68th annual Four State Regional Conference

I attended the 68th annual Four State Regional Conference and went to see Cagatay Celebioglu talk on his game he helped create called Imp Escape.  Celebioglu along with 2 friends created Imp Escape for the iPhone.  Celebioglu talked a lot about how web is dead and everything is now apps, to get your news you have a news app that brings it right up, same for emails, internet radio, and social media networks.  Practically everything you could want to do on the internet is now an app.
  Apple is the biggest app company with an astonishing 300,000 apps and still growing strong, the new Android market is coming up fast though with 100,000 apps and growing, Blackberry comes in 3rd with 10,000, and the Palm phones have 18 apps that they offer.  With these hundreds of thousands of apps there is only around 30,000 developers.  The average person with a smart phone will spend $4.30 a month on apps.
  Celebioglus game Imp Escape was a side scrolling game where you made the terrain as your Imp ran along it.  Celebioglus was the graphic designer behind the project and it took him and his two friends 8 months to make it.  This was the second app that they had made.  In the first two weeks it had 5,000 downloads at 0.99 per download.  This was pretty good for only two weeks, and they made the yahoo news page.  They are hopping to get the downloads to around 100,000. You can see the trailers for Imp Escape and their other app at Kopsoftware.com and also download Imp Escape at the iTunes store.

Sketches

Rough Draft

Final Project Synopsis

  My final project was a brochure for the 2011 Baja competition.  I decided to do this project because my brother has been in Baja for 4 years at Pittsburg State and he is also one of the main people helping with the event, and I plan to stay and help with it as well.  I have always been interested in the Baja team seeing all of my brothers pictures and this project gave me a chance to have a part in it.
  The design I came up with is small when folded up and has important information right on the inside cover, it opens like a book and than folds upward to reveal the team name and numbers, you fold it open on both sides and it reveals a map of Pittsburg and a list of local restaurants and places where teams could find parts.  I wanted an easy to read, easy to find needed items type of brochure.  On the back back when it is folded up I included some special thanks to my friend Aaron Hamilton who drew up the logo that i designed, and Pittsburg State for holding the event, and also all the volunteers that are going to make this event possible.
  My target audience is all the teams that would be coming to the event and also all the people coming to spectate.  The brochure would not only include a map of all of Pittsburg but also a closer map of where the events would be held with a schedule of events next to it.  The brochure flows very well from page to page with information.   To get these mass produced it would cost 0.7725/each.  It is a 12 by 18 inch color design with a quarter of an inch bleed an is two sided.

Direct Mail Synopsis

  My direct mail piece was designed around gamers and 2 different gaming websites available to them. I picked addictinggames.com for the ladies in my group and riotgames.com for the males. The websites are completely different on the types of games available on each one. Addictinggames.com has more user friendly games where you can pick from a lot of web based games and you don't have to have an account or make a profile.  Riotgames.com is a site that has large games that you have to download and make profiles for and take a lot of time to play them.  

   For the males postcard on the front the picture is my roommate holding his computer taken from a birds eye view and set in a duotone green. I took the picture and put it into photoshop and made him a clipping mask, I than changed him to black and white and than finally to duotone green.  The females postcard has a picture of my neighbor Sarah holding an Xbox controller also shot from a birds eye view.  This picture was set in duotone green as well.  On the back of both the postcards is a picture of Sarah and Jared with xbox controllers shot head on and it is set in a duotone green as well.

  My audience I was shooting for was high school, and college age people who like to play video games.  The pictures I took illustrate two different ways you can game and I think did a good job at grabbing the audiences attention. 

  Since my 3 images were put in a duotone green I made the type a green type and on the corners there is a green layer with white type. I feel that the colors make it flow together very well.

Newspaper Add Thumbnails

Newspaper Add Rough Draft

Final Newspaper Add PDF

Newspaper Synopsis

Joe Allen
Digital File Prep
Newspaper Add
10/30/10

     Casey Donahew Band

     My newspaper add was done for a Casey Donahew Band concert that I was promoting.  It was a 5" by 9.67" add that would run only one day and cost approximately 100 dollars using my whole budget up. I like the idea of one very large add because I feel like it grabs the attention better than a lot of small adds.

     The add would be in black and white and the picture in the middle was hand drawn and scanned in, I than put it into photoshop turned it into a black and white image and than placed it into InDesign.  I picked a type that looked like a western style for the band logo and the rest I used a plain font that I found in our font library.  Next to the main part of the logo I used a font called it_sweet_nothings and got the two guns I used. I liked the use of a stroke type and reverse type on the add.

     

     My target audience was college students and red dirt country music fans.  The price of an average Casey Donahew Band concert ticket is around 20 dollars at the door and 15 pre-ordered.  This may seam a little pricey for some college students but I feel like if they are a true red dirt country fan and get to see Casey Donahew in Pittsburg than I don't believe this would be a problem.  

     My call to action was for people to come out buy a ticket, on the day or before hand, and to enjoy some red dirt country music.  Also if they are at the bar to buy some drinks and support the band.  

     I believe that the add does a good job pulling people in with the picture of the two revolvers and the picture of the guitar. Both of the guns point at the ONE NIGHT ONLY text and really shows you what is going on early.

  

Gap Logo Fiasco

Joe Allen

Digital File Prep

10/10/10

Gap Logo

     In researching the gap logo I have seen both sides of the argument. On one side the old logo was plain and boring and needed an upgrade. On the other side the new logo was plain and boring and had a floating box in the corner that most people didn't understand.

     Many people have said that Gap needed a change seeing how their logo has been the same for 4 decades. And to further their company they needed to revitalize their name and get a change of pace. Although they were taking a step in the right direction, they actually took a step back. The logo change was a good idea but the new logo looked like it was designed in ms word. They should have gotten input from consumers and threw some test logos out there before changing it completely.

     Gap has done what a lot of companies wish they could do, they have a multibillion dollar internationally recognized company. Everyone knew the old logo and recognized it. The all caps tall letters in a blue square. It isn't anything flashy or crazy but everyone knew it. I think that they should definitely change their logo but do a lot of research and find something that everyone likes. They could make their company ever more big by putting out something everyone liked. I read a little bit that some people thought that it might just be a big marketing campaign to get everyone talking about the Gap. This seams a little far fetched because they lost a lot of money changing the logo back and forth, people where talking a lot about the Gap but I don't think that would be enough to mess something up that big just to make people talk.

     Personally I don't mind the new logo. It's boring yes but so was the previous one. I never have liked the old logo because the letters are all stretched and it was just to boring. I wouldn't mind doing some designs up and submitting them to Gap because I think that our class could easily design something better than what they put out. Gap needs to have a contest for people to enter designs. That could bring in a lot of designs and a lot of talk about the Gap raising peoples interest also.

Note Pad Word Matrix

Note Pad Thumbnails

Note Pad Rough Drafts

Final Note Pad PDF Screen Shot

Notepad Synopsis

Joe Allen
Notepad Synopsis
10/5/10

I'm on a Boat

     I designed my notepad around a song called I'm on a Boat by the lonely island club.  The song was originally a skit on Saturday Night Live and now is a huge internet sensation.  My goal from designing this notepad was to reach out to high school students and show them a cool simple student design.  I used a lot of white space and didn't include and lines and I feel like my message was clearly displayed.

     My target audience for this project was high school students and also college students. The design was a simple gorilla sitting in a boat with a oar in his hand.  The picture was drawn by a friend of mine and I got his agreement to use it on the notepad. I picked a font that looked like it would be on the side of a boat to put the U.S.S. Pitt State and property of GIT.  The property of GIT idea came from clothing lines that use it as their tag line.  

     I believe that my target audience was reached well because I was showing the notepad to my sister who is a high school student and she liked it a lot.  She was hoping I could get her a notepad that she could show some of her friends at school. The funny thing is I showed my 5 year old brother and he liked it as well.  I believe he liked it because of all the white space on the gorilla and he could color it.  

     I have given these notepads out to family members and friends they all seam to like it. Hopefully it will get out to some prospective Pitt State students and will make them want to come check out the GIT department at the school.