Sunday, 28 February 2010
Devising the Brand: Out of the Library and to the place where Varytales live.
After much brainstorming around the research of other products on the market, I came up with the title Varytales, which the rest of the group were very happy with. It's a simple one-word title that indicates to children and parents the main aspect of the product (a retelling of fairytales where the user chooses their own path). I started to design the logo and in doing so used bright and bold colouring with clear and equally bold text whilst incorporating arrows into the first syllable of the title to emphasise choice. I then used a font that emphasised the products basis in the fairytale literature world as I tried to produce a golden embossed looked using a font that signified antiquity and the traditional fairytale look. I also added a background that looked as though it had been torn out of a fairytale book, again emphasising this products relation the fairytale literature but also the revival and different approach which is a key aspect of Varytales
Saturday, 27 February 2010
My research into the Television Schedule and Branding
Because we felt as though by this point we had a good concept of what the product would be we felt that it would be important to come up with a brand that the product was deserving of.
Originally, we had two working titles The Fairytale Library which came out of ideas around the opening pages of the website, and A Modern Fairytale which emphasised the style and contemporary qualities we hoped to represent through the product.
Yet on reflection of our demographic (6-7 year olds) we felt that these titles were far too bland and were not dynamic enough to communicate excitement and adventure to our very discerning audience.
Therefore, we researched into the Television schedules and existing children's literature titles to get a taste of the trends in what sort of titles appealed to our audience.
We found that the key features of the titling of children's books and television programmes used:
Phonetic Spelling- We also found that titles very rarely contained any silent letters and were always spoken exactly as they are written.
Onomatopoeic words - BAMZOOKi, Ooglies, Gerald McBoing Boing
Alliteration, Rhyme and Rhythm - Tinga Tinga Tales, Bear Behaving Badly, Yertle the Turtle, The Cat and the Hat.
Bold and clear typography - The clarity and legibility of the text is obviously important to ensure that the young readers find it easy to identify the words and letters in the text.
Character driven titles - Jakers!, Ed and Oucho's Excellent Inventions, Stig of the Dump, The Gruffalo.Obviously this would be difficult to incorporate into our product as the user would be the main character. Therefore we toyed with the idea of including a personal pronoun in the title making it similar to the Choose Your Own Adventure books.
Originally, we had two working titles The Fairytale Library which came out of ideas around the opening pages of the website, and A Modern Fairytale which emphasised the style and contemporary qualities we hoped to represent through the product.
Yet on reflection of our demographic (6-7 year olds) we felt that these titles were far too bland and were not dynamic enough to communicate excitement and adventure to our very discerning audience.
Therefore, we researched into the Television schedules and existing children's literature titles to get a taste of the trends in what sort of titles appealed to our audience.
We found that the key features of the titling of children's books and television programmes used:
Phonetic Spelling- We also found that titles very rarely contained any silent letters and were always spoken exactly as they are written.
Onomatopoeic words - BAMZOOKi, Ooglies, Gerald McBoing Boing
Alliteration, Rhyme and Rhythm - Tinga Tinga Tales, Bear Behaving Badly, Yertle the Turtle, The Cat and the Hat.
Bold and clear typography - The clarity and legibility of the text is obviously important to ensure that the young readers find it easy to identify the words and letters in the text.
Character driven titles - Jakers!, Ed and Oucho's Excellent Inventions, Stig of the Dump, The Gruffalo.Obviously this would be difficult to incorporate into our product as the user would be the main character. Therefore we toyed with the idea of including a personal pronoun in the title making it similar to the Choose Your Own Adventure books.
Thursday, 25 February 2010
2nd Tutorial with Trevor
In this meeting we had already come up with the idea and I had written the script so Trevor wanted to emphasise the importance of the brand. Originally entitled 'The fairytale library' or 'A modern fairytale', Trevor questioned whether these titles would really appeal to the 6-7 year old demographic. We therefore have decided to scrap these and I have been put in charge of coming up with the name and logo of our brand. Trevor suggested looking at what kind of titles are used for programmes and websites aimed at a similar age group and to think about the significance of character within them.
He also drew to our attention the need for seeking out other branding opportunities in order to make this a lucrative venture. I am also going to think about how we can stretch our brand outwards to perhaps turn it from a 'pan-platform' product to a cross platform one. The ideas of books and Television series along with merchandise and advertising were suggested as a way of extending the brand. This is all in order as Trevor put it: prove our awareness of the potential of what we are doing. Rather than merely focusing on the idea of the website which we have done up to now.
In the meeting Trevor also suggested that it might be good to do some research into age 6-7 child psychology to back up the project.
We asked Trevor what the situation with getting another editor on board was, as we still haven't got a replacement for Bertha. He said that he would email us shortly to let us know what was going to happen.
After the meeting we split duties between the group based on our strengths. Mine was to research and come up with a brand name and logo.
He also drew to our attention the need for seeking out other branding opportunities in order to make this a lucrative venture. I am also going to think about how we can stretch our brand outwards to perhaps turn it from a 'pan-platform' product to a cross platform one. The ideas of books and Television series along with merchandise and advertising were suggested as a way of extending the brand. This is all in order as Trevor put it: prove our awareness of the potential of what we are doing. Rather than merely focusing on the idea of the website which we have done up to now.
In the meeting Trevor also suggested that it might be good to do some research into age 6-7 child psychology to back up the project.
We asked Trevor what the situation with getting another editor on board was, as we still haven't got a replacement for Bertha. He said that he would email us shortly to let us know what was going to happen.
After the meeting we split duties between the group based on our strengths. Mine was to research and come up with a brand name and logo.
Wednesday, 24 February 2010
Meeting with Jane Quinn
Today we had a meeting with Jane Quinn who has lots of experience in setting up internet and cross-platform resources with children in her career with the BBC. The meeting followed a lecture, which proved very insightful as it helped us define our idea as 'Pan-Platform' rather than straightforward cross platform. Pan platform she explained involved one message being told through several different media which are all linked together in one place, whereas cross platform is about accessing different types of media in different places which are all linked.
Our meeting with Jane Quinn was really useful and she had some really positive feedback about the project and thought it was a good idea but also warned us that it was quite ambitious which she said there was nothing wrong with as long as we were careful that we didn't overstretch ourselves with such a big concept. She also said that the biggest challenge we would have is linking the stages of the story together. Which I hoped we would achieve as I feel responsible for this aspect as I developed the idea and the script.
She also thought that our target market of 6-7 which we had linked in with the curriculum seemed appropriate and it was good that we could back up our choice of audience with this research.
We also asked her about the difficulty of approaching both a male and female audience at this age. Jane seemed to think this was do-able along as we had a good mixture of things that would appeal to both boys and girls. Particularly boys whom she said required a strong action element and were more put off by feminine elements that girls would be about masculine ones i.e. she advised us to avoid using the colour pink on any of our product as this could potentially put boys off.
She also helped us realise what the aim of this product was and provided us with the term 'soft-learning' meaning that its primary goal is to entertain with the opportunity for the user to learn some things in a passive way. This she said is usually the approach with many of the CBBC websites and therefore seems appropriate for our product as we could potentially market it to the BBC.
She also gave us a few things to go away and think about such as:
What is the user going to get out of it?
Where is the endpoint?
How do we make the ideas of books or the library appealing to 6-7 year olds.
In response to these I feel as though the user will hopefully gain a greater understanding about fairytales whilst taking part in something that is enjoyable and really excites and encourages their own imagination and creative ability.
I realised that I need to come up with the story in its entirety in order to present this to possible investors.
And the third point is definitely another thing we have to work on, trying to make all aspects of the website and other materials involved and exciting and as colourful as possible.
Our meeting with Jane Quinn was really useful and she had some really positive feedback about the project and thought it was a good idea but also warned us that it was quite ambitious which she said there was nothing wrong with as long as we were careful that we didn't overstretch ourselves with such a big concept. She also said that the biggest challenge we would have is linking the stages of the story together. Which I hoped we would achieve as I feel responsible for this aspect as I developed the idea and the script.
She also thought that our target market of 6-7 which we had linked in with the curriculum seemed appropriate and it was good that we could back up our choice of audience with this research.
We also asked her about the difficulty of approaching both a male and female audience at this age. Jane seemed to think this was do-able along as we had a good mixture of things that would appeal to both boys and girls. Particularly boys whom she said required a strong action element and were more put off by feminine elements that girls would be about masculine ones i.e. she advised us to avoid using the colour pink on any of our product as this could potentially put boys off.
She also helped us realise what the aim of this product was and provided us with the term 'soft-learning' meaning that its primary goal is to entertain with the opportunity for the user to learn some things in a passive way. This she said is usually the approach with many of the CBBC websites and therefore seems appropriate for our product as we could potentially market it to the BBC.
She also gave us a few things to go away and think about such as:
What is the user going to get out of it?
Where is the endpoint?
How do we make the ideas of books or the library appealing to 6-7 year olds.
In response to these I feel as though the user will hopefully gain a greater understanding about fairytales whilst taking part in something that is enjoyable and really excites and encourages their own imagination and creative ability.
I realised that I need to come up with the story in its entirety in order to present this to possible investors.
And the third point is definitely another thing we have to work on, trying to make all aspects of the website and other materials involved and exciting and as colourful as possible.
Thursday, 18 February 2010
Bertha's departure from the group
We have just been notified as a group via email that Bertha, our editor will no longer be part of our group.
This has been a blow to the group as not only were we sad to lose our editor but Bertha as well. I was aware that there were some issues she had with working in the group and completely understand her reasons for leaving. Hopefully we will get a replacement soon though, as none of us are really competent with the editing software and we are also one member short now so we all going to have to pull together and work even harder. However I do think it is unfair that an editor might have to come into the group at this stage after already being involved with another group. Also they will be coming into our group at a point where we have already formulated the core idea and therefore may not feel as much of a part of it as we would like them to.
I suppose we will just have to wait and see what happens.
This has been a blow to the group as not only were we sad to lose our editor but Bertha as well. I was aware that there were some issues she had with working in the group and completely understand her reasons for leaving. Hopefully we will get a replacement soon though, as none of us are really competent with the editing software and we are also one member short now so we all going to have to pull together and work even harder. However I do think it is unfair that an editor might have to come into the group at this stage after already being involved with another group. Also they will be coming into our group at a point where we have already formulated the core idea and therefore may not feel as much of a part of it as we would like them to.
I suppose we will just have to wait and see what happens.
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
First Tutorial
After the first tutorial several issues were raised these included:
1. That we needed to be more specific about what the age range for the target audience should be. Therefore Market Research must take place.
2. What did we mean by 'Modern Day' fairytale? And how would we express this in a way that was appealing to our audience.
3. What other materials could we come up with to make this a financially viable venture. The idea of having a book to accompany the website was mentioned.
4. Did we intend to focus on Western fairytales and a Western audience? Or did we want to branch and use International fairytales?
5. We also acknowledged that we would have to be careful in terms of making the project from the point of view of the user because of differences in gender and targeting both would be difficult therefore research into this was needed.
We also have organised a meeting with Jane Quinn through our tutor to help us target our specified audience more clearly.
We defined clear roles for each member of the group at this preliminary stage. My role is to focus on creating the story. Other members roles are as follows:
Bertha & Sam: Researching comparable examples already available in the media and the international storytale.
Glen & Chris: Market Research: Contacting Schools in order to understand the target audience.
Jay & Glen: The Business Model
Yunus & Hasan: The visual elements e.g animation and video use.
Another important breakthrough was that it is a good thing that we have many ideas on how the project could be expanded but it would be unrealistic to suggest that in the 6 week timeframe we would be able to fully realise the project in its entirety due mainly to a lack of resources and time. As a group we felt that this was encouraging as we may not necessarily be able to fulfil all our aspirations for the project at this stage but could later on.
1. That we needed to be more specific about what the age range for the target audience should be. Therefore Market Research must take place.
2. What did we mean by 'Modern Day' fairytale? And how would we express this in a way that was appealing to our audience.
3. What other materials could we come up with to make this a financially viable venture. The idea of having a book to accompany the website was mentioned.
4. Did we intend to focus on Western fairytales and a Western audience? Or did we want to branch and use International fairytales?
5. We also acknowledged that we would have to be careful in terms of making the project from the point of view of the user because of differences in gender and targeting both would be difficult therefore research into this was needed.
We also have organised a meeting with Jane Quinn through our tutor to help us target our specified audience more clearly.
We defined clear roles for each member of the group at this preliminary stage. My role is to focus on creating the story. Other members roles are as follows:
Bertha & Sam: Researching comparable examples already available in the media and the international storytale.
Glen & Chris: Market Research: Contacting Schools in order to understand the target audience.
Jay & Glen: The Business Model
Yunus & Hasan: The visual elements e.g animation and video use.
Another important breakthrough was that it is a good thing that we have many ideas on how the project could be expanded but it would be unrealistic to suggest that in the 6 week timeframe we would be able to fully realise the project in its entirety due mainly to a lack of resources and time. As a group we felt that this was encouraging as we may not necessarily be able to fulfil all our aspirations for the project at this stage but could later on.
Tuesday, 16 February 2010
Group 1 - First Meeting
Today we had our first meeting and introduced ourselves and what we thought would be our roles in the group. The majority of the group had never worked with one another so this was exciting and we all seemed to get on very well, creatively and socially within the group.
We also tried to come up with an initial idea.
After discussing a couple of ideas the one which we decided to develop was a modern day fairy tale that the user would navigate through the different artefacts to create their own narrative. One common idea in the group was that it should be based in traditional fairytale and presented in a modern day setting.
We discussed what we thought would be the basic age range that this product would be aimed at. By the end of the meeting we had a rough idea that this would be suitable for children ages 8-12 but we decided that we would need to do more research to narrow this down.
We also discussed whether we wanted the project to be more entertainment based or whether it should be for purely educational purposes. In the end we decided that the project would be mainly for entertainment purposes but could incorporate educational values such as literacy, story-telling, presenting moralistic questions and perhaps including some numeracy based problems as well.
As the writer in the group I said I would go away and work on the story using the structure we had chosen ready for the next meeting.
We also tried to come up with an initial idea.
After discussing a couple of ideas the one which we decided to develop was a modern day fairy tale that the user would navigate through the different artefacts to create their own narrative. One common idea in the group was that it should be based in traditional fairytale and presented in a modern day setting.
We discussed what we thought would be the basic age range that this product would be aimed at. By the end of the meeting we had a rough idea that this would be suitable for children ages 8-12 but we decided that we would need to do more research to narrow this down.
We also discussed whether we wanted the project to be more entertainment based or whether it should be for purely educational purposes. In the end we decided that the project would be mainly for entertainment purposes but could incorporate educational values such as literacy, story-telling, presenting moralistic questions and perhaps including some numeracy based problems as well.
As the writer in the group I said I would go away and work on the story using the structure we had chosen ready for the next meeting.
Monday, 15 February 2010
Cross Platform Practice: Brief
We have been given the brief to create a product aimed at children of our own chosen age range that incorporates several different types of media under one brand/product.
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