Week 2

Crit: portfolio review

We will start the class by discussing the work you gathered, organized and described for your portfolio review. Be prepared to share your work with the class and to offer feedback to your classmates (i.e: Do the chosen pieces show a sophisticated visual approach, a diverse set of skills, a unique style? Are they well described and organized? What is missing? What would you remove? What format would be best for this portfolio? etc.)

Campaign project overview

This course is centered around a campaign project. The full guidelines are available here. Please ask the professor to clarify anything that may been unclear right away.

Here are a few examples of recent campaigns for inspiration:

 

Creating groups for the campaign project

You will be working on the campaign project in groups of three for the rest of the semester. It is important that you respect your team members’ work, that you communicate well, and that you have complimentary sets of skills. For example, group with 3 excellent graphic designers but no one interested in web development or programming is likely to have a difficult production process. Assigning tasks will be difficult, and conflicting styles could even lead to an underwhelming visual approach. Practical aspects (such as schedule, and geographical proximity) should also be taken into account.

Accountability

At the end of the project each team member will be asked to fill a teammate evaluation 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 individual grade for the campaign project (see grading rubric).

Group forming activities

Forming groups for a long-term project can be a daunting experience. This set of activities is designed to help you find team members.

Geography

Write down your name, and the borough and neighborhood where you live. Find and write down the names of  the people who live closest to you.

Interviews

We will conduct a series of round robin interviews. To start, everyone should sit across someone else – start with the people from your geographical area. At the end of the 5 minutes, find a new classmate to interview. Repeat until you’ve spoken to everyone in the class. Here are a series of questions you should ask – feel free to expand on them and ask your own. Jot down a “compatibility” number (between 1 and 5) for each interviewee:

  • When are you available to meet outside of class?
  • Which skills can you bring to the team?
  • Are you comfortable leading or have you led a group team like this before?
  • What is your major?
  • What are your career goals?
  • What grade are you seeking to get on this project?
  • Are you the kind of person who works through the semester steadily or seeks to complete everything right before the assessment is due?

Forming your group

Take 10 minutes to start forming groups. Start with the people at the top of your “compatibility” list and look for other members to complete your group of three if necessary

Drafting your contract

Sit down with your group. Discuss, negotiate and agree on each section of  the team contract. If you find that you are not comfortable with this group at this point, circulate around the room and try to find a better fit. The professor will meet with each group to discuss the contract and reserves the right to make changes to groups that don’t appear to be off to a good start. 

Deliverables

For next week, fill and sign the team contract. (1 form per group). Also set up a shared Google Drive, Dropbox or Github folder for your team to share all the work you will be creating for the campaign project. Put the team contract you filled in the folder and submit a link to it under the OpenLab discussion “Group folders” (one post per group).

Brainstorming ideas

Now that you have formed your group, it’s time to come up with an idea for your campaign project. Review the guidelines together and ask the professor for any clarifications.

Once you all have a clear sense of the project’s goals and needs, you will write down some potential ideas. You will start by doing so individually. Having several ideas/options can be a good thing at this point of the process. Don’t feel like you have to write full sentences. A brainstorm can take the forms of sketches, bullet points, words spread across the page etc. Here are questions to help you with this initial brainstorm (20mins):

  • Topic: What social cause do you feel passionate about? If nothing comes to mind right away try to answer these questions: Is there a recent documentary, book, article, viral video that made you want to take action and change the world? Is there a local non-profit organization you are part of (or would be interested in joining)? If you struggle to find a topic, you may consider one of the briefs from this year’s One Club “Young One’s” challenge.
  • Narrowing it down: What aspect of the topic(s) you listed are you most interested in exploring (i.e: “The housing crisis in NYC” could be narrowed down to “How the housing crisis affects the everyday life of a 10 year old Bronx resident”).
  • Target audience: Who are you interested in addressing and why? What style (casual, serious, funny, cute) and medium (website, print, social media, web development etc.) is most appropriate for this demographics? (i.e: The issue of bullying can be portrayed in very different ways – depending on whether the target audience are parents, teachers, teenagers or toddlers).
  • Technical approach:  Which media (website, mobile app, video, social media , web banners, email campaigns, posters, flyers, postcards, stickers, wearables (pins, jewelry, t-shirts, totes etc.), interactive installation etc.) would you consider combining for this project. Your current technical skills, portfolio and career goals are all important, but you should also consider what will best serve the topic and appeal to your target audience.
  • Inspiration: Can you think of a recent campaign (for a social cause or a product) that you found particularly memorable? What media did it use (most campaigns today are formatted for different media). What was interesting about it? Could you adapt part it for your topic?

After the individual brainstorm you will gather back as a group and share your individual ideas. Perhaps one topic will stand out easily, or you may come up with a new one through your discussion. Your goal after this second group brainstorming session (30mins) is to come up with a single topic, target audience, and technical approach.

Creating a pitch

Once your group has agreed on an idea for the campaign project, you will present it to the class with a  pitch deck. A pitch deck is a brief presentation, often accompanied by slides, used to give others a quick overview of your idea. Through the process of creating your presentation, your team will have to discuss and define parts of the project that are still vague. The presentation will also give the professor and your classmates the opportunity to give you feedback. 

Format

You can use Power Point, Google slides, Keynote, Presy or any other presentation platform. Your pitch should be about 7-10 mins long and should include the following information:

  • Title-slide: (Tentative) title for your project and one-sentence summary (i.e: ” #GirlsCount – Every girl deserves an education”).
  • Team: Each team member’s name and strongest skills.
  • Social cause: What social cause will you be promoting? Remember: narrow it down as much as possible.
  • Target Audience: Who is your target audience?
  • Media: How do you plan on presenting the problem at hand? Which media will you use (remember that you have to combine at least three media)? How will each piece of content bring awareness to your cause.
  • Style: What will be the style/emotion conveyed by your campaign?
  • Inspiration: Cite at least 2 campaigns, artists, ads etc. that inspired your team (you may also use bad examples – things  you want to avoid).

Do’s and Don’ts

Here are some tips to keep in mind when creating your pitch deck (and any subsequent presentations you will create this semester):

  • Tell a story: make the presentation exciting and personal – the audience should be able to sense your passion for the project
  • 1 idea per slide: Don’t confuse your audience by having too much information on a single slide. Divide the information into as many slides as needed.
  • Keep a consistent look: use the same font, size, color and capitalization across all slides.
  • Use text sparingly: Don’t use too many bullet points, long paragraphs or small fonts.
  • Use images to illustrate your information
  • Rehearse your presentation – avoid reading word by word from your script. Try to look at the audience as much as possible. The presentation should be equally divided amongst each member of the team.

Deliverables

For next week, create and rehearse your pitch deck as a group. Submit it under the OpenLab discussion “Pitch decks”. Each group will present to the class next time we meet. Be ready to offer feedback to your classmates.