Branding

Branding is: 

The process involved in creating a unique name and image for a product or business. 

It aims to establish a presence in a certain market that attracts customers. 

In terms of illustration, although your work speaks for itself to a certain extent , you must also make yourself a brand. To do this it all goes back to understanding your target market and their needs. 

Once you have gained this information you can begin to construct how you will portray yourself as a brand, from image to eventually your reputation. To eventually achieve the standing of having a good reputation there are various factors you must consider, such as: your work, Business name, a logo or a visual aid, website, how you address the customer ( voice) and how you choose to market yourself. 

( http://illustratorsunion.com )

Conceptual branding within illustration is basically where there is a whole theme or 'concept' behind the illustrated product you are putting out there. The one used as an example in the lecture was Kraken Rum and the whole branding behind it which I found really interesting and inspiring. In the same vein as this I thought of the drink brand Oddka.
The company have created a 2D illustrated character to represent their brand called Wit Oddoski.

(http://www.oddkadrinks.com/uk/)

(http://www.ifitshipitshere.com/wasabi-and-salty-caramel-popcorn-vodka-introducing-oddka-crazy-and-beautiful-flavored-vodkas-from-wyborowa/) 

He introduces you to the brand and is represented as a suave gentleman from the age of inventors who wishes to create weird and wonderful flavours of vodka. The colourful packaging of the different flavours of vodka works really well against the black and white illustration the defines the product. 

Although the brand don't go as in depth as Kraken for the whole of their branding the idea behind Oddka is still gong that extra bit further with their concept for a brand.  

SCREEM no more

Unfortunately, as I feared, there is simply not enough interest in this party from the fellow students. I feel as though we could have done with a little help from a student union but unfortunately one doesn't really exist anymore at this campus. we really really tired to make this work but people soon lost interest and we have had to throw the towel in. Something i've gained from this experience is, when given a task of this magnitude, get everything done as soon as possible or else there's no hope in achieving our objective. 

BOO :( 

SCREEM

To work alongside our lectures in this module, we have tried to make this party a brand in itself. 

Myself and a fellow student spent a day in the print room screen printing the finalised ticket designs onto paper for a really cool, underground kind of feel. 

The finished ticket looks really cool and It's actually really exciting to think that things are moving along. 

Halloween Party

This year for this module we have been asked to arrange a Halloween party as a group ( Illustration and Graphics). Although this is very exciting it also poses many problems and worries, the main one being peoples capability to work as part of quite a large group and also if there is actually any interest from the rest of the university. 

The latter point will be the biggest challenge I believe as the CCAD student union doesn't really exist anymore, simply due to a lack of interest from the actual students.

to start of the organising we have already whittled it down to who in the group is actually interested in being fully involved within the project. After doing this we started to work out the name and venue for the party. We came up with the name SCREEM. Following this we commissioned people in the group to create a poster design and a ticket design or us to put around the campus and sell to interested people. we decided that the tickets would be £5 each and this would, after arranging it with the owner, grant you free access to SKYY hartlepool and a free bomb once inside.   

Consumer needs and Markets

A market is a group of people that will be interested in buying a certain product ( with their disposable income). 

To target your chosen market's needs you need to establish who they are and why they would want to buy your whatever you're selling.  There are a few ways you can use primary and secondary research to pin point what the consumer requires from your product. 

Examples of primary research you could conduct to gain the answers you needed are surveys and questionnaires which would give you the data you need to identify the markets needs straight from the consumer. 

Secondary market research could include looking into similar products or brands to yours and analysing the data found against your own research which will give you a more rounded understanding of your target market. 

Overall, one of the mains attributes you need to be able to analyse a target market is the research to back up your idea, doing this will allow you to fully understand your consumers financial constraints and commitments, which will, in turn allow you to understand how to approach them.