What's my mood? I'll tell you...

Save Me, San Francisco by TrainMusic

Today we got assigned the task of creating a mood board for San Francisco, after much work...this is what we came up with. This is the general concept for what we want our messaging to say, feel, look, and sound like. I know the song is kinda a weird choice but it feels like what we are designing on this end. I think you will understand after I'm all done....just be patient. We now begin developing messaging that goes along with this to hit on all of our entry points in our campaign.

Back to the starting line...

So today we got what we have been waiting for which is a brief from the creative department on where we are at and how everything is going. Well we where basically sent back to the starting line and then told to start over on some stuff and kinda plan on why and how on the concept rather than the pretty side (which I am really excited to get into).

Well since these aren't getting used I guess I can share them with you now to get your opinion. These are the logos that I developed for the San Francisco campaign, "Localize Yourself." These aren't getting used because we decided that their branding was already relatively new and not worth getting something new to direct users to. Here they are, as always they are my own work I created all artwork myself using illustrator (click to make larger)!

Killing Babies and Taking Names!

"Collaborative work is the result of lots of disagreement"

- Joe Scorsone

I don't think I could agree more, sometimes very frustrating and long exhausting disagreements. But hopefully it all ends up wel right? I have never really worked in a team atmosphere and this year I have learned more than anything that it is a very hard thing to master. All of my other interns have a lot of great ideas and are all great people, but I think we all agree that our personal idea is better, which is something I realized is a learning process. Sometimes what you are thinking, isn't the best for the project. Learning to just step back and realize that someone else has a better idea is a skill that they don't tell you that you need on your resume.

Here in ad agency world I was let in on a little tagline they use around here which is, "Don't be sad when we start killing your babies." Which is very true when you work on an idea for a couple weeks it becomes your baby then go into a meeting and they just say no, it always will hurt. You gotta have thick skin and realize they aren't saying it sucks, but for what they want it isn't the right direction.

If I could give any advice to underclassmen, it would be ask for criticism of your work. From anyone and everyone, what they say about your work or tear it down a little. Will help you realize that everyone has different opinions and you just gotta step back say thanks for the feedback and move on!

To continue on with my day, we are still working on the same project and we had a meeting with a VP today to explain it! We got all of our vehicles of getting the information out approved but are still working on an overlaying concept for the project. Any ideas shoot them my way!

Ready for more posts?

So I'm sorry I have been lacking in the posting department about this internship but I decided that I should be posting a lot more just to get my ideas out about where we are at with out specific client and maybe get some help from my followers (all 10 of you). Well if you didn't already know i'm the interactive creative intern at MMG Worldwide this summer and we have just been given a client as the interns. Our client currently is San Francisco Travel and we have been
given a mission and target market and everything. I'll break it down for you below and then share what we have come up with so far and then maybe I can get some feedback on where we are going/hope to go with this project.

First thing though, I just want to let you know one huge step that in my past design work at Pitt State we have always missed out on, and that is research. I kid you not, I have about 150+ pages of research, 3 books about San Fran, and countless websites! I think that is the one step that I have been missing in most of my past work. Maybe I will take a picture of my research binder to show you how much research we have to complete before the project even starts!

Objective: To effectively distribute tourism information to the visitors of San Francisco, beyond the current visitor’s center in order to entice visitors to extend their stay, become an advocate for the city, and to repeat their visit.

That is obviously our main objective for the project and all other medias that I end up developing the idea for need to hold this central theme true to what they do. So below I will show you some of our ideas thus far and how we plan on carrying these out.

1. Mobile Site

I believe that this is important because it really bridges the gap between the different medias and helps the user to navigaete throughout the city to make their stay more enjoyable. Below I have posted a mobile website that you can view on your computer that MMG has completed for Colorado Tourism that I think is a main inspiration for me behind this project.

http://www.colorado.com/m/

2. Kiosks/Trucks

This was an idea that I came up with after realizing that we need some way to make the user want to interact with the media that we are providing. I always feel that whenever I see a touch screen that invites me to participate I always interact with it! That is why we decided to use this media and to also develop a truck that could house different kiosks inside of it to make the concept more mobile.

Here is an image of the truck that we are looking toward using...



3. Ad Campaign

This is an obvious one and we haven't really even developed how we want the ads to look/feel/or location so this is really just something we know we want but havent' even started to develop yet.

4. Interactive Window Displays

San Fran mentioned to us that they currently have window displays placed throughout the city to help garner attention to the city in many different ways. Our idea was to place these windows in different neighborhoods and make them interactive but also informative. The window would basically say I love (Neighborhood) because or my favorite attraction is...and then there would be a screen that you would type in your favorite thing around the neighborhood. There would then be a list that is available to the left that would show what different people's favorite thing is populating live.


5. Facebook Campaign

This will tie in with our interactive window displays that we are creating so you can upload your favorite things about neighborhoods inside of the facebook app.

6. Street Team

We also are coming up with the idea to develop a street team that will be placed around the mobile truck that can help deliver different information to the consumer.

7. Street Signage

My last idea that I developed was a street signage system that would welcome you when you get in to certain neighborhoods and direct you to different attractions inside the neighborhoods. The purpose of this mainly is to get you to stay in the city and look around longer and more often!

Those are the main ideas that we have developed this far and we are actually presenting them to our mentors this afternoon so I imagine by the end of the week I will have a list of exactly the things I will be working on and what our campaign title is! That also reminds me, if you have any ideas of any campaign titles that would help out a lot, considering I am hitting a major road block. Our ideas so far have been, "Am I On Your Agenda," "Explore San Francisco," and "San Francisco 360." I have only been working on this for 2 weeks but just researching as much as I have been can get to be a bit of a headache at the end. Also none of these ideas are solely my own, we have an intern team that consists of me, Andrea (Mizzou Senior), Katie (KU Senior), Lindsey (KU Grad), and Jillian (DU Junior). WIth only one of those being another creative intern the rest being in media and account services. So don't think that I am taking all these ideas for my own and that I have developed them on my own know that I have a great team behind me.

Look forward to some more updates this week!

First Day!

So today was my official first day at my new internship at MMG Worldwide! It was a day full of housekeeping and getting a lot of what I will be doing this year all together. I found out some exciting news as we found out who our client will be as interns and that is, The City of San Francisco! We don't have any idea of what we will be doing yet, but all I know is that I am really excited to get started. I got my cubicle that I am in temporarily until space opens in the creative department tomorrow and I am so excited to finally be in here!

I had no idea of how big this company is or what clients they exactly work for, but some of my mentors are working with clients like Colorado, Barbados, Trump Towers, and more! Looking over some of the past intern work I finally felt content that I had the skills to complete the work that was needed. Just working inside this office has already made me feel more professional and that I have skills that are worthy of something.

It's really interesting to see how they handle payroll and traffic inside the office as to who is working on what project when. I always found that as confusing to figure out how much to bill the client and how to keep track of what you are doing but this cleared up and confusions I had. Their system was streamline and made complete sense to me already and it is only my first day, as a system like this should.

Well looks like 5:00 is coming around and I have finished most of my initial research for the day so I'm signing off and I will hopefully be catching up with you guys to fill you in on the details soon. Just hearing that we landed a client as large as the City of San Fran? That was huge to me.

J

"The Future" is closer than I think...

On Tuesday I will start the internship of my dreams at MMG Worldwide. I have been working towards getting an internship at an advertising agency downtown for over a year now, through the development of my resume (thank to Tracy), direct mailer, website, and everything else I have been working my ass off trying to finish.

Well on Tuesday I meet with the other interns and my supervisors and get to figure out what exactly I will be doing. I just thought I would make a post to let you guys know what will be going on and to check here for weekly (if not more often) updates. With the level of excitement that I have currently, I'm sure I'll end up posting everyday when I get home!

It seems that I have waited my entire college career to be able to do this internship. Not to try to get a job (although that would be nice) but just the opportunity to see my career choice in the real world. I want to be able to say that I am on the right track or that I truly do love what I do, even though I already do love it. I guess I could say I am excited to start, just to validate my choices thus far. If I don't get validated, I guess it was a good experience? Let's hope for the first option and not the second. But I am open to anything (that is not true).

So keep me in your thoughts as I embark on the next big journey in my life. I wish you all could feel my excitement.

Sidenote: I can't sleep. I have to be up at 5:30 and it is currently 1:00 and I haven't slept yet. I'm so excited and it is still two days away.

I Can See the Light!

I have just sent off just about all of my internship applications and all the deadlines have almost past. So you know what that means? The waiting period begins.

This is my least favorite but the least stressful time of the process. I just hope that I am given a chance to at least interview for most of my internships just cause then I feel like I am in more control of the situation.

But at least I know that I made one kick-ass leave behind for the interview and hopefully they like it. This weekend is the GIT banquet and I will be showing my portfolio, hopefully I will get some good pictures of my display so you guys can see more of my completed work that I have done. Time sure has flown by working on this project and hopefully my grades are still doing well, most of my interest has been on landing a good internship.

In other news, I'm currently trying to start a new class for the GIT department here at Pitt. Basically it is very reminiscent of other classes that KCAI, KU, UMKC, and other schools similar do and it is a senior show class. Basically I have pitched it as being all the seniors working together to put on a show that would point out all of our strengths and give us a chance to brand something as a group! Below I have some examples of what I would like to do, I think this is a genius idea and hopefully it makes it past just being an idea.

University of Central Missouri Senior Show

Kansas City Art Institute

Johnson County Community College

University of Kansas

Well that is all I really have to talk about right now, not a lot going on just waiting, waiting, and more waiting. Hopefully I have good news to share with all of you when I find out more details!

If you are a company that is looking for interns reading this, hire me! You won't regret it.