The Gap brand's financial performance, and difficulty at winning back customers after the change in the logo.
The change of original brands had taken a huge impact on the gap company in changing the brands just to fit the new logo, this started costing money and fans of gap were not happy with this sudden change in the logo. Gap has over 700,000 fans on facebook that were so outraged about the new logo change that they didn't know how to react to this new logo. Gap fans didn't like the new logo and took out all there anger about it on the social media, posting comments on twitter and facebook. The news and dislike of the new logo quickly had Gap rethinking the decision of changing the logo. I think that Gap should have given the fans a chance to speak out about the blog and maybe have a contest for the fans to submit a new logo. This I think would of helped the media ease into the case of Gap changing the logo.
The lessons that Gap learned form this huge change is that they need to think things through more before they decide to change the whole company look. My thoughts of the new logo and the old logo are that the old logo looks so much better than the new logo. The new logo just was a complete turn from the whole company, the new logo just was not a very well planned out and the process they went through was not professional. I think if they were going to change the logo they should have kept the same theme with the original logo but maybe change type or ad a simple graphic that would speak out more than the plan letters.

Image source | blog.learnvest.com