Design & Development
Week 9:
Promotional Material
Tuesday 26th April - Tuesday 3rd May 2022
WEEK 9 -
TO DO: CREATE AND ORDER PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL​
(All promotional material can be found here: MARKETING)
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PURPOSE FOR PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL
We are working on schedule which means today is promotional material day! I have taken responsibility for the design and production of our promotional material including stickers, posters and t-shirts! (And whatever else we find that works) The purpose of this material is to entice our audience in and market our game. These should be items that we can give out for free at our Arcade Event, to thank guests and show our appreciation towards them for coming and playing our game. It'll also be great to build our brand in a way that is unique to us, through unique merchandise.
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WHAT WILL I BE DOING?
Firstly, I will be outlining exactly what we want and need for our promotional material. I then plan to document inspiration mood-boards that will inspire the design of the material which I can then use to create our own. Once I have the designs complete, I will be getting merchandise orders from websites I have used before, that I know are reliable from experience.
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GOALS FOR THE NEXT FEW DAYS​
The goal by the end of Wednesday is to have a series of promotional material produced and ordered.
MINI PLAN
Tuesday 26th April
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What promotional material do we need?
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Document inspiration for designs.
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Design!
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Create, order, print.
TASK 1
WHAT PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL DO WE NEED?​
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TO DO - Identify the promotional material we need to successful promote and market Getaway.
Kiera and I have a plethora of ideas for our promotional material, some of which are out of budget and have limitations with time. However, we are certain that we want a good selection of material at the event which are as follows:
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LIST OF PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL NEEDED:
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Stickers - Birds and Mountains.
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Posters - Game Poster & Arcade Invite
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Cover Photo - to post on Social Media.
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Team T-Shirts - Kiera and I will wear these at both events.
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Business Cards?
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LINKS FOR STICKERS
https://www.vistaprint.co.uk/labels-stickers/stickers/die-cut
https://stickerapp.co.uk/stickers?material=glossy_coated#!
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LINKS FOR TSHIRTS
https://www.vistaprint.co.uk/clothing-bags/t-shirts/basic-t-shirts
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LINKS FOR BUSINESS CARDS
TASK 2
DOCUMENT INSPIRATION MOOD-BOARDS​
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TO DO - Gather inspiration around the design for promotional material
Kiera and I have discussed what we'd like from our promotional material, one of which are stickers! We'd like to get custom stickers made for our Arcade Event and to represent the main elements of our game. We feel a bird, teacup and mountain sticker would set the tone nicely and work best. I plan to use some of what we have created already (existing assets) to create these stickers, but may also draw up some new sketches too. We'll see how we go! For now, I am going to document some mood-boards as inspiration for all merchandise, such as t-shirts too.
INSPIRATION MOOD-BOARD: STICKERS​
Board Link: https://pin.it/5T1kZrT
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Hand-drawn stickers
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Tea cup
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Mountain
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Snow Bunting Bird
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Quotes - "Keep on climbing"
INSPIRATION MOOD-BOARD: T-SHIRTS​
Board Link: https://pin.it/WPFXgiv
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Pale shades
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White, greys, blues
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Mountain drawing
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"1/2 Bit Short" on the back
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Motivational Quote
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Name on arm
INSPIRATION MOOD-BOARD: POSTERS​
Board Link: https://pin.it/4ApMhbb
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Mountain Scene
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Ski Resort
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Reference to music
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Bird flying
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Hand-drawn environment scenery
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"GETAWAY"
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Polaroid theme
TASK 3
DESIGN AND ORDER/PRINT!​
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TO DO - Sketches, drawings and designs for promotional material!
I have a better idea of what we expect from promotional material and plan to spend most of this week designing a series of material for our Arcade Event and the marketing beforehand. I plan to begin with the sticker designs, because I know this may take longer to get created as we are doing this externally. As we already have most of the assets we would like to get made into stickers, I am going to draw up some additional items and see what works best. Ideally, we'd like to use the quote "Keep on Climbing".
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TO DESIGN:
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2-3 sticker designs: Mountain/quote, tea-cup, snow bunting bird.
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Game Poster
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Arcade Event Invite
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Team Merchandise - t-shirts
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Potentially business cards
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TO GET EXTERNALLY PRINTED:
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Stickers
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Team T-shirts
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Business Cards
FOR US TO PRINT:
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Game Poster
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Arcade Event Invite
STICKER CONCEPTS​
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PROCESS:
I've started with drawing up different compositions for stickers and making finalised designs! These are inspired by the assets we have made already, and I also plan to combine my original mountain sketch with the quotes drawn in my sketchbook below. As well as keeping to our traditional hand-drawn art style, I thought it would be nice to add some colour into our promotional material, so have experimented using watercolours, which I really love the look of.
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I think it'll be a nice touch to add a little motivational quote into one of our stickers, to set the tone of our brand and showcase what we stand for. I drew up different typefaces and liked the idea of a more 'squishy' and 'cosy' looking font, which I also attempted to paint using watercolours, which proved extremely difficult!
FINAL STICKER DESIGNS​
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After speaking to Kiera, we concluded on the tree final sticker designs, one being a frame from her bird animation. We both agreed that it would be nice to hand out small hand-drawn birds to reflect gameplay, and it's also a nice little touch to go alongside the mountains and cup of tea. I will be taking these assets, scanning and editing them to prepare for production.
REFLECTION​
I love the look of the hand-drawn and shaded tea-cup. I also added a little tea-bag detail with our initials 'EK' on it which I think is a nice personal touch. This could be great to get 'die-cut' stickers to hand-out at the event, to remind people to wind-down but to also hint at the purpose of our brand and the game. I do love the look of the watercolour mountain and quotes, but I think maybe it'll be best to get our logo printed which will be the original hand-drawn mountain with the game name 'Getaway' displayed below it. This will be great for marketing, because if someone was to point it out somewhere, they'd know what to search for.
PROCESS:
I put the chosen assets into Photoshop and Illustrator where I adjusted the colour values of the drawings in order to make the texture of the drawing more refined and pop a little more. I then cut the assets out using the 'Magic Wand' tool on Photoshop and exported them as PNG's.
NEXT STEPS
The next steps for stickers will be to use one of the links above to source a company that cuts 'die-cut' stickers at a reasonable price.
ORDERED!
'Die-cut' stickers have been ordered and should be arriving in the next week or two!
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Link to shop: https://www.stickershop.co.uk/
GAME POSTER DESIGNS​
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My last task before I finish for the day will be to create a series of poster designs for Getaway! Similar to the inspiration mood-board above, this should be a simple poster with a cover photo for the game and title/game name. This poster should be used to promote the game and will most likely be used more online, being posted on our social platforms. Because of this, I must design a high quality poster which is suitable for both Instagram and Twitter.
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PROCESS:
I have created a series of posters using Adobe Illustrator to showcase 'Getaway' and provide people with the information regarding our Degree Shows. These posters will be useful to post on our social platforms to further market our game and studio and hopefully gather a good number of guests for our events. I experimented with different hues to add a little bit of vibrancy/saturation to make things more interesting which I enjoy the appearance of.
T-SHIRT DESIGNS!​
Wednesday 27th April
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I am going to begin the day with concepts for our t-shirts/merchandise for the event! This will be so Kiera and I can be easily recognised by guests/the public and showcase the game we have developed. These will also be an amazing memorable piece we can take home from University and reminisce on our first project as a team!
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IDEAS
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Ideally, we'd both like our names somewhere on the t-shirt. Maybe the back or the sleeve?
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"GETAWAY" to be on the front or back.
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Mountain image on front or back. (Hand-drawn environment or maybe painted?)
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Small details on the t-shirt such as the bird or snowflake design.
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Game name & Team member names are definite.
T-SHIRT CONCEPTS​
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PROCESS:
I thoroughly enjoyed the process of sketching out different t-shirts and visualising what these might look like. I came up with a series of concepts including both front and back views. I made sure to include every element listed above and also showed different variations that I can play around with!
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I spoke to Kiera and Phil too regarding the t-shirt designs and Kiera and I both voted for our favourite ones. We both chose the same t-shirt design which made this process much easier, but now we have to design on how we will go about designing these elements.
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REFLECTION
Originally, Kiera and I thought a white t-shirt would be best, to continue the theme of our environment. We thought to add one of my environment drawings on the front of the t-shirt however, we are doubtful about the appearance of a hand-drawn image on the t-shirts. We would struggle cutting the mountain out and making the design look seamless. Because of this, we considered other colours for t-shirt that'll look more professional and agreed the colour navy could be nice. For my next steps with this, I plan to create new mock-ups digitally on different coloured t-shirts and talk these through with Kiera which we can then get ordered ASAP.
DIGITAL T-SHIRT CONCEPTS​
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PROCESS:
Using the concepts I created already, I translated these into digital concepts. I experimented with both my hand-drawn environments and ideas for a digitally painted mountainscape, which I'd have to schedule in to our timetable. This may be too far out of reach as we don't have long left, but I don't mind spending the weekend focusing on this if Kiera and I choose to go forward with this design. We both liked the idea of having '1/2 Bit Short' on the back to showcase our names, studio name and a little bit of humour too. A bird icon on the sleeve definitely makes the t-shirt a little more interesting and highlights the 'main character' within the game. As for the colour of t-shirt, I tested with different colours to see which looked most professional and Kiera and I agreed the navy looked cleanest.
REFLECTION
Personally, I love the look of the navy t-shirt and I think it works well with our typeface. Both our studio name and game name stands out really well on this surface, and it's more interesting than just a basic black or white. Kiera also agrees that the navy design is her favourite, however, I will have to schedule time in to digitally paint the environment for the tshirts. As we don't have long left, we agreed its best to keep to the white t-shirt design, as this won't require creation of any new assets.​
MERCH DESIGNS
​SOFTWARE USED: Adobe Illustrator
FINAL T-SHIRT DESIGN
NEXT STEPS​
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Get sizes (size S)
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Create PNG's for text
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Order through: https://www.clothes2order.com/signin.php
NEXT STEPS​
So far we have a plethora of promotional material prepared for the Degree Shows and I plan to continue marketing our game/studio on our Instagram and Twitter for as long as we need. The stickers are on their way and the posters are ready to be posted on our social platforms to showcase our game and event which should hopefully reel guests in! The only thing left to do for promotional material is to film and edit the documentary, trailer and have our t-shirts/merchandise ordered as soon as I can.
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For the remainder of this week, I am scheduled to begin filming for the documentary on Friday/Saturday and hopefully have this edited by Week 10. Tomorrow, we will also be reviewing the assets so far and Kiera should work on implementing these into two servers.
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Work for the remainder of Week 9:
Asset Reviews/Checks