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james-r-bischoff-blog · 7 years ago

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MDM 570 - Organizational Design:

Organizational Design: I was initially confused about the name for my most recent course at Full Sail University in the Media Design, Master of Fine Arts (MD-MFA) Program? I thought, we’ll probably learn about organizational hierarchy and what organizational structures companies can choose from to organize production for maximum efficiency, right? Umm No. That’s not what this is about.....

It’s about Motion Graphics and it will bring all the elements of design together building on skills you’rve recently acquired while continuing to expose you to some new ones. In other words; Photoshop, In-Design, Illustrator and now add After Affects and Premier Pro. Oh Yeah, you’re a real Adobe Guru all right! NOT.

You’ll design and produce products for two big events while researching and learning about motion graphics, video and sound production all in a brief four (4) week journey and there you are: Brilliantly aware of how much remains to be learned, practiced, grasped and mastered. And pain fully aware of just how much you really don��t know. Perfect!

Where is all this going? We’re told that we’re about to find out when the design “Thesis Committee” sits down to review our work over the past six months and decides where we should target our efforts for maximum learning value, growth, etc during the next three months. I’m feeling tenuous and unsure and fearful; all I can say is: “It Better be Good”. Some artifacts and notes are provided below to give you a few pieces of my journey this past month.

Create a Promotional Video Montage

The visual scenery of the water pollution accompanied by the funeral-dirge emphasizes man’s impact (i.e. killing) the natural environment.

https://www.behance.net/gallery/54145113/Song-For-The-Seas

The concert is the call to action where the musicians and carefully selected jazz tune contrasts the evil pollution and serve to transition back to a harmonious ocean setting with crashing waves yielding at the culmination to the re-birthing of hatchlings bounding for the sea and thus representing a new beginning made possible by supporting the benefit concert.

This video closely resembles my original mood board and it replicates visual sequences in accord with original design objectives including: Ocean, Water, Sand, Jazz music, and Habitat Restoration activities enabled through the proceeds of the Song For the Seas Concert.

This Course was very challenging because we were using After Affects and Premier Pro for the very first time. We are required to use Lynda.com video instruction and Safari On-line Books to self-learn these programs. The use of Key Frames is the most difficult concept to understand. This project only touched the tip of the iceberg of functionality available in these robust tools. I found the Premier Pro Video taught by Ms. A. Kennedy to be very good instruction; but on-line videos are not an ideal method for immersion in tool functionality for all students. After Affects for Animation is a more difficult tool to learn and use.

Overall, I like working in this media because it requires you to blend all aspects of design together: Video, Color, Sound, Music, Text, Narration and the skills learned when mastered would seem to be appealing and useful in a commercial business, non-profit, or educational setting in the future.

We were also directed to continue working on defining how we would approach a motion video or graphic for the Non-Profit we selected during our Copywriting Class. These were projects where we needed to describe proposed approaches based on the additional aspects to motion and sound that we were learning for the benefit concert.

If you’re following, so far, we are talking about blending the 30 Second promotional video including the seven second animated motion graphic and/or wordmark / logo (in this case Song for the Seas – benefit for Sea Turtles and adding in additional spot work for Children of the Fallen Patriots, the non-profit from copywriting course.

I would approach the sound identity for Children of Fallen Patriots following the same themes that we’ve previously developed with the client including: Patriotism, Solemnity, Respect, and Sacrifice as key emotions to serve as a foundation. I would use a blended combination of Voice Over Narration, Music and Sound Effects to orchestrate a connection with the target audience. Noel Franus said, “sound increases the relevance and sticks in peoples’ minds” (aiga.org, Apr 07). We don’t want to shock our audience here; but, we want to get their attention.

The sound would accompany a video showing the folding of the American Flag and would follow the honor guard ceremony of the presentation of the flag to a grieving family with the narrative words:

(1) “A grateful nation honors the sacrifice of your loved one”. This would be punctuated with the

(2) Three (3)-Gun Salute and the stark snap of the firing of the weapon: The Honor Guard shouts out:

(3) “Ready / Aim / Fire” with a loud Gun Shot. This happens Three times. This shot dissolves into an interview with the wives, mothers, fathers, brothers, sons and daughters as they ask these questions verbally;

(4) “Where is Daddy?” / “When is Daddy Coming Home?” / “How will make ends meet?” / “Will we still be able to go to college?” / “How will I afford to send the children to school, now?” Then, the sound of a lone Bugler will be heard faintly in the distance playing the sound of the song called Taps.

(5) "Taps" concludes many military funerals conducted with honors at Arlington National Cemetery and elsewhere in the United States. The tune is also sounded at many memorial services in Arlington's Memorial Amphitheater and at grave sites throughout the cemetery.

(6) From there, a close up of students applying to colleges, walking into the front gates of colleges is seen as a deep scholarly studious voice announces “The need is Great”; but, We Need your Help” “Your Help” “Please decide to Help” “when you decide to help” “Don’t you want to help too?” “More help is needed” “Your Gift”? “Your donation” These are repetitive phrases that echo from the same voices we heard earlier The wives, the sons, the daughters.. in their own voices asking for help. Then the Wrap-up is the Narrator announcing the name of the charity, “We are the Children of Fallen Patriots”. “We are helping these families achieve their loved ones goals for them. “With your generous gifts, We are helping to meet their needs”. Please contact us at “Children of the Fallen Patriots.COM or XXX-XXX-XXXX. And, on behalf of all of these special children and Fallen Warriors”;

(7) “WE THANK YOU!” is said with a group of assembled people all speaking at the same time in harmony at the same time.

If the budget is limited; then, we would go with the obtaining the voice tracks in a studio setting. Once these voices are captured, with the proper expression and emotion, then we can reuse them in further efforts going forward. The key is to be able to isolate on the emotional expression of the voices as they tumble forward in an overlapping cacophony of voices generating the totality of loss and the vast emptiness of loneliness due to the horrific loss of their loved ones. This is the critical mass; sad. Overwhelming and powerful.

The key is there is the Client who is taking the part of acting on behalf of the target audience, Children of Fallen Patriots, will take care of the messy details; all the target audience will receive is the peace-of-mind in knowing they’ve chosen to help a very worthwhile cause.

Proposal to produce a video testimonial ad for: Children of Fallen Patriots

Justin Park discussed the interview as an effective method to provide recruiting material. He also said, “Interviews are genuine, spontaneous, and believable. This unearths the type of genuine dialogue that viewers respond to enthusiastically”.

I recommend a journalistic style interview technique for the footage needed for this video project because it is the best way to establish an emotional connection with the target audience. The interview will be a tool to shift into a storytelling arrangement, allow the use of real-world scholarship recipients in their natural speaking voices, and create a solemn and professional atmosphere of the cause of the charity (taking care of the children of soldiers killed while serving the country).

Steve Olenski , a contributor at Forbes wrote in his Nov 2015 Forbes e-article, Four benefits of using storytelling in marketing, that storytelling provides intrinsic benefits when connecting with the audience. These included: “ability to convey personality, bringing brand to forefront, establishing an emotional chord, and building interest to keep audience interest”.

Using the interview technique for this project will: (1) Convey brand personality and establish the Children of Fallen Patriots’ as the key focus topic, (2) Provide a key avenue to establish an emotional appeal with the audience, and it will (3) Enable more stories in the future as new and emerging beneficiary students graduate as result of the support they received.

We won’t rely on humor or sarcasm to try to overtly go viral with this production; because, it’s not what our clients expect. The only way to achieve a social object is through a deep connection with the children and their life circumstances / consequences now that they have lost a parent to war. This would play out as a sharing of the positive outcomes despite the tragic circumstances they faced. We might be lucky if we are able to connect with the plight of the youngster and their actual experiences as they were touched and helped by charity. This will require a very skilled journalistic interviewer who is totally on-board for this project because we will need this journalist to spend a lot of time getting to know each of these special people.

Brand Pulsing should not be overtly portrayed during this production. The message is not so much on the brand of the charity; but, rather the concept of doing altruistic things out of a innate sense of civic responsibility.

Shooting/Build Plan: We start with the child graduate in her/his home to begin the interview and briefly stating who Mom/Dad was and how they wanted for their Child to succeed; answering who was Dad, and sharing and experiencing the loss with the child as close as possible (going through a few old photos or mementos together).

We can use the corporate front office to record the sequences showing direct contact with the charity staff members and these shots will have the Logo and Wordmark in the background. So the concepts of the sacrifice made by the loved one (an army formation or parade) ; and the innocence and potential frailty and vulnerability of the child left behind with diminished options for college would be the introductory angle. This transitions into the actual act of helping the child enroll (paperwork, calculators); clear through financial aid (college computer office and handshakes), scroll forward to the child taking his/her first steps up the student union hall stairwell welcoming incoming Freshman would be the sequence of steps. Then, finally footage of the culmination, graduation speakers, the stage with Caps & Gowns, with the attendant imagery of a graduation would be near the end. A word from a graduation speaker or from the Charities’ annual Gala would then fold towards a close with the call for action. Then, perhaps having footage from the graduate who is now in her/his career and is re-telling the story of how they got into school and contrasting it with where they are now (successful in life), etc.

This then wraps to other embedded links to other students and tells each story just like this one. Same journalist, same format. Each Child, one at a time. Each a special situation with a unique story to tell. One after the other - - after the other…. With a page that becomes filled gradually becoming fully populated with these stories…. With the caption – there are still so many more children to help; we need your help. Will You Help us add to our story?

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james-r-bischoff-blog · 8 years ago

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Research Design 5.4.2

Mastery Journal Reflections

The course in the Full Sail University Media Design Master of Fine Arts provided a comprehensive overview of the web design and development process without getting bogged down in a particular tool or technological method.

The unfortunate part is that the course is very brief; we were only able to delve into the concepts of information architecture and web page usability at a surface, brushstroke level.

The good news is we went from initial design ideal all the way to composition during this process, so we actually got our hands dirty with trying out some initial ideas. The creation and use of wire-frames was explained and practiced for good effect – and these wireframes help to catalyze creative juices.

This experience taught me this process is a serious undertaking and requires a devoted avocation to become really good at it (like most things). Many of the specific web design job requirements require specialization. In addition to a strong familiarity with media design; tasks such as: establishing design goals; designing functionality, developing navigation, categorizing content and layout of content with graphics are highly specified functions. Additional unique skills include applied and adapted user interface design, illustration, browser platform knowledge (including mobile), etc. The idea of working with a team of specialists dividing the labor makes sense for a production house setting.

Professionally, I will have to delegate the responsibility of web communications – at least for the present time. However, I now possess a deeper understanding of the processes involved. I may be more inclined to volunteer to help steward a few pages at work; and perhaps generate some content for my work-group. I'm definitely more aware of the process and the behind the scenes work that contributes to effective web-page design and layout.

This will probably elevate my expectations for my work-related content and layout. And, I'll probably have an expectation my contemporary’s should help generate content and share in the creative process to establish their web-identities. I think younger personnel come to this process with a greater willingness to share and to express themselves. This is a good thing. So, these are tendencies I will likely support and cultivate.

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james-r-bischoff-blog · 8 years ago

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CopyWriting – Confessions of a Humbled Student

Well, this class wasn’t what I thought it would be about. It’s not like I haven’t said that for each Full Sail University course so far. Instead, the title should have read: “How to Follow Directions”, or, “You’re going to do Testimonials, like eating your vegetables... because they’re good for you....”!

One big take away that I should’ve learned by now, is to: Follow the Directions. But, No. I’m special. Whether I had a creative block, was just stubborn or plain hard-headed – I couldn’t grasp how a testimonial ‘made sense’ for my charity, Children of Fallen Patriots.

Maybe, I was trying to find a clever way to solve the problem; but, it just came out poorly. I ended up wasting time defending my position and I paid for this in terms of time left to devote to fixing the design elements for the finalized prints.

Looking back, I was tracking in the coursework right up to the point of translating sketch work into compositions. My sketches show nationalized flags, batons, and mortarboards/diplomas and a heavy reliance on themes of sacrifice, patriotism, and dreaming of success. But, none of my sketches show I ever grasped the idea of the testimonial; or that I tried to give one a voice. I was obviously missing something. Of course, getting a ‘D’ on your draft designs does have a way of getting your attention, too.

I fell-down when it came time to give any testimony a real speaking voice. I had no story-line for what was going on. It was only when another student (Jeremy the Tank) helped me by seeing the problem and he showed me how to tell the story from the perspective of the beneficiary student – the one whom we are striving to help and her dilemma of being able to afford college now that her Dad died in the war. Our discussion led the print below:

The result of collaboration with a Classmate resulted in the design above. It’s the closest I could get to the idea of a Testimonial.

Another big take away is I have never written a testimonial; and wouldn’t know one if it bit me in broad daylight. What are the elements of a good testimonial? After looking back on our textbook by George Felton (Advertising, Concept and Copy); I don’t think I missed anything there. So, the ability to create a meaningful testimonial requires more effort than the Craig Smallish Lynda.Com video describes. And even though we picked out our favorite print ads just a week earlier; I still failed on the uptake. So, where do you learn how to write a good testimonial then?

This is where a step is missing in our coursework that progresses from the sketches into the initial compositions. And I think this step could be described as the ‘story-boarding’ phase. This would be the stage where the draft character is brought out on stage, and voices are assigned to it with suggested phrases and taglines and then a small audience is used to critique the reasonableness, seriousness, rigor, authenticity, etc. of the proposed testimonial figure.

For me, I couldn’t replicate this phase in my own head. All I did was discard the notional characters for one reason or another, The child (too innocent), the wife (too scarred), the General (too biased), etc. And, I even dissected the makeup of the likely public demographic to the point that only a very few select people could ever understand and appreciate the sacrifices involved and would therefore be willing to give to this worthy cause.

The design above was a public awareness piece vs. a strict Testimonial.

The last take away is that I over-thought the problem. I created a burden of inertia to the point of becoming unable to surmount. I convinced myself the problem was too hard to overcome. And this is a disturbing point of order and it is one that I must figure out and deal with. The best news here is that thanks to the willingness of a fellow student to help; I could see some techniques that I could have used to produce better designs. Here, the Felton piece at the beginning of Chapter 15, “Everyone can imagine a house. Only a carpenter can build one” rings especially true. I am a work in progress. So, I’ll have the benefit of these techniques to build upon for the future; and, I’m grateful for the tutoring.

Sometimes, being willing to admit and identify the problem is the first (and necessary) step to solve it.

So, a special thanks to Jeremy Tank aka ‘Think Tank’ for his support and helpful suggestions.

Moving On From Here, Thanks.

Jim

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james-r-bischoff-blog · 8 years ago

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BRAND DEVELOPMENT MDM530

What a great class working with my Brand Development Professor at Full Sail. The course was extremely challenging, fast-paced and multi-faceted. It was also a bit of a fire-hose. I enjoyed the class as an intersection of business strategy, marketing and media design.

The course was sufficiently infused with external Lynda.Com coursework from Sean Adams and Margo Chase. The course also provided an opportunity to use Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop to produce work for the Rainy Days Toy Company where our creative skills were pushed and presentation abilities prodded.

One could easily create or take an entire master’s degree program on Branding alone, and this class certainly would be one way to begin such a program. Even if I don’t score an “A”; I can honestly say I couldn’t have given this any more effort. I tried my best.

On reflection of my time after three courses with Full Sail University; there are a few areas I continue to reverberate on. These include the following:

1. The absolute need to collaborate with the course instructor. As an on-line student, the ability to speak to the instructor to ensure understanding in assignments and expectations is paramount. Getting a vector-check before commencing hours on a homework assignment is always a good idea. I really enjoyed and appreciated the time spent in collaboration with the Professor.

2. Student feedback in discussion forums is a mixed bag. Some students are just not going to go to a lot of extra effort to try to help their fellow students. Some students simply don’t have the capacity or experience to mentor/tutor or to invest time to help when they are busy trying to stay afloat themselves. I don’t like the expectations the school makes on students for this function; and it often comes across as contrived. On the same hand, it doesn’t hurt to try to nurture friendships from the students you would appreciate and respect their feedback from. There is no way to replace the Cafeteria or the Hallways or the transportation commons where students used to gather and talk about their coursework.

3. I still long for good ole-fashioned textbooks. E Books are fine; but, they only give you a microscope into the author’s thinking about a subject, chapter, or concept. Sometimes, you could page through a text book and see how it was logically laid out and organized that you simply can’t feel with an E Book. Other pages, with diagrams, pictures and explanations fall flat when viewed on a single screen. And paging through a text on-line is more difficult than flipping back and forth by hand.

Finally, there’s no way to describe how immersion in a master’s degree can zap your life from you. This requires time – an abundance of it. You literally need to put the rest of your life on-hold (hobbies, children, spouse, TV, etc.) to carve out time for studies. And, anyone who says an on-line program is an easy diploma-mill has no idea what they are talking about.

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james-r-bischoff-blog · 8 years ago

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The Chief Brand Identity Officer & Design Team Cohesiveness

In today’s information technology and transparent social media culture the protection of corporate brand equity has never been more important; or more at risk than any time in history. The effort to build a successful corporate image and brand can be involuntarily sabotaged or innocently torpedoed overnight. Protecting and improving brand identify is important enough to seriously consider a Chief Brand Officer at the board of directors table. Senior leaders would do well to partner with an experienced design director helping to develop and sustain their brand’s image and the Company’s reputation.

Emily Cohen and Jen Miller assert design groups within organizations “operate at and grow to different levels of maturity depending on the needs of their internal clients as well as their own internal capabilities”. Cohen and Miller describe a maturity scale based on how well a design team shares knowledge, uses well-defined standards, conducts training and communicates - Cohen Miller Consulting (Wheeler 115). The described model begins at a basic practitioner level of “Service Providers” and proceeds to Advisor, Strategist, Innovator and then ultimately to a “Brand Builder”.

Ideally, a big Fortune 500 company will have a Chief Brand Officer and a dedicated staff of internal-house design artists. Even with such an investment in place, the company can still use external house brand consultants to help advise on strategy and methods to stretch the brand; freshen and enhance the brand, or to bring new ideas to consider for the launch of a new product line. In these situations, careful selection and monitoring of the joint creative efforts is paramount. It is essential that external design creative team enjoy unfettered access to the internal team for a variety of good reasons. Most logically is the internal team will need to accept and embrace any external ideas and is essential to help these new ideas breath life after the external team is gone.

This is the method that Chase Design Team worked with the inhouse designers at Starbucks to produce a series of delightful design guides the Starbuck’s production house could run with.

Margo’s team instinctively knows how to consider the unique needs of their clients and to partner individual and tailored services that best fit the project requirement.

Wheeler, Alina. Designing Brand Identity: An Essential Guide for the Whole

Branding Team, 4th Edition. John Wiley & Sons P&T, 10/22/12. VitalBook file.

Lynda.Com; instructional Video, Creative Inspirations, Margo Chase, Graphic

Designer; Style Guides, retrieved: Mar 26 2017.

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james-r-bischoff-blog · 8 years ago

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Defining Client Needs

The MDM 525, Defining Client Needs Course has been an interesting learning experience. Takeaways include the following:

1. Learning about the design process used by the Chase Design Group including how the firm evolved around its creator, Ms. Margo Chase. Successful designers need to thoroughly understand the needs, wants, and desires of their intended consumers. The Chase Group demonstrates their understanding of the business requirement to develop client trust and secure contracts. The Chase Design Group uses a defined repeatable process and develops consumer personas in consultation with clients. (Creative Inspirations: Margo Chase, Graphical Designer, Sep 2008). The Chase example also revealed the necessity to protect from over-investment in a creative endeavor until a finalized design solution is agreed to with the client. Therein lies an apparent delicate balance between the need of the designer to secure work, while balancing creative time budgets throughout the design process.

I chose to write my APA compliant paper about the persona because it is appeared to be a key communication tool guiding the design process. Unfortunately, we did not further evolve or develop a hypothetical persona for the reminder of our theater poster designs but were only casually encouraged to perform for an imagined target demographic. A few students designed specifically to a target demographic or were encouraged to emulate a vintage design motif (i.e. Saul Bass, Art Deco, etc.) as a foundation. One fellow student used vicinity/locale effectively as a basis for his designs with success, although this too fell short of expectations for developing a rich understanding of client business needs.

2. I learned about the interchangeability of design artifacts within the creative cloud tool suite and I began to use the tools to produce designs. I developed a healthy respect for my fellow students and an appreciation for how gifted and artistic they are. We worked on a variety of theater posters after viewing a Lynda.com video made by Nigel French. (French, Mar 2009).

Here, we were challenged to first reproduce his designs, and then we were encouraged to try our hand at improving his basic preliminary designs. Then, we designed our own posters from scratch using sketches to illustrate our initial compositions.

It was fun reviewing everyone’s sketches and drafts and seeing how they refined their work after receiving feedback. We learned about critique from our course Professor and about how to share ideas without injuring or insulting the artist whose work we were critiquing. (C.Cleveland, Full Sail MDM 525 Video, Feb 17).

Here, I was hoping to receive more trade-craft ideas and additional techniques to improve my designs. I encountered technical difficulties with downloading and using imported typographical fonts from dafont.com; and it resulted in hidden flaws when the posters were published. After this problem, I resorted to default fonts available with the initial InDesign install to ensure this problem didn’t recur. It wasn’t until late in the class a fellow student offered a technical solution to another student that could have alleviated my font publication issue; but, by then it was too late.

3. I learned about the concept of design styles and how they can be used to establish a frame of reference for the creative design process. This concept apparently means more to the artistically inclined than it does for me; because, for example: I just don’t see what a ‘Spaghetti Western’ has to do with the play Romeo & Juliet at all?! Each poster had to convey the 5 W’s (i.e. where & when, etc.) and everyone met this requirement. And, this is where I strayed to introduce a hook to entice a likely theater going patron to purchase tickets with a textual ~‘jingle’; but for some reason it fell completely flat and no-one seemed to care or resonate with it at all: For example, I used: “Young Lovers Forever” “Be a Lover” “Bring Your Lover”….

Or “a Forbidden Love so Strong…” “Investigate the Intrigue to Discover Why”. I even used “Outstanding Young Actors” as notional devices that would illustrate why someone would choose to come to this production of Romeo & Juliet.

So, I’m not sure what I missed with these techniques?

This course was a humbling experience as I trudged through the Adobe tools. Even though I followed the videos and found additional lynda.com videos; this was a difficult undertaking. Adobe software has many hidden functions built into keys and the menu structure is quite unlike the Microsoft Office suite. Despite my difficulties, I am satisfied with my work; even if they do not reflect the time invested to create them.

The combination of design/creativity challenges and the difficulty in learning Adobe Creative Cloud lead to a reevaluation of my selection of the MDFMA. It will be difficult for me to achieve success in this program without a stronger undergraduate Art background aligned to my occupation. I will likely change to the Master of Business Intelligence program beginning in Month 5, but I will continue with MDMFA courses until next semester in Month 5.

Cleveland, C (2017, Feb) The Art of Critique, retrieved from Full Sail University, MDM 525 Go To Training, https://course.fso.fullsail.edu/class_sections/109391/discussions/1724102

Lynda.Com Video: Creative Inspirations: Margo Chase, Graphical Designer. (2008, September 4) Retrieved January 2017, from: https://www.lynda.com/Design-Documentaries-tutorials/Branding/685/38838-4.html

French, N. (2009, March 13). Designing a Poster with Nigel French, Retrieved February 09, 2017, from lynda.com/Illustrator-tutorials/designing-an-event-poster-hands-on-workshop/741-2.html

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