Journal 8

After watching all of my classmates present their projects I noticed two key terms that stood out a lot to me. Design and circulation. Out of all of the presentations that I saw the presentations that grabbed my attention the most were the ones who took time and put a lot of effort into their design. The most creative campaign plans are more likely to be circulated because they grab the audiences attention, which strikes more interest in the organization leading it to be circulated more likely than the ones who did not put as much effort into their design. The many constraints that I noticed came from communication with the organizations and timing. Some groups said if they had more time to circulate they would have had more information. Materiality was also a huge key word because so many groups used so many different ways to present their campaign plan to the class, such as a powerpoint, websites, facebook pages, and prezzys. After watching everyones presentation I think our group could have spent more time on circulation our flyers and bookmarks so we could have had a better idea on how to calculate our circulation.

Journal 8- PKG

After watching my peers, I noticed many different processes. All of them, for the most part, started the same way by asking various organizations to work with them. From there, a lot of it was determined by whether or not they have an organization respond in a timely manner. Some of the groups, too, had to work around organizations that were not very organized, and this proved that their process had to be altered because of something out of their control. A lot of the groups worked closely with the organizations by collaborating on a design or a project. For the most part, it seemed as if the main constraint was having to work with real people and needing to appease them in the best way and easiest way possible. I remember that a lot of the groups had to change their designs multiple times until the organization deemed them acceptable. We had to change ours, too, but not an incredible amount. I think a lot of the groups also were constrained by how active the organization was already. If they were already on Facebook or Instagram, it made it more difficult to find a unique way to advertise for them.  The most successful campaigns in my opinion were the ones that were in constant communication with the organization and made an effort to be organized and creative. Unique artifacts were also very effective because they captured the audience’s attention. I do feel like our group had a pretty easy time with our campaign process, but if I have to choose something to change, I would have been more upfront with the organization and told them exactly what we needed so that we were not finding work that was not related to the project. Even this is not seen as a downfall in my mind, though, because I enjoyed the service and making a connection with the organization. I have considered going back to them for service hours in the future. Additionally, we could have taken pictures of the actual cats and used them on the poster instead of a silhouette.

Journal 8

Journal 8

Word count: 350

           

After watching my peers present their projects I learned a great deal about the importance of design and effective circulation. I say this because you can’t have a great final product if you don’t have an attractive or appealing design and a plan to heavily circulate. The projects that had a striking visual appearance caught and held my attention and made it more likely for me to want to engage or give my team to the organization or cause. Because of this, effective circulation is more likely to occur because the audience will care about the product. Going off of that, circulation was a key word throughout the presentations because of who the intended audience was and the methods they used to demonstrate their work. Another important element of these projects was thinking about who the intended audience was in relation to the artifacts and how they were distributed. For example, my group made a poster that was specifically geared just for college students with language that was showcased just to attract a younger crowd to want to invest in our non-profit. Some of the constraints included miscommunication between the sponsor/organization and the group while others faced issues with their circulation and distribution of their texts. Most genres included aspects of social media, which is expected in 2017, as well as brochures, infographics and posters, while others creatively incorporated things such as videos and t-shirts into their artifacts.  After viewing all of these projects, I would probably have wanted to design and create a t-shirt for our organization, It’s Meow or Never Tally to have to distribute to the members of the organization, volunteers, customers, etc. I really enjoyed that idea after viewing a presentation that used it for an artifact and think our sponsor would have loved it as well. These t-shirts could have been worn at the auction that my group participated in assisting, or could be worn while the members and volunteers perform trapping and releasing expeditions to spread awareness about the cause and attract others attention to want to help to.

Journal 8

I loved everyone’s presentations! It was really cool to see how different every project was and how different all of the organizations were. In terms of our course keywords, I could see audience in every single one of the presentations. For the most part, I noticed that all of the groups either had an audience that was specifically college students, or the audience was the community at large. The presentations encompassed a large range of genres. We saw videos, posters, flyers, brochures, infographics, bookmarks, and social media sites. These genres were assemblages made up of material and information gathered from the organizations themselves, from online sources, and from the creativity of group members. The exigence for the groups varied greatly as well. Some groups met an already existing need of the organization and some groups were able to find ways to help that the organization hadn’t yet thought of. Circulation was reliant for the most part on either physically handing out or hanging flyers or on social media, assisted by both the network that the organization already had and student networks on campus. A lot of groups were constrained by a lack of communication on the organization's end. We were lucky to have avoided this constraint and always had very good and effective conversation with Meow or Never. Other groups were also often constrained by the fact that their organization already had a marketing team that needed to take additional time to approve everything that they provided. We were also able to avoid this by working directly with Michelle. After seeing all of the presentations, I was still very happy with my group's work, how we served our organization, and the product that we were able to provide to Meow or Never. I was not as satisfied with how we presented that work, so that would most likely be what I would want to change. We could have incorporated the significance of our work a little bit more and explained connections to the class and our keywords. We also didn't explain our process as much or our goals in working with Meow or Never. We focused our presentation more narrowly on what we made, the needs we met, and how our product was circulated, but I feel that there was more that we could have explained.

Journal 8

After seeing all my peers present, I was blown away by the caliber of work and texts that my fellow classmates were able to produce for each of their organizations. In the context of our keywords, I learned that a lot of composing may not take shape in the best form possible to create the best meaning when done at an individual level. Rather, the best work comes from communication and teamwork to create a meaning that applies beyond one person’s viewpoint. I learned that often times circulation and how successfully something circulates isn’t really up to the group. Design plays a certain role in circulation’s successfulness but a group can’t guarantee that their texts will circulate to their intended audience. It all depends on if the audience is a part of or sees the exigency that the group is targeting with their texts. Sometimes, for a groups text to circulate to the intended audience, they were at the mercy of their organization’s owners of social media manager so it may not have been released in time. Ultimately, from all the groups I learned that one of the most important elements of running a successful campaign is to create a steady and reliable form of double sided communication, because without this the campaign can’t be effective. Each team used a different process, but those who were very successful in maintaining their organization’s goals kept in constant communication with their organization. For many of the groups they were constrained by communication because they would fall out of communication with the organization often by no fault of their own. Because it was free advertisement with no guarantee to create a positive impact for the business, I feel as though our campaigns easily lost priority in the organizations’ eyes. Additionally, materiality became a constraint for our campaigns because we were giving free advertising, meaning out physical texts were paid for out of pocket. After viewing the campaigns of the other groups, perhaps I would consider creating the texts and giving them to the business to distribute or print so that the cost doesn’t fall to us, but the business is still able to utilize our designs and creations.