KTA1: Industry Notes

Human Studios and Clear Channel

Human Studios.

Human studios was created by Nick Bax in 2007. Human studios specialises in graphic design, commercial design and creative direction. So far, Human studios has worked on projects for Swatch, Channel 4 and MTV.

Nick Bax, Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts, said that the reason it is called Human Studios is because "Without art, we are animals. With art, we are Human.".

Here are some examples of the work created by Human Studios.

This is one of the digital graphics for MTV. They word use a word that refered to a genre of music, but write it to symbolise the word. So, for 'crash', they wrote is so that it looks like it's been broken, or as if that it's crashed. They also used the word 'pop' and wrote it so that it looked like a bubble popping and 'bleep' and wrote it in the style of the numbers on a digital alarm clock, as you assoicate it with bleeping noise it makes.

Here is a picture of the official website for The University of Sheffield. Human Studios helped the University of Sheffield by designing/creating the website and informative pamthlets and books, encouriging people to come to the University and what courses and projects they can do there.

Clear Channel.

Clear Channel started 1936, but it wasn't called Clear Channel untill 2002, as it was originally called More O'Ferrall, then it changed to More Group, before changing its name to Clear Channel. Clear Channel is known for its outdoor advertising e.g. billboards, posters, mobile platforms, etc.
Clear Channel has won the IT Industry Award in 2009, the Campaigne Media Award in 2010, and was named Buisness Superbrand this year in 2013.

Here are some example of the work created by Clear Channel.

To advertise a new set of TV adverts for Go Compare, Clear Channel created some 48-sheets billboard posters that showed the logo, the tag lines "go compare" and "See my new adverts this July", and a picture of the characters mascot. Oddly, Go Compare wanted their mascot to come across as being hated by the public, so the Clear Channel adverts made the posters look like they had been vandalised with graffiti, including comical insults towards the character, adding humour and making them more noticeable.

Clear Channel worked with different companies who were the official sponsors for the London 2012 Olympic games. One of the companies was Coca-Cola, who with Clear Channel ran a series of billboard adverts that advertised Coca-Cola and promoted the Olympics at the same time. It uses the bright olympic colours to make it more eye-catching and represents the Olympics

Task 2: KTA: 6 Generating ideas - Steel City Fest Brief and Target Audience

Task 2: Generating ideas for graphic design products

P2, M1, D1 is assessed in this task.


Steel City Fest

1. Are you going for a range of genres?
2. Are you sticking to one genre?
3. *Make a decision now and write on your blog. Task 2: KTA 6. Steel City Festival Brief and Target audience*
4. *Copy the assignment brief but add the exact genre(s) that the festival will cover.*
5. *Create a mood board of the types of popular culture your audience will be interested in (Music, TV, magazines, places, clothes, cars, foods, films, video games).*

1. We now need to pin point our audience in terms

1. John Hartley (1987) suggested that media producers create  'invincible fictions' of their target audience.
2. Ien Ang (19910 similarly argued that all media producer create 'imaginary entities' of their target audience before creating a media product.

Steel City Festival would be a music event with an 80's rock theme.


Imaginary entity:My person is someone who enjoys a variety of rock, including rock from the 80's. They have they're own unique style with dark, gothic clothes and make-up with a sudden/certain splash of colour, heavily based on 80's rock fashion.

The typical person who'd be into this music would either be an adult who was younger and a huge fan of this music in the 80s (so adults who used be a rocker-teenager) or a teenager who prefers older rock to most rock nowadays (so a young vintage rocker).

60, 000 people attending.
70% male, 30% female.
ABC1 Profile = 60%
Median Age = 25

1. Basically, this means that all media producers purposely create an imaginary audience


Must complete CDM and KTA 6.

Brand

ASA Research

ASA is the Advertising Standards Authority, which  is a non-statutory (cannot prosecute people) body but still provides a code of practise for advertising.

*Adverts should not cause offence.
*Adverts should not glorify alcohol, sexual activity, drug taking.
*Adverts should not cause harm to children.
*Adverts should not be misleading.
*Adverts should not give false information.

*The 'Snickers: Get some nuts!' adverts were banned in America because people complained saying that they felt the adverts were homophobic, due to the representation of a "non-masculine" male connoting homosexual stereotypes.

*Cheerios received lots of complaints and angry comments because their advert contained different race parents and a mix-raced child. They quickly had to ban comments on the video of the advert due to the ammount of racist and controversial comments. The advert was not banned, despite the controversy caused and and complaints claiming they found it offensive. Some believed the advert should have been banned for the safety and well-being of the child actor involved as some of the negative comments were directed at her.

*The 'Phones 4 You' halloween adverts received several complaints due to the scary nature of the horror themed adverts. Many said that they were being shown to early in the day. The Phones 4 You company argued that the adverts were aired just at the recommended time that 'age-restricted' adverts could be shown, but other people argued that adverts such as these should not be shown before the watershed (21:00/9:00pm).

*L'Oréal adverts have been targeted by the media on multiple occasions as people claim they use a misleading series of adverts, suggesting that the models in the adverts have their hair done professionally and are not the result of L'Oréal products.

KTA 3 and KTA 5: Textual analysis of graphic design products

Denotation - The literal meaning of an image or graphic
Connotation- The possible meaning of an image or graphic
Convention- The comment elements the audience expect to see in a certain medium or certain genre
Subcultures- Which 'group' is it aimed at?

The PULP CD cover is done in a way so that it will appeal to the target audience. PULP is most likely aimed at teenagers, possibly gothic fans, that's why the background is completely black, a dark gothic colour.

Body copy: The only pieces of text are on the back and partially at the very top on the cover. Most of the writing is in small print, apart from important elements, such as the bands name 'PULP' and the name of the CD 'Different class'.

Serif font,Sans Serif font, Drop Capitals and Cross Heads: The CD name Different Class is written in Serif font, which contrast with the band logo, which is written in Sans Serif font. The logo is most likely written in Sans Serif because it's usually thicker writing, making it stand out more. They are both written in Drop Capitals as, again, it makes them stand out more than if they were written in smaller/lower case letters. However, the band are more focused on making you remember the band name than remembering the CD name, that's why the CD name is written as a Cross Head, a subheading, so you still notice it, but the band logo stands out more.

White Space: PULP uses White Space to frame the picture on the cover, making the picture more eye catching and attracting your attention to it.

Mode of Address: The text for the cover is very simple and does not address the audience very much. They're focused on keeping most of the cover black/blank and avoiding having a lot of text.

Sell Lines/Slogans: PULP's CD might not have a slogan to promote but the title 'Different Class' can easily represent what the CD's about, saying that their band and music is a different class to most people. This can also be represented in the picture, with the contrast of the black and white imaged band in a coloured wedding picture.

Banners: The cover is black but the text is white. This makes it stand out against the black background.

House Style: Gothic, dark coloured style with lots of contrast in the text and picture.

Borders:

Body Copy:

Sans Serif font: The Sans Serif font text is quite ridged, almost a vintage computer/robot style, which goes with it being 'electronic' music.
Drop Capitals: All the text on the poster is written in Drop Capitals to make it stand out.
Cross Head: The Cross Head on this poster is 'Powered by Graphic DJ Plan', supplying information about the event organisers.
Mode of Address: The poster supplies basic information about the event, such as the price and date.
Banner: The poster has a dark background with contrasting white text over it.
Strap Lines: The Strap Line is "Graphicplan presents...", introducing the event and again giving information of who's organising the event.

The purpose of this graphic design is to advertise the event 'Electronic music festival'.
The format is set out in the style of a poster.
The content of the poster is mostly dark, with text about the event above and below a colourful graphic design depicting stereos.
The style is pop and quite punk-rockish, because that's the type of group of people they're trying to attract to the event, as the target audience for the event are people into punk-rock and pop.
The layout uses a large eye-catching with basic information that doesn't take up much of the poster, but still remains readable and informative.
Regulated bodies

Body Copy:
Serif, Cross Head and San Serif font: Subheadings, Cross Heads and information about the event are written in Serif font. 'Music' is written in large San Serif font to make it stand out more.
White Space: There's a white pattern along the top and bottom corners of the poster. This is possibly to make the background look more interesting and less plain.

The purpose of this graphic design is to advertise the 'Independent Artist Music Festival'.
 The format is a leaflet/flyer.
The content shows a black and white picture of a jumping guitarist (possibly a picture from one of their previous music events or a picture of someone who would be performing at that event e.g. one of the acts listed.)
The style
The layout has most of the text in small type so that it doesn't fill-up much of the flyer. The only pieces of text that is written in large type is the word 'Music' in the title and the date of the event, as they want those to stand out more as they want people to notice and remember them; what the event is about/involves and when it will happen.
The target audience are people who like the bands that have been listed at the bottom and people who enjoy electro-guitar music, as those are two things they want to show on the flyer.

Body Copy:

Serif font: All the text is written in Serif, however the title/name of the event is in larger letters to the rest of the text, so it's still more noticeable than the rest.

The purpose of this graphic design is to inform people of 'Music Mix Live 2012'.
The format is a poster/leaflet.
The content is a colourful, shiny back ground and graphic of a disco ball with the title over it and banners with other information about the event on it.
The style is funky disco feel...
The layout shows a large picture in the centre which takes up most of the poster, with the title in large text whilst the rest of the information and associated businesses logos are small and places in the corners.
The audience targeted are people who like the acts listed and people who enjoy lively party pop music.

The purpose of this graphic design is to act as an image for an album cover.
The format is an album cover.
The content is a surreal collage of images with no text apart from the band name and album name which has been worked into the image.
The style is surrealistic which reflects the mood of most of the songs on the album.
The layout shows a collection of people and famous faces stood closely together with the Beatles stood in the centre. Most of the figures are quite colourful but The Beatles in the centre are the most colourful to make them stand out more to make them the focus.
The target audience is probably artistic people or people who enjoy surrealism and out-of-the-norm items.

The purpose of this graphic design is to be a logo to represent the piano service company Wiesinger Music.
The format is a simple letter logo.
The content could be described as an illusion, as the letters W and M have been made to look like the keys on a piano.
The style, whilst the logo is clever and creative, as the rest of the writing is a basic sans serif font, creating a simple image.
The layout shows the logo styled like a piano. The writing is in white and the rest of the image is black, creating a contrast that represent the colour of keys on a piano.

Starter revision: A logo should represent a company, and create a brand. Should be simple and eye-catching. It needs to be smart and creative to reflect what the company is about. Possibly colourful to make it more noticable. Should also convey a message.
Headline should should be at the top of a poster in bold.
C words to remember - Convention and conatation.



Under my analysis, none of these graphic design advertisements break any of the ASA codes. Only if any of the bands listed aren't actually appearing at the event, which would be misleading, I can't see any issues with them.