Voice artists, integral to a brand...

The other night as I was drifting off to sleep I was listening to a programme on Radio 4, it was a documentary about voice artists. I wish I hadn't been so tired and fallen asleep half way through as what I remember of it was very interesting. (I tried and failed to find it on iPlayer)

One part of the programme was talking about companies using voice to enhance part of their brand not only within their advertising but as a whole, using the same voice artist for their radio ads and for their internal staff memos. Therefor increasing and creating consistent brand values throughout every aspect the company.

I found this so interesting because as a graphic designer it is integral for me to realise what a brand is, (not just a logo!) and I had never thought about how important a voice might be to a brand. Although it seems so obviously important now, the programme highlighted that it is often the last thing to be considered by the advertising industry too.

There is also great skill needed to be a voice artists, not just being able to read off a script. (although I think that might play a big part in it!) Often they have to fit vast amounts of information into only a few seconds, condensing their voice but not the quality.

Malcolm Gladwell Lecture

Birthday present round two commenced last sunday evening when I went to the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh to see Malcolm Gladwell give a lecture supporting his new book, What the Dog Saw.

I have only read one of his books, The Tipping Point as a university assignment but enjoyed it and found it very interesting. So although I wasn't sure what to expect I was looking forward to hearing what he had to say.

His chosen subject for the lecture was serendipity, concentrating on the roll serendipity plays in science, focusing on the story of two friends who worked to develop cancer fighting drugs.

I did not come away from the evening feeling overwhelmed with new theories or innovative concepts, I did not feel like it had changed my life or I would carry what he had said with me for years to come. When you pay to see an influential author I think you may expect to come out with some of these boxes ticked.

However he was a very talented speaker and story teller, he kept everyone engaged and interested. And I came away with an insight into how hard it is to bring medication to market, how rigorous the testing process is and although it seemed there was no obvious significant information imparted to us, on further reflection there are definitely underlying and subtal messages that can be taken from the lecture.

And it was delivered in an entertaining way.

(Also for some reason, he didn't look how I imagined him to!)

You Can't Stop the Beat!

My 21st birthday is approaching and as a gift I went with some of my family to see the musical Hairspray yesterday in Glasgow. It was superb, I had such a good time. I saw the film version with John Travolta which I enjoyed but this was 100x better, Michael Ball is hilarious- the chemistry between him and Les Dennis was great, they look like they're having so much fun. Here are a couple of photos of me and my mum after the show.

It's coming to Edinburgh in December and I've already decided I'm going to see it again!

Playing with After Effects

One of our recent projects from uni was learning how to use After Effects. I created a short ident animation for my blog. I'm not very happy with the end but hopefully it's not too bad for a first attempt!

Assignment 5b

Over the past year I have learnt many new skills from Design Studies, they range from primary and secondary research methods, how to create a Harvard bibliography to mind mapping and much more. Here I would like to propose how I would go about applying the techniques I’ve learnt to a tackle a studio brief differently.

I have chosen to look at one of my recent briefs where we were each given a different area of the shipping forecast and research, mine was Fair Isle. We then had to create an attraction within our area and brand or advertise it. The constraints of the brief were very open as we could tackle it in whatever way we wanted, anything from building an underwater community or creating an alternative reality set far in the future, our solution could be as sensible or crazy as we wished.

Through my research I discovered that the Norse name for Fair Isle means island of peace, from this I started to think about creating a religious community on the island. This led me onto creating a religious cult who worship birds and are recruiting members. Which then resulted in me to creating an advertising campaign for a rehab centre on the island, making claims of wonderful success rates and results, however it is all too good to be true as once the addicts are on the island the rehab centre makes no attempt to cure them, instead keep them there with the aim to sacrifice them to their gods, the birds.

Although I carried out research at the beginning of this brief I am now going to explore how by applying the news skills I have learnt I could achieve a more in-depth understanding and a greater valuable knowledge of the subject.

I would begin with mind mapping and brain storming the area, perhaps in small groups with others in the class and help others in return to mind map their area too, this would spark initial ideas and a wide variety of suggestions would be generated which I may have not thought of by yourself. From these initial ideas I would be able to base the following research on the ideas that have been generated.

To gain a basic understanding of the area of Fair Isle I would do a Google search although I know online sources are not always to be trusted and you should never solely rely on the information you gather to form online research.

During my online research I came across some photos taken on Fair Isle by a local photographer. Taking inspiration from the visual experiment technique from the beginning of this semester I could print off a selection of photos and show them to a range of people. It would be beneficial to gather responses to the photos focusing on how the photos of the island and island life make people feel, if they could connect the photos in a short story or feel any strong connections or just general feelings towards the photos. This would generate very valuable data into people’s interpretations of the island and uncover any preconceived ideas people may have of Fair Isle. This is valuable information that Google could not generate!

I then may look at the library’s Cross-Search facility to see if there has been any interesting research done on Fair Isle or other remote islands regarding issues such as island living. If I was still focusing on religion and cults then this research tool would be very useful for finding secondary data on this subject area. As because the subject of religion is so broad, there are many articles on the subject.

I will also use the library to research different advertising approaches, especially Guerilla style advertising as I feel this approach is the best way to reach my target consumer.

A very beneficial research method for this project to gain a great knowledge of the area would be observation. However because the island is very remote this is not a very practical method. Perhaps instead of observing the island I could go to a number of different religious buildings to observe and to gain a more diverse knowledge of different religions. This would help me when I came to construct my own religious cult for Fair Isle. I could also arrange a visit to a local rehab centre to observe and collect literature such as any posters or leaflets to see how they are designed to draw inspiration for my own design work.

I think it would be extremely important to carry out interviews with the cult’s target market, who are alcoholics and drug addicts are at their lowest, desperate to a get clean quick by the easiest way possible. This would mean sourcing addicts and interviewing them to find out exactly what they would look for in a rehab centre. If the requests generated were unachievable in a legitimate rehab centre, all the better for my research, as I want the centre to sound ‘too good to be true’, whatever they suggested I could use as valuable material for my advertising. I could also show the subjects a selection of the adverts I had created to gain feedback and to see how effective they would be. I could then use their feedback to revise the advertising campaign, making it more effective.

Sourcing alcoholics and drug addicts could potentially be putting myself at risk so I could interview recovered addicts as an alternative.

By applying these research techniques to a studio brief I am gathering a richer type of information. I can gain knowledge that is of a higher value and much more useful than the facts and figures found on the internet. All too often a Google search is the first thing we do when is comes to research. But I definitely think by using these primary and secondary research methods within my studio briefs I will achieve more interesting outcomes and solutions that reflect real people’s problems and needs.

One of the most important things I have learnt this year is that design is more than aesthetics. Design is about creating meaning, it is about understanding people’s stories, if you cannot understand their stories then you cannot design for them. This is why it is so important to involve people, though interviews, observation and discussion in your research, as ultimately you are designing for them.

Assignment 5a

I am interested in the subject of where and how people obtain information, how opinions are formed and shaped by who we interact with and what are society’s main influences regarding how we access information and news. I am interested in finding out if any of these factors have an effect on social behaviours or trends.

I carried out research into this subject last semester, starting by using mind maps and brain storming techniques to first outline exactly what I wanted to look at and how I was going to go about doing it. I looked primarily at secondary research however I would now like to propose how I would collect my own primary research data so I would be able to draw my own conclusions and further my understanding of this subject.

I have looked at two texts on a similar subject, the first was ,“Japanese Network Capital: The Impact of Social Networks on Japanese Political Participation” by Ken'ichi Ikeda and Sean E. Richey which focuses on how social capital has a large influence on political behaviour. The second text I read was, “What do Americans Really want to know? Tracking the behaviour of News Readers on the Internet” By David Tewksbury, which looked at how the widespread use of the internet for news reading has changed the way we process information.

Both of these articles deal with different aspects of my question, the Japanese political participation study looks at real life social networks found in local communities, business’s and various volunteer and government lead organisations to see if differences in social structures influence different political beliefs and behaviours. Whereas Tewksbury’s research mainly focuses on news consumption online to discover if the new digital age is changing the way we read the news and if this has any lasting effects on the long-term health of democratic nations.

For my own personal primary research into this topic I firstly need to consider what research methods would be suitable. I want to obtain honest unbiased results into the relationship between news consumption and how or if that effects social behaviours.

I have carried out my own face-to-face interviews into this subject. From my research I was able to conclude that the primary medium used for news consumption and discussion was done on the internet.

My research was insightful but I believe it was not conclusive in proving that people’s views and opinions are influenced by the people they interact with. This could be due to not a large enough section of people being asked, however from my findings I can see the beginnings of trending results and patterns into news consumption. I therefore think further research needs to be carried out in this area.

As I have established that the majority of news and information consumption happens online, I believe it would be beneficial to carry out online observations by looking at the specific online locations where information is most commonly acquired. By using a system such as URL tracking I would be able to determine exactly what websites people are using to read the news and why type of news stories were most popular. I could also begin to gain information and achieve an insight into wither the subjects are sharing or discussing the information with anyone else online.

Using URL tracking is more beneficial and will generate more accurate results compared to asking subjects to keep a diary or to simply asking them in questionnaire format as the automatic recording of URL location illuminates human error such as forgetfulness.

Along with URL tracking it would be beneficial to carry out face-to-face interviews with the subjects as you could begin to gain a further understanding of any offline communications with peers, work colleagues, family etc. they have, and see how this interaction might influence their opinions on the stories read online.

Group interviews made up of people from the same social networks would be beneficial to gain a deeper understanding of influences over opinions and decisions within peer groups. This would show if the people we interact with every day influence or shape our opinions.

Within group interviews individuals can be influenced by others in the group or some might not feel confident enough to share their views, which would lead to everyone not getting a fair chance to speak. However this might work in favour for the type of research I can conducting. The interviewer could begin to see the relationship between the most confident and talkative individuals who may have the strongest opinions and the views of others in the social network. I would begin to see if individuals were being influencing by the more dominant people’s views. However if their views weren’t being influenced, even if they are having others views pressed upon them, this would confirm my results from my interviews that people are not influenced by those they interact with.

I have learnt that some methods of research are not always useful for what you are researching. Many factors need to be taken into consideration such as thinking about how your subjects feel, it is important they are in the right frame of mind and are not put under pressure or feel intimidated. To make sure this doesn’t occur it is beneficial to pre arrange a time and place for the interviews to take place and engaging the subjects in small talk before to help them open up and feel comfortable.

I believe that unstructured interviews are the most beneficial as conversation can flow easier, respondents answers can be fuller and more detailed and as an interviewer you can adapt, change or explain questions further resulting in better responses compared to written questionnaires. It is important for the interviewer to remain unbiased, not to guess or predict answers or to influence the interviewee in any way.

Pilot studies are always necessary so you can gauge the responses of the target age group and or class sector and sort out any problems in your questions before committing a lot of time and effort to the project.

I believe that online URL observations, face-to-face and group interviews are the best research methods to understand where and how people obtain information, how opinions are formed and shaped by who we interact with and what are society’s main influences regarding how we access information and news. By using more than one research method I will gain much fuller and in-depth information than if I were to only to use one data source.

Bibliography:

Ikeda K, Richey S. (2005). Japanese Network Capital: The Impact of Social Networks on Japanese Political Participation. Political Behavior. 27 (3), 239-260.

Tewksbury, D. (2003). What do Americans really want to know? Tracking the behavior of news readers on the Internet. Journal of Communication. 53 (4), 694-710.

Assignment 4

So the second term is whizzing by at a tremendous speed and we're onto our fourth design studies assignment. For this one we were asked to continue our primary researching techniques and carry out a number of face-to-face interviews with people we did not know on our chosen subject, the reason they were strangers was to ensure their answers were not influenced by the fact they knew us.

So I decided to ask the question, "How do people access the news and obtain information on current issues in the 21st century? And if or how their views and opinions are influenced by the people they interact with?" This is carrying on from some secondary research I carried out last term on a similar subject.

First of all I had to think very hard about the questions I was going to ask, I had to be careful to not limit the responses to one word, like yes and no. And I carried out a pilot test on my brother to check the questions.

I asked three males age ranging from 20-50 years and a female aged between 20-25. When asked What is the last news story you remember hearing/reading/seeing, do you remember where you head/read/saw it? Two out of the four interviewees said the murder of MaryMcLaren, one of the male(aged 40-50) subjects saw it on Reporting Scotland (TV) and the other female interviewee read the story on the internet although she could not remember where. The news that Facebook were not going to place a "panic button" on their site was the last piece of news male(20-25) remembered and male(40-50) remembered a video of a Lorry pushing a car along a motorway as the last think he remembers seeing on the BBC news website.

When asked if they had discussed this story with anyone female(20-25) said she had talked about the murder case with her boyfriend, likewise male(40-50) discussed the story of the murder with his wife. Male(20-25) however did not discuss the Facebook panic button story with anyone and male(40-50) had not discussed the video however was thinking of posting it on Facebook.

Three of the interviewees listed Facebook within their top three websites, They also listed, Google, Twitter, Google Reader, ifanboy.com, BBC, The Chaos Engine and another German social networking site (one of my subjects was German).

The subjects favoured radio stations were, BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 5, BBC Radio 4, Wave 102 (he claimed it was only for the traffic updates!), Classic FM and Tay FM. Only one of the interviewees said he did not listen to any radio stations.

Two of the subjects do not read a newspaper regularly, but both claim to read news online, primarily though the BBC news website.

Another of the subjects, male(40-50) reads the Guardian every day, his partner also reads the Guardian, although he said that she mostly only read the magazine supplement. He did however say that he discussed his views on news and current affairs with his wife.

The male(20-25) subject only occasionally read the Guardian, and stated that his parents bought the Daily Express, he does believe he interacts on a daily basis with people who hold the same opinions and views to him and discusses his views with them.

The German female subject stated that she talks with her friends in Germany on matters regarding politics however she does not know enough about British politics and couldn't tell me if she socializes with people with similar beliefs to her in Scotland as she does not discuss her views with them.

One of the male(40-50) subjects believes he does not socialize with anyone who holds similar opinions and views to him and only occasionally discusses these matters with them.

All four of the subjects confirmed that the primary medium which they obtained the majority of information on current news stories was though the internet, there was not a large amount of variation of locations, the BBC News was very popular and Google Reader/RSS feeds coming second.

From my research I can conclude that the majority of people I interviews use the internet to access news stories and obtain and share information on current issues. Only one person still bought a newspaper everyday and even he supplemented the information with further reading from internet news sites. From my results I would state that people's views are not influenced by others around them. However although my research has been insightful I do not believe it is conclusive, as only four people have been interviewed as I feel if I was to do a second round of interviews I would be better prepared with more in-depth questions as I've now had the time to reflect on my first results and can think of further questions. Another factor is that I wouldn't be as nervous asking the interviewing strangers a second time as I have gained knowledge and experience from this assignment.

I therefore think more research has to be carried out wither people's views and opinions are influenced by the people they interact with.

We carried out a class discussion which was interesting to hear others results and views on their findings as we had all done different questions and subjects. It turned into a really interesting talk about all our topics and we started adding our own opinions and ideas.

Bingo was the Game-O

Last week I went to the bingo for the first time with a few of my classmates, the purpose of the outing was not solely to have a good night out, but was an educational assignment set by our design studies class.

The aim was to people watch, the theory being that as a designer I need to be aware of people's behaviour in different surroundings, "too often we tend to focus on objects while ignoring their effect, or how they are used."

So off we went with an open mind and open eyes.

First we had to register, which is free. They asked us to fill out a short form with the usual details, name, address, date of birth etc. however what I thought was slightly unusual was that in small print at the bottom of the form was a box to tick if you were a smoker. I have never seen this before, I am presuming it is connected to the smoking ban, I remember there was a lot of news at the time of bingo halls closing down due to it, so it must be important information to them.

While I was standing waiting to finish registering an older woman came up to the desk and informed the man serving that she had forgotten her glasses, he immediately drew out a whole drawer of spare glasses, all different styles and sizes for her to borrow, she started rummaging through trying on different pairs. This made me giggle; I have never seen a spare glasses service before. This surely tells me something not only about the age demographic at the bingo but also suggests that people here have a different attitude compared to other customers at other entertainment venues such as cinemas. People are not embarrassed to borrow what I presume to be lost property specs. I can't imagine many people feeling comfortable wearing someone else’s ill-fitting, unflattering glasses while you are out with your friends socializing. I wouldn’t anyway.

While I was being registered I was asked another couple of questions and was surprised that I was called me by my first name, I then noticed that everyone signing in beside me was also welcomed by name. Was this because they were regulars and the staff knew them? Or is it simply a corporate rule that the staff must read and use customer’s names from their membership card?

I think by the staff addressing customers by name it helps the customer feel a personal connection with the establishment and would surely make the customer feel more welcome and valued. This is a small but important gesture, as their main objective is for you to spend as much money as possible, something you would possibly be encouraged to do if you felt your presence was valued and would encourage repeated business.

Once I was all set with my membership card and dabber I made my way round to another desk buy my books. This is when it started to get confusing as I didn't know what games to play. I asked the woman serving me her opinion and she suggested as a beginner I play the electronic games but I wanted to stick to the traditional way of playing so she suggested I start on the 'early' book which was short and only 80p.

As we went through the doors and into the main hall we didn't know where to sit, if the game had already started, how we'd know if it had or when it would. We opted to sit quite near the back and close to the door. The hall was large and was decorated with bright and colourful features which gave it a holiday or hotel feel, this possibly creates an atmosphere of escapism for the customers.

There were numbers being called and flashing up on screen and we had no idea what for, looking around it wasn't that busy and people were still coming in so we just settled down and tried to work out how to play. It would have been really good if they put some instructions on the books as there was absolutely no indication of how to play anywhere, not even in our welcome pack. It struck me odd that the books didn’t have any Mecca Bingo branding on them at all as the rest of the building and material given to us was covered in it.

Looking around the hall the majority of people were female, and a lot of people on their own, there was also a fair number of men on their own, more than I thought there would be. No one really seemed to be chatting or mingling with each other, everyone was sparsely seated, one woman had a magazine and everyone seemed to have a drink of some sort on their table, wither it was tea, a can of coke or a pint. The majority of people were definitely over fifty and looked working class, everyone was white and dressed similar, very casual and comfortable, it was obvious people don’t make an effort to go to the bingo, not on a Wednesday anyway.

Wandering around the hall was a number of staff all of which wore name badges and t-shirts advertising upcoming events happening at the bingo. All the staff were quite young, under or in their thirties, and there seemed an equal amount of male and female staff. They came to check your card if you’d won and would pay out your winnings. I noticed that there wasn’t much interaction between the staff and the customers, many customers simply handed over their books without so much as a smile.

Other advertising material was placed on all the tables. It was obvious Mecca Bingo has a strong brand theme running throughout their chains, I felt that they mainly aim their marketing at woman, possibly playing to the female stereotype as all the colours used are pink and have lots of stock style photography of groups of females smiling and looking happy. This is slightly surprising when it’s obvious from the number that were there that they also have a large male customer base.

The game was about to begin, the lights went up, heads went down and dabbers were ready and poised, but I still wasn't 100% sure of all the rules, too late the numbers were flying at me. It was confusing and a bit of a blur, I kept missing numbers and I was nervous I might have to shout ‘house’. At the end of the first page there was an audible sigh as everyone in the room who had not won turned over their page, hopeful and ready for the second round. I soon got the hang of it and before I knew it the early book was over. Some of us decided to go back and get the main book, which was a bit more expensive.

During the break between the early and main book I decided to get a drink, spying the small bar in the corner of the hall next to a canteen style café, I braced myself for what I thought was going to be a very expensive glass of wine, however to my surprise it wasn’t, it was really cheap, the same with the food. Everything seemed very reasonably priced; you could get a main meal for under £4. I wondered if this is partly due to the smoking ban, do the bingo halls have to find new ways to draw people in and make money now customers can no longer smoke inside?

The lights went up for a second time and we started the second book, I had got the hang of it now and found myself getting quicker at finding the numbers on my page. Karen was the first and only person in our group to shout ‘house’, not once but twice in the same game! Everyone in our group started clapping and shouting as we were excited one of us had won, this was a huge comparison to other previous winners in the hall who seemed unexcited and flat when calling house. Other players in the hall also started clapping, they seemed amused and happy for us.

It was really interesting putting myself in a place where I had never been before and having to not only observe my own actions but of those around me too. It was an exciting experience as we all were unsure of what to do when everyone else seemed confident and used to the game and surroundings. It made me take a fresh look at how all the different elements of how a business is run comes together, from how the staff work and the branding is applied to how in turn that effects how the customers interact and behave.

Although we were slightly nervous and apprehensive about a night out at the bingo, we all had a really good time, and might even contemplate going back in the future.