Life's A Pitch - A-Three Presentation

My Roles:
I covered research and presentation of our 12 Month Objectives, Target Market, Advertising/ Sales and Resource Space 

SLIDE 3 – 12 Month Objectives

For the first year  we will be focusing on the promotion of our company 

Setting up an online presence – a website and online shop where handmade gifts and personalized products such as stationary/ mugs/ cards etc can be purchased. 

Othis is underway, and we have a big enough profit, we will use it to set up a pop up shop

 Which we will base in leeds – because this is where we all live.

SLIDE 4 – TARGET MARKET

The target market is the gift buyers, This will be mostly people with a higher desposible income – Like working adults that are socially obliged to buy gifts - parents/ grandparents/ friends buying gifts, especially in the christmas period.  

Our competitors would be companies such as Paperchase and Moonpig

S.W.O.T analysis:

Strengths of the competition -

Paperchase is very successful because it sells commercial products - Pretty & stylish gifts for a low price.

Moonpig personalises gifts for cheap, adding delivery to it's services. It's also highly accessible due to predominantly being an online business.

Weaknesses -

Paperchase doesn't have the personal touch; Moonpig doesn't have products of a good quality.

Opportunities -

Moonpig has made use of Internet shopping becoming popular and capitalises on holidays such as Christmas, Mother's Day etc. through advertising their gifts

Our opportunities - a more personal approach to personalising - products being hand crafted as opposed to being mass-produced

Threats faced - competitors being more popular

SLIDE 5 – ADVERTISING

WEBSITE LAYOUT – WE WILL PROPOSE TO BE AN ADD ON PART OF COMPANIES THAT DELIVER PRODUCTS, THE END PROCESS OF BUYING A PRODUCT WILL LOOK LIKE THIS(indicated in the presentation).

JUST AN EXTRA STEP WHEN ORDERING A PRODUCT –

WE THINK THAT THIS WILL BE A GOOD INVESTMENT FOR COMPANIES AS IT’S UNIQUE AND MAKES THEM STAND OUT AMONGST COMPETITORS

–        ESPECIALLY IF THE PURCHASED ITEMS ARE GIFTS, IT WOULD BE A MORE COMMON FEATURE AROUND CHRISTMAS TIME,

–        AND OTHER TIMES THERE COULD BE A FREE (SIMPLE, CHEAP) GIFT WRAP OPTION (OR DISCOUNTED) TO MAKE THE PACKAGE LOOK NICER, AND TO INFLUENCE PEOPLE TO USE THE FEATURE AGAIN. (AND THEN PAY)

THERE ARE PLENTY OF DIFFERENT OPTIONS TO SELECT FROM IN ORDER TO GET WRAPPING UNIQUE TO THE BUYER / GIFT RECEIVER 

ALL OF WHICH WILL BE MADE FROM RECYCLED PAPER AND BE RECYCLABLE.

SLIDE 11 - RESOURCE SPACE

-Studio space for 3 and office(s)
- space based on growth & money
- dependent on success, more staff/ locations may need to be employed for packing and delivering from factories.
(leeds based)
- Expand further by passing over to manufacturers in key locations around the country such as near partnerships we form. 

Vimeo Artists

These artists came up during research for moving pictures




Enzo Lo Re 
Website
Illustrator and animator - Studied Graphic design
Works for clients as a freelance illustrator

for the Bimonthly Illustration Mag Nurant

 cover for Stereotip Mag

I really love the animation for SETA - the textures are lovely, and the composition is simple and effective - the whole thing runs smoothly, I'd have loved to create something like this for moving pictures because I feel it would have been achievable with my skills.
Enzo lo re also sells a variety of illustrated products on Society 6 - this seems to be a really common thing to do for illustrators, as it would provide further income as well as work from clients.



Benedi Yann is a Director / Illustrator / Animator
This video resonates with me because it's for a good cause (WWF) - Animals and nature are a big part of my practice and I support the charity. The video sends the message that although we may feel that our contribution is insignificant, we must all work together/ support what we believe in, in order to make a difference. The animation is lovely and the shapes and textures really make it stand out for me. 
Yann works as an illustrator, too.

Ileana Hunter

I'm really in love with Ileana Hunter's work! She draws in such a simple yet extraordinary way - many elements of traditional portraits are left out of her images, but it's still so easy to tell who the celebrities are. She makes iconic images her own by composing them all in the same way - linking them together. I wish i'd done these! This work links to my current practice - 505 (celebrity cats) - they are very commercial images as the subjects are always the most adored humans through history and from the present. This ties in with my research into why these people are so popular.
Below are images of Lady gaga and Katy Perry - women I have picked to include in my project. As these are amongst portraits of people like Twiggy and Audrey Hepburn, this further proves how highly treasured they are by the world.
Hunter sells her work on Etsy but there is not much further info on her career to be found.

Matthieu Bourel

'Matthieu Bourel creates surreal collages from vintage photographs, to achieve images that resonate with us, yet are clearly fictional. He collages faces together to look like puzzles, or adds/takes away elements of photographs - he is essentially presenting altered versions of the truth. , I am interested in how images are censored and distorted in order to present 'guides' on how to appear to society, and this work appears to address that also - I find the manipulation of photos to be within the subject of Photoshopping models etc. Which relates to my COP work - I want to explore issues of truth in advertising as well as exploring the identity ideals that social media and the internet impose on society, which lead to self esteem issues in young people. There are ways we are expected to construct our identities in order to be accepted socially, outlined by the media and this is what my COP Essay is about.

http://beautifuldecay.com/2014/12/17/matthieu-bourels-surreal-collages-quietly-strange/

" In some of his pieces, it almost feels as though they’re still frames of a tall tale as opposed to utter fiction. They feel historically relevant, which, according to Bourel, is part of the intended effect. “When successful, all the elements fall together with irony and tension while all other realities are obliterated, leaving the viewer as participant inside the picture, with his own codes and connections,” Bourel explains. “The image then carries the weight of a personal reality.”

Bourel describes his process as finding pictures and photographs that spark inspiration. He’s drawn to pictures that “evoke a fake history or inspire nostalgia for a period in time that never truly existed.”

“A piece often becomes about the search and desire to combine those emergent narrative symbols that seem charged with a familiar yet distant emotion,” Bourel says. "

This artist deals with ideas of layers; the different layers to people and not just what we see on the surface. The portraits I have looked at seem to show different sides of people and look deeper into their personalities, this is something I'd love to create in my work. 

Christian Schloe

   Christian Schloe paints digitally, but his images look as if they were painted with oils and have a traditional feel to them. I like the way they look like they are aged paintings, yet they have a surreal element to them which makes them become more illustrative, they seem to tell a story. I feel particularly  inspired by the image below, as it is a portrait that seems to address identity issues, by suggesting that the face is a mask, I have discussed similar issues in my COP essay, so I could look more into this theme for my practical project. 
He has many paintings, but doesn't seem to have any blogs or websites according to Google search results. His work, however, is very present online despite this. He has a fairly poplar facebook page, as well as a few websites selling his paintings/ products such as Society 6 and Artflakes. On Society 6 He sells framed ($41)* or unframed Art Prints($24)*, Throw pillows($20)*, Tote bags($22)*, Canvas Prints($85)*, Shower Curtains($68)*, Wall Tapestries,($39) Duvet covers($99) and wall clocks($30). On Artflakes he sells Art prints for around £57.46*, Posters from £14.26* and Greetings cards from £4.18*
*Starting Price

   Depending on the popularity of his images, this could be a good income!
*Since I wrote this, I have visited Society6 - The base price is really high, so he would make only about £1 each sale. 

Fernando Bryce

For a task as part of my COP work I looked at charities in the book "A culture ecology handbook" (a book on ecology) edited by Max Andrews 

Which contained illustration by Fernando Bryce

He works with hard facts and figures that are historical, yet they are emotive. The historical images he works with are brought to the present, drawn usually with Indian ink, they look like news clippings. 

Bryce is inspired by the way that art can be used as education, he makes prints based on old political propaganda, news papers, travel brochures and adverts - all of which reflect upon the culture of their time.  

The illustrations of his that were used in this book were to support the text "the publication proposes and tests if and how our conceptions of art and artists are relevant to a global debate about the planet, and where, how, and why art might operate." This is suggesting that we can use our talents for good, just like the manifesto also set out to do - changing the planet for the better. 

Yoshi Tajima

I found Yoshi Tajima's work really visually appealing as I've been looking into how to layer images together to create exciting compositions that tell a story.
Tajima's Website
There isnt a lot of info online about him, but he seems to work as a free lance illustrator, working for a number of different clients.
The video below is simple but effective, I wish I'd seen it sooner for inspiration on my Moving Pictures brief.

 

Anatomy Artists

The work of Gunther von Hagens is fascinating as well as disturbing to me, I found out about plastination by researching animal anatomy, Building on previous knowledge from lessons in Health and Social Care at college. I'm really interested in nature and science - Alongside artistic courses I studied Biology and Health and Social care at college which both touched on the way our bodies work. The anatomy of living things is so complex and detailed, so because I like to study the human form and animals due to their complexity, I believe that in the same way, this is why i'm also interested in drawing their structures.

Wikipedia info: "Gunther von Hagens is a German anatomist who invented the technique for preserving biological tissue specimens called plastination.

 Being a haemophiliac, as a child he spent six months in hospital after being injured. This stimulated an interest in medical science and in 1965 he commenced studies in medicine at the University of Jena, Germany.

 Dr von Hagens is best known for his plastination technique, which he invented in 1977 and patented in the following year The first exhibition of whole bodies was displayed in Japan in 1995. Over the next two years, von Hagens developed the Body Worlds exhibition, showing whole bodies plastinated in lifelike poses and dissected to show various structures and systems of human anatomy, which has since met with public interest and controversy in more than 50 cities around the world."
(wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunther_von_Hagens)


For deeper research into my anatomy study, I may watch the  Documentaries on channel 4 'Anatomy for Beginners' : http://www.channel4.com/programmes/anatomy-for-beginners/episode-guide