MMP460 is centered around an ambitious semester-long group project. This page provides guidelines, grading rubric and templates.
SUMMARY
In groups of three, create a media campaign to support a social cause you care about.
Try to narrow down your topic as much as possible. For example: “Global Warming” is a vast subject that could be hard to tackle as a whole, but “Global Warming’s impact on the coral reef” is a narrower topic that better lends itself to this project’s scope.
If you struggle to find a topic, you may consider one of the briefs from this year’s One Club “Young One’s” challenge.
Here are some possible topics – you are welcome to pick from one of these or to come up with your own:
- Go vote! How local elections impact BMCC students
- Affordable childcare for all New Yorkers
- Affordable housing for all New Yorkers
- Supporting a local Food-coop
- School integration in NYC
- Using gender-inclusive pronouns
- Why compost?
- Banning cars from NYC
- Species extinction caused by global warming
- The rise of white-supremacy
Your target audience should be narrow too. Who are you trying to convince of the importance of this issue? “Everyone” may sound nice and inclusive, but it’s unlikely to be very effective. The age, gender, education, location etc. of your audience should impact the way you design every part of your project – from your choice of media to your color palette.
TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS
Your project should include at least three of the following components:
- Screen-based experience (website or app)
- Social media
- Web-based advertising (banners, email campaigns)
- Digital fabrication (i.e: stickers, t-shirts, totes, pins, jewelry, coasters, keychain etc.)
- Physical computing (i.e: a site-specific interactive installation, sensor-triggered wearable etc.)
ORIGINALITY
- Your campaign should have a cohesive visual and conceptual approach. It should engage the user by offering a unique take on the issue at hand. Look at what already exists in the media landscape around your topic and try to create something that adds to the conversation. If the campaign includes a website, it should be more than a static pages with text and images – it should include interactions and/or motion graphic that illustrate the message of the campaign.
PROJECT PROPOSAL
- The first step will be to create a project proposal. No matter your theme/concept/format, you should submit:
- A creative brief outlining your campaign’s measurable goals and target audience
- A project task analysis outlining the production workflow for each element of the campaign.
- Depending on the media you will be using, the visual part of your proposal should include:
- Screen-based experience (website or app): wireframes, sketches for logos and other digital images
- Social media : A description of what the social media part of the campaign will include (text, images, etc.) and how you expect the audience to engage with it. If you plan on creating images/animation (i.e: for instagram posts) include sketches/a storyboard.
- Physical computing: sketches and circuit diagrams
- Web-based advertising (banners, email campaigns), Print, Digital fabrication: sketches
- Animation (Quicktime or GIF): storyboard (use this template)
- Each team will have to present their proposal to the class. The presentation should clearly outline the campaign, show that adequate research was done to establish what currently exists around the issue and how the campaign adds to the discussion. Measurable goals should also be clearly stated.
TEAM WORK
Since this is a group project, it is essential that the group dynamic, means of communication and assigned roles are well defined from the start. Each member of the group should contribute equally. Talk among each other to see the type of skills and interests each member has and divide tasks to best take advantage of your individual strengths. At the end of the project each of you will be asked to fill a teammate evaluation form as well as an individual contribution form to give an account of how much you feel each member contributed to the final piece. This will be taken into account in your grade (see grading rubric).
Teams will be submitting a team contract early in the process.
GRADING RUBRIC
Each campaign will be graded with this rubric.