I lesson
Business cards and other printed media
- For introduction, please watch the video.
- In today’s lesson we will cover making of business cards and other printed materials. Let students choose, are they interested in creating a business card or printed material (for example flyer). Let them read the chapter the are interested in and ask them the main principles about the material (when to use it? How to use it? How big it is? What materials it consists of and what information it should contain?).
- In case the theory part is over, let them create one material. They could choose the material based on their team’s necessity. You may find inspiring videos in the text, that might be interesting for the students.
Team task (during team meeting)
- Discuss with your team, what kind of visual and written materials you should use for marketing yourself at Final Big Meeting. Add the materials to your marketing plan.
II lesson
Branding and web-based materials
Classroom activities
- Read about branding and web advertising.
- Discuss in groups, how much do you notice web advertisements and differences in fonts. Do you have your favourite ads or do you even notice them?
- Discuss how much you consume gifs and what was the last gif you noticed. What gifs usually are used for? In what sectors/ fields they are used in where they are not common?
- Watch the tutorial and try to create a GIF. If you don’t have enough time, then try to think of the storyline – the basic character, the joke and the meaning you want to share with the GIF.
Reading text is here.
Logo Design and Branding – Why it matters and how powerful it can be
What is a brand?
A brand is a specific logo for a specific product or service. You have a logo for a company and you have a logo for each individual product which you produce. For example, you have the company Unilever (https://www.unilever.com/brands/). You might look at their company logo and not know what they stand for or what products they produce. But what if I say; Palmolive Shower Soaps? Axe Deodorant? LUX Soap bar? Magnum ice cream? Lipton Tea? Anything ring a bell? Why don’t you head over to their website and have a look?
Each of these individual products have their own logo and you will most likely either have some of the company’s products at home or recognize the various products the Unilever Company owns.
Why branding?
A good logo will not only help your company or product to stand out, it will also catch the eye of potential and current clients and customers. If you have weak products or services, no amount of money can help you market your product to happy customers, as the low quality in your brands will ruin your marketing efforts. So make sure you keep your quality as high as possible.
It is through branding that you get new customers, but also remind your current customers that the product or service still exists and is active. It’s very important that all logos and branded items are kept in a good shape or condition or it will send a negative image to your current customers.
Test yourself!
Have you ever tried a produce or product and not liked it? And what memory replays in your head when you see that produce’s logo? My bet is that you won’t buy the same, poor, product twice. Why would you? It’s a waste of money and energy to buy things we will not enjoy.
Web Advertisement
Just like in the real world-space, you need to create advertisement material for your intraweb space as well. These flyers have different sizes and shapes, and are called different things depending on their size.
Digital Measurements
Before we look at various banners and buttons and anything you might need for your digital advertisement, it’s important that you start to get used to what the numeric measurements of digital images and space means and does for you. The measurement system of digital media is called Pixels (in short: px). This applies to any electronic and digital equipment you can think of. Smartphones, digital watches, digital camera, pen, scanner, screens etc.
What determines the size your Internet-ad?
Most websites have the various web spaces for different costs. The really small spaces are usually called Button and are often animated.
GIFs
Animated images, GIF for short, means Graphics Interchange Format. It’s a type of image on a computer which allows animations to play without sound.These animated images are perfect for advertisement but they are also used for digital, written communication. You might use a chatting app where you can apply a small gif to your chat conversation based on a word you searched for to further enhance your mood or feeling in written communication.
Animated images attract the eye. It’s something the eyes and brain are wired to detect.
| GIF library https://giphy.com/Tutorial by Adobe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omdfcGYEqPY
Tutorial by Techddictive https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8ZAgMoM2YU |
Fonts
Let’s briefly talk about fonts.
Some love to look up new fonts for their various digital projects and some don’t. Whichever category you belong to, font design is important for your logo design or any of your RP material (banners, buttons etc) and shouldn’t be ignored. Make sure your font choice match your message and mix and blends well with the colours and shapes of your ad materials. A Pro tip is to not use too creative, funky or spaced out fonts, as they are often more difficult to read or understand within those first few seconds of first impression!
Team task (during team meeting)
- Discuss what font or other parts of visual language you should use.
- Would you like to create a brand or be very independent?
- Are GIF-s something you should use for your marketing activities?
- Add all the new thoughts to your marketing plan.