My role in the MediaCast blog..

As part of our assignments, we are required to form a group and together create a design for the MediaCast blog. Eventually one blog will be chosen to be officially used by all the Media students attending the MCAST Institute of Art & Design. Each person from each group has a specific role to carry out, choosing from the roles of Researcher, Designer, Developer and Marketer.

The roles in my group are divided as follows;

Research - Jessica Catania & Francesca Piscopo

Design - Naomi Mamo

Development - Deborah Farmer

Marketing - Maria Vella

After this decision had been taken, we individually researched what our roles consist of and what we should do so that we carry out our role in the best possible way.

What is Marketing?

Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments. It is an integrated process through which companies build strong customer relationships and create value for their customers and for themselves.

Marketing is used to identify the customer, satisfy the customer, and keep the customer.

- Wikipedia

Since my role is all about marketing, I also need to work hand in hand with those conducting research because marketing is divided into two stages; Inbound Marketing and Outbound Marketing.

Inbound Marketing Includes Market Research to Find Out:

1. What specific groups of potential customers/clients (markets) might have which specific needs (nonprofits often already have a very clear community need in mind when starting out with a new program -- however, the emerging practice of nonprofit business development, or earned income development, often starts by researching a broad group of clients to identify new opportunities for programs)
2. How those needs might be met for each group (or target market), which suggests how a product might be designed to meet the need (nonprofits might think in terms of outcomes, or changes, to accomplish among the groups of clients in order to meet the needs)
3. How each of the target markets might choose to access the product, etc. (its "packaging")
4. How much the customers/clients might be willing pay and how (pricing analysis)
5. Who the competitors are (competitor analysis)
6. How to design and describe the product such that customers/clients will buy from the organization, rather than from its competitors (its unique value proposition)
7. How the product should be identified -- its personality -- to be most identifiable (its naming and branding)

Outbound Marketing Includes:

1. Advertising and promotions (focused on the product)
2. Sales
3. Public and media relations (focused on the entire organization)
4. Customer service
5. Customer satisfaction

- http://managementhelp.org/mrktng/mrktng.htm

Final Infographic

This is the final version of my Infographic. I changed the background colour and some of the text colours as I was told that the purple and green in the previous one were too strong ;)

This is the more subtle (and final!) version

Final Infographic

Infographic

I created my Infographic about Graphic Design using Adobe Photoshop CS4 as I haven't grasped Adobe Illustrator very well yet. This helped me get more familiar with Photoshop tools, especially when creating Paths with the Pen Tool. Here below are some screenshots of the editing process;

Blog banner!

I wanted to create something simple as my first blog banner. I followed a tutorial from a magazine called Photoshop Creative to try and create a lighting effect around the text using paths, brushes and changing the opacity. This is the editing process and the final result;

Creating a Path using the Pen Tool

Adding a Stroke Path using the Brush Tool
and the Paths tab

Adding more stroke paths using
different colours and changing
the blending options

Adding Red and Yellow highlights

Adding white highlights and
changing opacity

Final Result!

Photo Montage!

In one of our previous Photoshop lessons, we also learnt how to create a collage; having multiple images and putting them together to create just one. I used the following three images to create my collage:

Coffee

Wood Tabletop

Notebook

First, I removed the background of the cup of coffee. I placed it on the wood tabletop image and added a Curves layer mask to add a shadow. I did the same thing with the Notebook image and the final result is the following;

Pen Tool; Add as a Friend.

A week ago during our Adobe Illustrator lesson, we learned how to use the Pen Tool. We were given a very simple exercise in which we had to follow the instructions on the illustration using the Pen Tool to help us learn its uses and shortcuts. Here below is the end result...

...and giving it colour with the Live Paint Bucket

This exercise was very helpful as, although I previously had basic knowledge in Photoshop, I had no idea how to use the Pen Tool neither in Photoshop nor in Illustrator. I think it is a very useful tool in creating illustrations and it can help make work much easier.

Pen Tool has confirmed you as a friend!