Typography - Secondary Research.

MoodBoard
 For my secondary research I decided to compile different types of neon lights ( including
 fonts and colours). This was a useful process as we needed to view the different colour options that were available, as well as the different ways we could manipulate and change the font of the neon lights.
 It shows a good variety of colours as well as fonts, and in my opinion the colours white stand out, however it would of course depend on the background you are working on. This is interesting as well because i can see there is a variety of different neon lights. We looked into purchasing neon tubes that we can manipulate around some screws, however looking at these lights it is clear to me that you can get them made in a certain font, which would be good for us as we intend to use Ariel.

 In addition to this I decided to look at a few ideas that involved wood and lights within the wood, therefore it would give a different perspective of how we could use the materials.




Fonts
 Next I decided I to create a few different text boxes using multiple different fonts. I decided to only experiment with a few, this reason being that by trying to produce a more complicated font would be impossible by hand, thereby sticking to the more basic and recognisable fonts we have more of a chance to produce the work good.

Colours

 Next I did some secondary research on the colours we intend to use, and we decided to stick to the more earthy tones, considering we were basing the display board on wooden pallets. Below I found an image of available colour pallets that have the same tones we could want to use:

To conclude, by producing this secondary research on fonts, colour options, existing neon lights and more it has enabled me to 

Typography - Primary Research Results.

Questionnaire Results

 Once I had received an appropriate amount of responses for the questionnaire, I decided to produce an infographic to show these results in a more aesthetic way.

By collecting these results I know now that things such as colour, 3D elements and specifically lighting, are all important materials that staff, students and parents think are important to make a display board aesthetically pleasing.

LJ Hugs - Primary Research [Interview]

LJ's Interview
 Today Lewis came into college and we got the opportunity to interview him, to ask the relevant questions in order to help us for this project, and also for him to give us a bit of his personality so they we can work with him together on this. I wrote notes during the interview on the things he was saying about the location, audience, statistics, improvements and more, and from there I was able to select the 5 most important facts he told us that will be relevant to the specific area I am focusing the project on.

5 Most Relevant To Me:

1. Audience ages range from 21+, used to be 16+ but has changed.
2. Wants to strengthen his social media (Twitter + Instagram) having 2-3 posts scheduled daily.
3. Large audiences in big cities ( Cardiff, Bristol and London)
4. Wifi and gluten free food available.
5. Wants to have different content, ranging from home videos in his kitchen at home to professional ones produced.

 From these facts I know that LJ does want to grow, strengthen and expand his social media platforms and way of advertising. After receiving the statistics too i am able to see where his current audience are and how much on average he makes, this could influence things such as advertising in magazines (what magazines in particular) and also the production of his videos and who would be able to make them!

Week 4 - Continuation with typography project.

Week 4
 This week was the week that according to my plan, we should have started the actual production of the project. However after missing a lesson last week I decided to continue and wrap up week 3's tasks, this included finishing my infographic and also creating a list of materials in which we need to order for the production of the project. We have a budget of £200 and therefore needed to find the relevant websites and quantities of each material we would need. One plus to this was that we were able to find some wooden palettes which we would attach to the wall, for free!

LJ Hugs - Secondary Research [Audience]

Current Audience

After interviewing Lewis (here) and gathering some statistics on his current audience, I was able to configure some information as to where I want my project to go and who, more specifically, do I want to aim it at.
 As briefly discussed in my last post, LG actually has a large range of audience, depending on the day and time. During the week at lunch hours (tues-fri) he mentioned that his main demographic was 21+ year olds, those working in offices more specifically. Then during the weekend hours you see a lot of families coming, including young children. Lastly he did mention that during the week and the quieter hours you see couples 60+ coming to enjoy the street food. What I found interesting about these statistics was that he didn't really mention the younger side of the demographic. The youngest he mentioned was 21+, not those in college / school.

My audience aim

As social media is such a key element in todays world, specifically for the younger adults, I want to try and attract more students of a younger age so that the interaction and communication can be of a higher level on social media. In order to do this LJ would need to advertise himself more, have more offers for students, more things that they would be interested in. As I found out in my secondary research, LJ does offer a loyalty card, however this is not well advertised as I only found this through a photo where it was showing a corner of a card! What I want to do on top of improve his social media sites is try and aim to the younger demographic, students in Bath college more particularly as they are the right age and also right distance to LJ's stall and would therefor eye perfect. I can do this by bringing in a new loyalty card specifically for college students, it could have stamps on there overtime you visit and every 5 times, for example, you could receive a free side along with a sticker (something he currently has, but doesn't sell) then maybe for your 10th purchase you get a free meal. This way it would differentiate between the average loyalty card, and the student card.
 I also think he could advertise to students using his social media sites, for example overtime you follow him or post a picture of his food, you get something in return, or entered into a weekly / monthly competition to win march or free food, as what student doesn't like free t-shirts, beanies and food!

LJ Hugs - Secondary Research [Social Media]

Secondary Research

http://www.ljhugs.co.uk/

 For this project to be a success I decided to do a lot of secondary research on LJ and his social media sites and website, in order to give me his current visual and aesthetic as well as gather the relevant information necessary. Firstly I decided to look on his website to see the kind of content he has on there. My first impression of his website was that I think it was the best representation of the brand and it included information regarding hours, location, but it also had some amazing photographs that gave the true vibe and look of the food available.

 In regards to content on the website there is one page, separated by five different sections in the header, which scrolls down to the relevant page, however the one section that doesn't have a separate title is his social media sites. It is located above the menu, then again at the bottom of the site with little icons with the corresponding links. Visually, because his Twitter and Instagram are lacking in quality/appropriate aesthetic for a business, it doesn't come across as something you would 'want to click on'. It doesn't advertise any offers for customers or any food photographs so you can essentially be seeing what he has to offer, which in my opinion is paramount for a food business. The screen shots below show what the social sites look like from his website!

After finding out that his website has all the 'important' information on, as well as some nice visuals on the location and food, I decided to look at the social media sites he particularly decided to advertise (twitter and instagram) and also the ones in which were located at the bottom of the site with icons (Facebook as well as twitter & instagram).

 Firstly I looked at all of his social media sites to see the current following, however the order in which they were put in on his website was interesting as it advertised twitter first, interestingly the site where he has the lowest following on.

Twitter

Upon researching his twitter, I came across a little interaction with customers and what they've tweeted him in regards to their food, this was interesting to see as it shows that some of his customers do take to twitter to review / praise the food! On the other had I can see that the only communication LJ has and uses himself on there is posts to Instagram that he uploads and can automatically post to all social sites. This meaning that I didn't see any tweets other than links to his Instagram, and the retweet's of customers: 

  In regards to analytics, the interaction that he typically has is up to 2 likes / 2 retweets, he also has 515 followers, his smallest following out of every social media.

Facebook

 His Facebook page is interesting because they layout of a Facebook page for a business is different to an average account, for example it shows his 5 star rating immediately. In the pictures below you can see the difference of the layout and how it might encourage people to dig deeper! 

As content and layout / overall aesthetic is something I really want to focus my attention on, I also looked at the videos in which he has posted and I can see the quality is very low, however what he does give off in them is the vibe, the fun and carefree atmosphere which is something I really liked. so for me, when thinking about improving his social media, I don't want to take everything away that he is happy and comfortable with as it is his business and his life. When wanted to make more professional videos I still would want them to have a friendly happy vibe just like the ones he currently creates, just of a higher more professional standard. 

 In addition to this I feel like these types of videos would be good for a YouTube channel, which is something he currently doesn't have. Youtube is a very popular media site and way of expressing opinions, tips,music, everything. By turing this into more of a professional yet approachable feel, LJ could do something like a longer tutorial on a youtube channel, a vlog at home in his kitchen, something that gives us more of an idea of what his life is like outside of the genre of Bath!

                                 

Instagram

Lastly I did some secondary research into his Instagram account, which is the one that he seems to want to focus on the most. When looking at the content that he uploads, it seems to be the biggest mixture out of all his social media sites. I can see some professional pictures advertising his merchandise, some of the videos such as the ones above that he posts to Facebook, and some advertisements of special deals that he has to offer. I like the way he is trying to include and communicate to people through his Instagram, I think it shows a good representation of who he is as a person and businessman. If I were to change and improve this I would want to create some type of loose schedule for posting, have a good but professional mixture of content, including higher quality videos, better advertisements and an overall theme he could include. 

Conclusion

 To conclude, after seeing all of LJ Hug's social media sites and the content he uploads as well as the response he gets from the community. I am strongly driven to improve his sites, in particular his Instagram (for more visual and aesthetic reasons) and his Facebook and/or Youtube (for more profession 'how to' video). For this I will need to undertake some primary research such as surveys and questionnaires asking about LJ's business and audience, and also the type of social media they use, as well as the type of content they like to see. By undertaking this research it is clear to me now the primary research I want to undertake into the specific areas in order to succeed at this project!

Harvard Referencing.

How & Why
 When creating any research project, Harvard referencing should be used and it includes using two elements - references and citations - in your work, this is known as referencing. All of these references should be put into a bibliography, containing different pieces of information regarding the book/journal/site (as shown below). When it comes to work and using other's pieces of work,you can come across/ be accused of plagiarism. This can be for using someones work without referencing or giving any credit , for example in the music industry when someone uses a riff or lyrics, but does not mention those who gave inspiration, as even by taking someones idea or spoken work can be classed as plagiarism, not just written.

Referencing in website formats: Author Surname, Initial. (year of publication) Web page title. Publisher [online]. Available at URL [Accessed : date].

Referencing in book formats: Author Surname, Initial. (year of publication) Title: subtitle. Edition if not 1st. City/ town of publication : Publisher.

The reason we need to use references and citations is to avoid plagiarism, to show evidence of your work and that you have fully researched into it and lastly to back up and give evidence of the facts and statistics you've used in the article.

LJ Hugs.

LJ Hugs.
 

Initial Notes

 For this project we were given the brand / food street company 'LJ's Hugs' and we needed to come up with an idea to re invent/ improve it in some way. LJ Hugs is a street food company situated in Southgate, Bath, that first opened in 2013 after discussing the importance of good food with the right people with friends and family. Their main ethos is delivering unique food with the use of fantastic  customer service and a friendly, happy atmosphere to consume the food in! The idea of the company is very family friendly, approachable, good quality food, this is something you can notice when visiting the stall, or even by looking at their social media.

Working hours for Southgate, Bath

The current audience for LJ's differs depending on location and timings! For example they set up stall in Bath Rugby, and also Bath uni, doing late night food (10pm till late) which therefore caters for the students. When we interviewed Lewis for our primary research (here) he informed us that he audience at first were typically 16 - university students , however you tend to see that through Tuesday-Friday you get 21+ audience and a lot of office staff and workers that come down especially for his food. Then through the weekend hours it gets very popular with families, then during the quieter and more random hours during the week, elderly couples up to 60+ will come and eat, which was much to my surprise.

@ljhugsx on Instagram

LJ Hugs on Facebook

 From undertaking some immediate secondary research such as looking on his website and social media platforms it became very clear to me that his social media sites such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter lacked in regards to quality content. He appears to be trying to continuously upload content to his Instagram in particular, however it appears that they are low quality videos and posts that don't necessarily represent the brand and company as well as it could. To the left you can see his instagram posts, with no consistency, and the photographs he does upload promoting the food, aren't as professionally executed as they could be, in my opinion! In addition to this I have added a screenshot of his Facebook, which includes sharing the instagram he posts, just on Facebook, showing me his go- to and preferred site is instagram, most likely for the popularity and visual concept. So for my idea I have decided to re-vamp his social media platforms. This includes the content he uploads to the individual apps, the audience he is aiming it at, how to gain more followers on the platform, and how he goes about advertising him and his brand, in a more aesthetically effective way!

 I brain stormed a number of different ideas and possible segments I would want to alter, some of which included his merchandise and locations of business, however the most popular one I came up with was the social media sites. Lewis himself said his biggest weakness for the business is his social media layout and general use, which is another reason why I wanted to work on it, as it is something I can see large improvement for.

This is part of my brainstorm that explores the potential areas I could improves for this project.

Week 3 - Six Week Plan.

Typography project.

This week Lola and I devised a six week plan, which involved all the details and timings that we want to try and stick to throughout this project in order to get things done in a more organised fashion (differently to last time!).

  I decided to do this on a spreadsheet with the individual weeks along the side and timings at the top so what I can check every half an hour as to whether we're on schedule or not! This is a really good idea as by creating this it gives us motivation and also something to stick by, so we essentially should always have something to do. Hopefully this will be manageable for the two of us and when writing reflective blog posts we should be able to see how we are doing, then next time we have a project we know where to increase or decrease the work load and timings.

 As we are in week 3 of the project, we should be 'agreeing on a theme' so as a class we came together a produced a brain storm of ideas collectively. Here is an overall look of what we came out with, from this and taking the palette idea with lights around the words, I am able to construct some images together to give me a better idea of the aesthetic we are aiming for.

What Is A Research Project?

The definition of a research project is that ' A research paper presents an original thesis - idea-, or purpose statement, about a topic and develops that thesis with information gathered from a variety of sources'.

 A research project in whole is a project in which increases your knowledge prior to the research, on a certain thing. It generally is to collect information you didn't know before, and to create a project out of it in order to understand it deeper than ever before.
 Research project's requires a large amount of different elements, all of which are key to a research project. Some of these elements include things such as primary research ( research you conduct yourself such as surveys) and secondary research (a collection of already existing research, for example a book!)

 To give an overall summary / visual of how a typical research project is put together, see below:

• Title page -  include the question or subject matter
• Abstract - a brief summary of the entire research project, including a title, section headings and main conclusion 
• List Of Contents - a list of page numbers and chapter titles
• Introduction - introducing the topic, why you've chosen it and what you hope to achieve
• Research (Primary & Secondary) - summary of your research methods and outcomes
• Conclusion - what conclusion can be drawn? what did you discover?

 Finally, the word count and bibliography, so the total number of words and a list of sources used, this should include books, websites etc. This can be presented Harvard style.

 So overall a research project is one trying to discover information they did not know before hand in a number of different ways, incorporation many different elements of research, all to answer or come to some type of conclusion.

Basic Cash Flow.

After producing my spread sheet with all the costs required to start this business I produced a basic cash flow for a year's worth of selling. What i wanted to take into consideration was scale. For the sight I wish to purchase off, it takes 7-21 days for production and delivery, I also wanted to start off by producing 250 cases, selling them on amazon and Etsy. So although I initially planned on selling them in physical stores, I came to the realisation that the profit they take would make the project almost not worth while, so if I were to use the sites that aren't as costly for the first year and almost build a name for the company, I would be left with 4000 cases that I can't sell, and a whole lot of debt.
 So after pricing it all up I created a year cash flow that explains all the money I would spend and profit from, meaning that the following year I can only increase profit and sales, therefore it can only go upwards (if successful of course).

Selling.

Stores & Online

 As briefly mentioned in my secondary research (here) our objective is of curse to sell to major online stores and 1-2 physical stores. For this that would mean we need to decipher the stores we want to pitch to and ensure we have a long and fantastic list of examples, statistics and more (much like dragons den)

• Proven history of success (statistics and figures, already have a keen audience)
• Be retail ready ( packaging, tags etc. Ensure it is physically ready to go on a shelf and be successfully sold)
• Examples ( bring multiple examples to the pitch, images and physical, to give them a real idea of what they're working with and so that they can see their potential)
• Find out all the information about the stores necessary (current lines and stock, the need for more? as well as potential customers)

 When I was performing secondary research it was clear to me that it had a very -dragons den type feel to it. You need to have a perfect product with statistics that it sells - and well-, examples, spreadsheets - essentially proof to impress!- superior packaging and attraction. Of course when going into retailers rather than producing your own shop comes with pro's and con's.

 Pros

• Quicker movement of product
• More cash flow with larger orders
• Greater consumer reach
• Brand exposure 

Cons

• Offers less control of branding
• Cuts margins in half

Other options
Other innovative ways of selling my products minus the online and physical stores would be difficult, but could be done. For example in the centre of Bath, you often see marquees and tents set up selling things ranging from clothing, to fossils! This would be a potential selling technique as I would not be paying a shop where they get an income, only paying a street permit to legally sell there. I could set up a little temporary stall, aiming it at times when perhaps the target market of mine would be around, for example lunch time, after college, work etc. This way we would be able to sell our products specifically to those we want and would not lose any money that we would if we were to sell our idea to Urban Outfitters where they would take the profit!

Legal Obligations.

Laws...
 So of course before creating this idea and business I needed to research into the legal obligations of setting up a business and the different types of businesses there are. By using Gov.uk I was able to get a step by step definition and guide of setting up your own business.

Private Limited Company
 A private limited company means that the company is legally separate to the people that run it, it has separate finances form your personal ones and that you can keep any of the profits after paying tax. This would mean Lola and I would have a 'incorporation', and included in that involves:

• A suitable company name. -LoAm LTD-
• An address for the company.
• At least one director (those legally responsible for running the company)
• Details of the company's shares- at least one share holder ( shareholders have certain rights, most companies are owned by shareholders, e.g directors may need shareholders to vote and agree to changes in the company) 
• To check what your SIC code is (standard industrial classification of economic activities, so a description your company's nature of business)

Lastly you need:

• The shareholders to agree to the company and the written rules.
• Details of people with significant control, i.e anyone with over 25% of shares or voting rights.

 When it came to finding what specific business obligations and legal requirements there were, I had no idea about how many varieties there were (as seen below) however upon research I find that a private limited company would be the most effective for Lola and I, as essentially we would be a private company where it isn't attached to our names as such (legally separate from the people that run it), profits can be taken minus tax of course and just would be the most effective currently.

GOV.UK

Constraints On Production.

Issues
 Potential issues we could come across when producing these cases would have to be delivery. As we decided we would not be able to produce these ourselves (lack of resources and time) we knew we would need to be relying on other companies, this means that a lot of the constraints may be out of our hands, but regardless are our issues as it would be our responsibility to ensure that the shops repair ourselves with are sufficiently stocked with items.
 Another constraint on the business could potentially be money and starting off. As there is such a large market for iPhone cases we need to really make sure ours are unique and worth spending the money on, as opposed to going on Ebay and finding one perhaps slightly cheaper, but of the same quality.

Production Techniques.

Production.
 When it comes to the production of the phone cases I have undertaken some research into the possible and cheapest way in which this can be done effectively.
 Firstly I used the site Alibaba.com  in order to research how many clear phone cases I can purchase and for the cheapest price. Initially I intended to purchase clear phone cases in a bundle, then send them off to be printed, rather than order them to be printed in the first place, almost taking out the middle man. So on this site I found that I could purchase plain clear iPhone cases, 500-2999 of them for $0.47. This was a lot lower than I ever anticipated, and of course when it comes to selling them on  I would make a large profit
 On the other hand I then researched sending the cases to print straight away, rather than purchasing them plain THEN sending then off. I found a site called Casefreak where it seemed you sent your designs off and then purchased the cases in bunch,however when trying to get a quote for these, it seemed to fail registering overtime, so unfortunately I had to keep researching more sites with a similar idea to this that were more legit! Next i came across Custom Logo Cases, where you bulk buy your cases after sending your designs off to be printed. You were able to chose the material (tough, gel, matte,gloss) and then how many you wanted to buy, the results are shown below.

For an iPhone 6 Hard case, you could purchase 50 cases for £7.23 each.

Next I noticed iPhone X gel cases, with a sum of 250 for £3.02, significantly cheaper than above.

Lastly I found this iPhone 7 gel case at the cheapest price and quantity, 1000 for £2.87.

In conclusion to my findings, I would use 'Custom Logo Cases' to purchase 1000 (initially, to see how sales go) for £2.87, meaning each case would cost under £3 to produce and make a profit of just over  3 times as much.

Week 2 - Planning.

Typography project.
 This week we focused on planning the project for the future. We spent a large portion of the lesson creating an illusion and then had a remembrance day service to attend, which is why when we came back we created a google doc of the weeks we have left to complete the project. Currently we sit at week 2 where we said we need to plan and conduct some secondary research.
 What we decided to do was research into some fonts and make a collage of the possible ideas. The reason for this being that because we are all split into different individual groups with different ideas, we need something that will unite the project and make it still look like the same piece of work. In order to effectively do this I think we all need to use the same font, which is why secondary research into fonts is key.
 What I can also use for his secondary research, is look into the results I received from the questionnaire I sent out last week where one of the questions involved fonts, this way we can see what the audience preferred and can adapt our ideas.

Publishing Product- Audience.

Audience
 The audience for the product I want to create will be young adults, ranging between the ages of 18-30. As mentioned in my previous blog post (here) I am going to produce a collection of phone cases, each individual designs that would be attractive to young adults.
 The reason I chose this particular age range is that when it comes to phone cases, those over a certain age aren't going to particularly shopping for a phone case, it isn't a priority to them! In this day and age everyone seems to have a smart phone, you're almost an outcast if you do not own one, therefore by choosing a product such as a phone case, you can be sure to grab the attention of teens and young adults.

 When it comes to the more specifics, I am not wanting to aim my phone cases at a specific gender, it's more just a collection for anyone! What I haven't spoken too much about is the physical designs in which will be printed on these phone cases. Now for me, when I thought about this project I thought if I could produce any phone case on a particular subject, I would want to do it on bands and musical inspirations. When doing some secondary research into the existing phone cases I saw a large market for bands and artists, some of which I thought ' if it had this' or 'if this was slightly different'. For me this would be a really interesting thing to design and market as it is a key interest of mine, so therefore by producing things I would want to buy it would keep me passionate. On the other hand, this isn't about me. So I need to undertake some primary research into what bands and artists listen too, what they would want to buy themselves, and that way I would be able to produce a number of cases that the audience I have chosen to aim at would be interested in!

Business Of Publishing.

Project
For this business project I decided to produce a line of phone cases in which would be marketed in stores and online, in retailers such as Etsy, New Look etc. Once I created my idea I needed to look into my target audience, where they shop, what phones they own and their income.
 Firstly I looked into the retailers where I could potentially sell my products, coming up with :

• Tiger
• Urban Outfitters
• New Look
• Etsy

These retailers currently sell phone cases online and in stores, consequently being appropriate, not just for stock reasons, but appropriate for the target market as these are the types of shops that young adults ages 18-30, shop in.
 I wanted to aim my project at young adults because they are the ones that will typically want to 'invest' in something like an accessory for their phone. Once I had decided to create a phone case I needed to research into what brand I use. Personally I first was drawn to iphone cases, so I researched into them before continuing.

Left is a graph in which shows the sales/popularity of the different brands of phones. iphone's taking the lead as anticipated, therefore solidly confirming my choice of brand to create cases for!







Prices

Urban Outfitters

 In regards to selling prices I needed to consider the production and also compare to the prices they sell for currently, to ensure I don't sell them for too much or too little. Currently on the site Urban Outfitters, iphone cases similar to the patterns I want to create, sell for around £16-£20.

New Look

The market for new look cases online were very limited in comparison to urban outfitters as only two showed up. However the prices were considerably lower, around £5.99 for essentially the same thing. This is something to keep in mind as perhaps the market for iphone cases in new look isn't as large as I had anticipated.

Etsy

 Above shows the range in Etsy, there is a large number of cases with a large number of variety in regards to design and price range. Some ranging from £11.99 - £30. This is a larger market for the product itself, however the price rangers are alot higher, some cheaper then urban outfitters but on the whole, more expensive.

Week 1- Typography.

Primary Research

 This lesson I produced a questionnaire for this project. I wanted to aim my questionnaire at the people in which will be potentially viewing the board, such as Students, Staff, Parents, Visitors, Ofsted and potential employers.  I asked questions that would influence the way I design the lettering, a few questions are shown below:

 

 These questions will help to decide how I will put creativity into my work, and what elements are most important in their opinion when looking at a display board.
This questionnaire will be sent out to my target market ( listed above) in order to gain the appropriate responses.
 Next I created a collage of potential ideas for the board, this included a variety of things such as neon lights, 3D elements, shadows and mirrors. I thought these would be potentially good ideas to start with because by using the element of lights and reflecting light, it would make the board really stand out.