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.