Collaboration Brief - More Research

Ive started doing some research based on what we spoke about in our last meeting together. 

Ive looked at a labelling companies, which seem to do labels for a lot of different things, skincare products being one of them. They are also environmentally aware and can make 'green' labels, which fits in well with the ethics of our business proposal. This labelling company also sends free samples of labels which we could apply for. On the website it also had customer feedback, and one was from a graphic designer, who had a lot of deadlines and said the company works very well on tight deadlines. This has got me thinking that we could possibly design our logo and get at least one printed, or more, and make a prototype with apothecary bottles.

I Started looking into the ingredients for making organic, vegan products, when i stumbled on recipes on how to make homemade products. This made me feel like we should possibly make our own products for the brief, along with the labels and bottles and actually send them products. Although its not what they have asked for specifically, it just shows that we have thought it out thoroughly and they can see what we are trying to portray.

Life's A Pitch - Reflecting On Our Presentation

We have done our presentations and i think it went well, everyones presentations looked great and it was really nice to hear everybody's pitches. I was happy with ours, i think i was a bit nervous and it could have come across to viewers, so i think my public speaking is something i might need to work on.

I think it went well, although, after seeing other groups presentations, i think we could have been a bit more creative with it. It's not that the presentation wasn't good, i really liked it and to be honest, we wanted something that looks professional and minimalistic as we didn't want to portray one style when we are promoting a business inclusive to all styles and backgrounds. But maybe we could have put some more creativity in it as well, i think it would have been a bit more memorable to viewers if there was added extra. For example, one group had a lovely animation in theirs, another group wore all yellow, Some had pizza in their slides, all of these are things that have stuck with me, and maybe ours wasn't so exciting now i think on it. 

I also feel like, especially me, presented our pitch quite stiffly, I'm not such a great speaker, so even after a lot of practicing, as soon as i spoke i wouldn't remember anything, this lead to using queue cards. The queue cards were good, but i ended up reading it like a script, which didn't sound natural to me, especially when i liked the presentations the most when people were confidently speaking.

The last thing to add, was what Patrick brought up at the end as feedback, we hadn't got our finances down right. We did try very hard, especially Naomi and Georgie to figure out our finances, but a lot of pricing for things we needed, we would have to directly call printers etc. It got very confusing to us and we ended up missing out wages all together. I think next time, I would definitely try to gain a better understanding into the financing of a business as it would be very helpful. Although, in the business we proposed, i don't think it would actually work out, as we are near enough being a charity for artists. The whole point of our business was to create a platform for aspiring creatives to share their work with a chance to win, without ripping them off and giving both artist and buyer a fair deal. But with doing this, on our plan, we have left out giving ourselves a fair deal as well. This might sound selfish, but otherwise we wouldn't be running a business for a long time before we would have to use our exit strategy, which we might have planned too well, subconsciously.

Now to reflect on the actual collaboration part of this brief, I actually really enjoyed working with our group. I thought we all worked quite well together, we kept ourselves informed through Facebook and i feel like we all worked equally. There were obviously times when it was a little harder i.e. i missed the first session of this brief, so they had to come up with business proposals without me, but we all caught each other up and i think it went very well. It is the first time i have enjoyed collaborating with other people, we all seemed to get on well and there were no disagreements. 

Overall, I really enjoyed this studio brief, after reflecting, there might be parts of our presentation that i would change but I still think it was good and we worked well together as a team and i have gained more understanding on what it takes to run a business etc. So although there are things i might change, i wouldn't expect any different as it's the first time i have done something like this, and now i know what it entails.

Life's A Pitch - Final Presentation

This is the final version of our presentation, Naomi put it all together after we gave our individual information, images etc. I think it looks very professional and i really like how she has put the logo on very slide. 

Life's A Pitch - Full Script

Title - Alice Hi, we are Platform. Who are we? - Alice I'm Alice, this is Tyler, Rebecca, Naomi and Georgie and together we are creating an online business called Platform. We are all illustrators coming from different backgrounds, each of us having different and unique styles, which is what inspired us to build a business for creatives inclusive to any style and background. What do we do? - Naomi We are an online creative community that hosts monthly, themed competitions for UK based aspiring artists. Each month, twelve winning designs are made available to purchase as print based products through our website. We also act as a promotional platform as the winning artists can be featured on the website and our social media accounts. Manifesto - Georgie We want to create a sustainable business that believes in supporting creatives, and establishing a respectful, honest online community between artists, buyers and everyone in between. We think that the artists deserve a fair commission, and want to provide the Platform for their work to be showcased, whilst giving buyers a unique opportunity to buy refreshing artwork for a limited time. Target Market - Tyler Who is our target market? We want to attract artists who aren't necessarily well known in the creative community, such as post-graduate students, part-time artists and hobbyists. There is a great opportunity every month to be promoted with their own "about the artist page" if selected during the monthly judging. On the other end of the spectrum, we want to attract art and print enthusiasts to our site, interested in buying unique and limited artwork, supporting aspiring artists. It may be also be artists looking for inspiration, or participate in art related discussions on our forum page. Web Mockup - Georgie This is a rough web mock up demonstrating what the website could potentially look like. The home page shows the current winners and each photo will have a link to a small artist profile so that the creative has the chance to provide links to their own personal websites or social media pages. This one is an example of the artist submission page, where a banner will show the next months word and creatives can read up on the terms and conditions, and entry requirements before they send us their designs. On both pages, the grey banners showing the words will actually have imagery designed by one of the team each month to help inspire designs and also showcase our own work. Flowchart - Tyler The process of our internet business model will loop monthly. Work from the previous month goes on sale on the 1st, whilst artists continuously submit to the current word. On the 7th, a newsletter is released to members about the work for sale and some of the highlights so far. Entries for the submission of work ends on the 21st, where the new word is selected and released and the winners are named within the following week and there is a last chance to buy this months prints before the switch over to the new winners on the 1st. Branding and Packaging - Georgie The brand attempts to remain pretty neutral, so that it can be applied to the packaging, and printed on the back of all kinds of styles of prints. We wanted it to maintain a friendly kind of aesthetic, and a hand made feel, whilst still remaining quite minimal. Promotion - Alice As we are an online based business, we aim to promote ourselves mainly on social media, keeping up with the many social networking sites. We will also distribute business cards and leaflets to locations such as art cafes, student unions, art and craft shops. Networking will also be important to us, so that we have a presence in the art and business community, outside of our online existence. Roles - Rebecca (read from screen) Studio Space - Rebecca We will be based at Duke Studios in the creative heart of the centre of Leeds City Centre. It is a is great space, big enough to complete simple admin tasks at the desk such as arranging deliveries with the printers over the phone, or by email. By being in a collaborative environment, the bills such as internet, lighting and heating are shared across multiple office occupiers, who are also in the art related field. Funding - Naomi As we are setting up this business from scratch we are relying on funding from a number of possible sources to cover our initial costs. Organisations such as The Prince’s Trust and the Arts council could provide us with these if our applications are successful. Alternatively we could take out a small business loan to cover the initial costs and then pay this back with the income we receive each month. Most of the funds in the first year will be spent on the website and promotion and it will also cover initial printing costs. If the business takes off, we will be able to use advertising as a more stable, ongoing method of funding. Finances and Costings - Alice Realistically, the business depends on whether people will actually want to buy these products and this is why a consultation period is required. If the business does not succeed and the profits are not substantial enough for us to continue then we will leave the business after the consultation period has ended with limited losses. However, if we sell enough products and the numbers show that we will be able to fund our own rent for the coming years then the figures on the right of this slide will come into action. Print Pricing - Naomi We figured that this is the most effective way of pricing our products. We are using a printer who charges a set up cost and then charges a smaller fee per unit so our profit margin will increase as the quantity of prints increases. It is important to us that the artists to get a fair commission price so we have worked out that we can give them 40% of the profit after the printing costs have been covered. This works out at 66p per postcard, £3.76 per print and £5.16 per poster. If we sell twelve of each product in one month then we will be making over £2000 which can then be invested back into the business. Future Projections - Tyler Looking towards the future, we can see opportunities for our business to develop. We could look at introducing more products to our range such as stationary and textiles. We could also start saving money on our printing costs with increased demand for products as unit costs decrease as the quantity of prints increase. There is the possibility of employing staff to carry out certain roles to allow us to spend more time on our own practice. We could also bring the artwork out of the online bubble and host exhibitions and pop-up events to hopefully get more artists and potential buyers involved. Exit Strategy - Naomi We are a not for profit company which means any funds leftover after all costs and salaries have been covered must be reinvested back into the business. If there was any money left in the business after the consultation period or any of the years after that and we chose to terminate the business, the remaining funds would have to be spent in accordance to non profit legislation. This could be paying final bills and paychecks, hosting a final event or donating the money to charity or an organisation who have a similar aim and ethos to ourselves. Contact - Tyler We are easily contactable within traditional working hours over the in office telephone, or you can pop us an email and we'll get back to you with appropriate and helpful information as quickly as we can. Bye - Alice Thats all from us, thank you for listening. Are there any questions?




Due to Naomi being ill and having a really sore throat, i have now taken one of her slides to read as she had 5. - Costings and funding

Life's A Pitch - Presentation Slides

In our last meeting all together, we put our individual elements on the presentation slides. It is still a plan as we still have things we need to put in, like the caricatures etc. So far, i think its looking quite professional, especially with the logo on each slide. 

All we have to do now is to practice our individual scripts for our assigned slides.

Due to difficulties, we could not put the animation into the slide, we didn't want to have to press play during the presentation so we tried to make it into a gif. The gif converters we found online did not work so we ended up using a screen shot of the ben diagram from the animation.