- New Media Applications -

The creation of our group name and identity.

Choosing our Production Company name was one of the most important things we did when we began our project. This name would shape all future work from us, and how we presented ourselves as a working production group. We needed a name that was strong, easy to remember and not lengthly or with a silly meaning.

It didn't take too long to come up with a name, as 'Rugulent' seemed to work for everybody not long after it was suggested, purely through how it sounded when spoken- 'rug-yew-lent' and how when written down, it didn't need 'productions' after it to make it look good.

The word itself came from my Father. He and a work friend had come up with it one day and after looking it up, found it had no meaning and wasn't a real word. My Father then decided that he would use it occasionally in his music degree class and try to get his students to use it in their work. He was successful, and the word became a bit of a family joke.

After asking his permission to use it, I then suggested it to the group and as a group we decided the meaning of the word should be somewhat of an oxymoron. 'Rough but elegant'. This meaning seemed to suit our group to the ground so from that point on we adopted it as our name and focused creating content around it. We wanted something unique, and this seemed to be it.

When we had all decided and agreed upon our company name, I took up the job of producing a Production Company logo for our work and website. Having an identity, an image or logo that people can associate immediately with your company is vital for successful advertisement and promotion. I wanted to create something which would stand out, yet give out the right feel for our production company. I didn't want to create something directly linked to our documentary, as that would limit us on what we could put our logo to.

Pic One - This was the first idea I came up with for the logo. I liked the whole 'rough but elegant' slogan we had going for our company name meaning, so I tried to replicate that in a design.

Pic Two - I decided that the design felt a little bare in the background, so I experimented with a lens flare to see how that helped bring the logo to life. I felt that the flare really helped the logo, but the more my group and I looked at it, the more we grew to dislike it.

Pic Three - For our twitter and youtube pages, we needed a smaller logo to fit the avatar restrictions on the sites, so I shortened the logo to just the main characters and formed this design.

I liked how it worked on the profile pages as it stood out well and was clear to read, even when made smaller by the sites.

Pic Four - After deciding with my group that the previous logo didn't quite give out the right meaning, I started to design a new one, focusing on the 'rough but elegant' theme. This one was probably the best of the next batch of logos I came up with, but still didn't feel right.

Pic Five - After a lengthly time using Photoshop to design a whole host of logos, I eventually came across an old SCIFI font which seemed to suit our name perfectly. I added a rough overlay texture effect, a bevel design and the right amount of glow to make it look almost crystal like. I showed it to my group and they all seemed to agree that this was the best design, so deciding that we'd gone through enough ideas, we chose to keep it.

Pic Six - Like before, I needed a smaller logo for our twitter and youtube pages, so I went through the same process as with the other smaller logo and managed to create this image which I felt worked so much better than any design I had done beforehand.

It's simple yet seemed to stand out brilliantly on our various online profiles. This was exactly what we wanted- something that stood out and got noticed.

A Favicon (favourite icon) is a file containing a small icon (sometimes more than one) associated with a particular website or webpage. It is designed so that it sits up by the website address url and gives the site that little bit extra in looking professional.

Creating one for our website was one of the first things I did when creating the Yola site and starting to design the webpage. I felt that it gave our site that bit extra in identity and sleekness.

Poster Campaigns

As part of our advertisement and promotion of our documentary, I created this poster idea.

I aimed for it to be very eye catching and intriguing. I also aimed for a little humour in that the 'I have now' tags at the bottom. They will be cut in a way so that people can rip them off when they view the poster.

On the back of the tags, I plan to write our website address so the more curious people who take one might be tempted to log on and find out what it's all about.

The photo is of a lovely dog called Olly, whom I happened to catch at an awkward moment!

His eyes are also two different colours - that's not been photoshopped. I felt it gave his image an even more quirky look if I grey-scaled everything except for his eyes.

- Jess Hallett

A Bite of China

A Bite of China is a series food documentary ran by CCTV documentary channel, which offers insights into the geographical, historical and cultural dimensions of what Chinese eat. It is the most popular documentary of the year in China. Except of the contents, promotions techniques were taken into account when starting on pitching.

Before A Bite of China broadcasted, the director posted documentary poster with trailer to Weibo (Chinese Twitter), remind audiences it will be broadcasting on the night. The poster design drew on the ancient Chinese paintings, but it also looks like a piece of cured meat when get closely. The poster was highly fitted in the documentary subject, and its trailer showed the feature things what will be presenting to target audiences address the main theme of documentary, it attracted many people follow and repost it. At a result, this documentary became the most popular topic on Weibo at the day, even if not on the TV yet. It established stable public relations and was a successful advertisement to some extents. Despite of that, they advertised on each channel of at the peak time. CCTV has key media influences to public, so it is beneficial to extend the popularity.

During the broadcasted, the producer of documentary launched activities on Weibo such as ‘Snack show’, ‘Midnight snack show’ and ‘Eat in the midnight’, which promoted the interaction between audience and documentary team and increased the value visibility of documentary.

Moreover, they sold the copyright with English subtitle to other countries, including America and Germany. It enable documentary to recoup the investment costs and become profitable. Meanwhile, they upload the documentary on You Tube, which means more Chinese audience who are live abroad will have chances to watch it. They are another huge Chinese audience group and have wide influences that cannot overlook. Additionally, the documentary soundtrack and the book promptly, it obtained both economic benefits cultural effects.

Comparing to A Bite of China, there were some similarities and differences between promotions strategies. For one thing, we both have poster, Twitter and trailer, which function as advance publicity for our documentary. Also, we dedicated time to design subsequence products to make a profit, such as T-shirt and customised mugs and business cards. However, unlike A Bite of China, we had a Q.R code that allows audiences scan on their smartphone to access to our official website. It is a simple, faster and economic advertisement approach. Besides, we crated leaflets to add interaction with audiences.

To sum up, A Bite of China is successful case that the combination of new media application and documentary. And it not just restricted to promotion strategies, it also built steady public relations as well.

- Alice Zhu

Advertising...

Advertising plays a huge part in recruiting potential viewers to take interest in a product. When we as media promoters understand how to use this tool to promote our product and our business it can be very effective in luring in an audience, particularly the target audience when used effectively.

There are many forms of advertising: billboards, posters, online, radio, TV and events.

The right combination of ways of advertising a product can draw in a great deal more viewers than if the product is advertised poorly. This advertisement for GTA (Left) is a perfect example of how an I-sore can produce immense amounts of advertising through pure power of how the product is advertised. With the use of three building banners this is clear for anyone at a long distant to see or be attracted to.

Facebook is a social site that reaches around the world. A simple post or photo can be seen throughout the whole of the media social network. Advertising is an easy tool when using Facebook correctly. Building a report with the audience is the key to then expanding the fan base. Interactions through the use of competitions can help to build this. Including prizes for the best poster for example can help to push interaction. All this and more can be used to advertise throughout Facebook by a simple click of the mouse.

Toy Story 3 used a wide ranged audiences’ cereal ‘Weetabix’, to promote the film before it came out on the big screen. To think the amount of people who would have just bought the cereal for the reason of Toy Story 3 would have been resulted in a brilliant alliance through advertising. Having competitions through the cereal offering an amazing holiday would not cost anything as all the advertising makes up in costs. Using a well know product to advertise our company would be in the works if we want to build a fan base and what better way by being associated with a good company that are well know.

A new film that has advertised through online video sites such as Youtube. The site advertises various projects as it so popular that millions if not billions of people can be found on here everyday. ‘The Hobbit’ is the perfect example of Youtube advertising and live footage with the directors are shown live online as a perk of the campaign of advertising.

Through these types of video websites we could promote the company building the audience with direct links to our pages.

QR codes are the unique way of being recognised. Having this code is a direct link to the website through the use of smartphones. With the amount of smartphones used on the rise QR codes are becoming ever so popular. We used this idea for our poster to advertise from. Making a direct link easier for the audience.

- Toby Weller