Lemon Collective - Our Customers

Our ethos is that we are a non profit community based business, therefore we want to appeal to as many people as possible. Aimed at current creative students, potential Leeds students, professionals, children and those with an interest in creativity/illustration - we hope this covers all basis and who we think our target consumers will be. 

We aim to be fun, welcoming and informative for our customers and want to provide something new and exciting to get people talking, interested and willing to join us at Lemon Collective.

Finished slide:

"Life's a Pitch" - Team Correspondence and File Sharing

With all of the other modules and commitments running alongside PPP, has been really vital that Lemon Collective can speak with each other outside of university and share our input and planning towards our final pitch presentation.

When speaking with other teams in studio sessions, it became clear that using the PPP group "noticeboard" area on estudio was a good idea in theory, but maybe not as instant and accessible in terms of communicating with each team member frequently and discussing who should do what etc.

Keeping this in mind, our team created a Facebook group. This was a quick and easy solution in keeping each other up to date with various ideas of how to approach our pitch from the start and what specific areas needed extra work. We used our Facebook group as a direct means of contact with each other and could define quickly and accurately what areas of the pitch were our personal responsibility, as well as when to meet in person to discuss and complete aspects of our pitch. I have been suffering with illness throughout the Life's a Pitch preparation, therefore this Facebook group has been vital for me when staying in the loop as it were and I have found it really helpful in sending the team ideas and work for group approval.

As well as our Facebook group, we have been making use of Google Drive to send large files via emails to each other, containing artwork and drafts of our presentation slides for various edits and input. 

Lemon Collective - Merchandise

A way to promote/advertise a business could be through its products on offer. As our business provides a somewhat intangible service - learning and creativity - creating promotional products and merchandise specific to our customers and business could be the key to getting our name out into the community.

When customers visit the Lemon Collective, they will be able to purchase/have access too our branded products and with this in mind I thought it would be fun to create a few mock-ups using the digital artwork I had created earlier in this brief.

After searching online for a quick and relatively easy way to put artwork onto certain products and merchandise, I came across the following website for mock-up generation:

www.graphicburger.com/mock-ups/

I had a lot of fun creating various mock-ups for our product ideas and also for promotional items such as business cards and billboards/flyers (later post). It was lovely to see our business logo on physical items - making the whole idea of Lemon Collective seem much more viable and realistic. Using these items in our slide show will mean that the audience can get an idea of how we as a business would like to get our name out there and how we view ourselves in terms f our branding and marketing.

Mug mock-up:

- Could be used when providing a bar/cafe service for our customers

- Available to buy from in house shop/given as gifts to customers buying from exhibition/shop/attending workshops

Carrier bag mock-ups:
- To be given to customers once they have purchased something from our bar/cafe/shop/exhibition?
- Available to purchase from our premises and given as freebees/gifts for customers attending workshops etc.

Finished slide:

Lemon Collective - Promotion

When thinking about the variety of ways in which to promote a new business, i started to think about public advertising and how to get our business name out there, hopefully creating intrigue within the community and attracting potential new customers.

Using the photographs taken from our lemon photoshoot around leeds as well as some of the digital illustration I had completed, I was able to create a variety of mock-ups for our business and pitch presentation.

Business card mock-up:

Flyers/poster/leaflet mock-ups:

Billboard/street-sign mock-up:

Shop sign mock-up:

Final slide:

Lemon Collective - Stop Motion Video

When thinking about various way to gain attention and intrigue when promoting our collective business, we decided on a fun and creative way to advertise ourselves. Still images are one thing, but moving image has always proved to be a key and effective way to getting a business noticed. With this in mind, we decided to create a quick stop motion video with a fun and inviting tone of voice, keeping our business concept, name and logo in mind... LEMONS! Still photographs were taken of the subject and Sophie was able to put the sequence together in Adobe After Effects.

This stop motion video can be used in a variety of ways. It could appear, as we first intended, on our Kickstarter donation page, as well as on various social media sites to promote our business. It could also be played as a looping GIF, "meme" or banner/advert on sites which aren't necessarily our own, widening our business footprint and hopefully steering future custom our way.

Lemon Collective - Slide Artwork

In keeping with our business name, proposal and overarching theme, as a group we thought it would be nice to create some small illustrations that could be used on our slides - hopefully keeping the whole presentation looking consistent and part of the bigger package. The illustrations themselves helped to add colour and aesthetics to the presentation, whilst also adding a professional "finished" and considered feel to our pitch.

Here I created some small illustrations using Adobe Photoshop, keeping in mind the logo created by Sophie. After these illustrations were completed, I was able to apply them to the slides I had the responsibility of completing.

Use of artwork for various merchandise, promotional products and slides throughout the pitch presentation:

Lemon Photoshoot

To give us a basis to begin designing for our promotion and merchandise products, other than our own illustrations - we thought it would be a fun idea to photograph some lemons. This may have been an obvious choice, however in creating promotional material in keeping with our simple business name and business ethics (creative, fun, enthusiastic) - it turned out to be a useful idea.

Drawing portraits on the 5 lemons (portraits reflective of each individual member of our Lemon Collective), Sam, Tilly and I took them for a photoshoot around Leeds. Placing such a bright object in random places helped us to produce some fun imagery and I began to think of ideas for how these images could be used for a variety of sticker products, posters, fliers, billboards etc.

 

Going out, buying some lemons and thinking about their creative placement within the community of Leeds was something that helped me to become a lot more attached to our Lemon Collective business idea. Seeing how well our brand is coming together, even aesthetically, all from a really simple concept is really rewarding. I can see how this could actually work.

NEW NAME!!!

Following on from a previous session regarding our name, it was suggested that the "Penpot Collective" wasn't interesting or "punchy" enough. Looking back over the very many names I had come up with, the group decided on something new:

We are now known as the

LEMON COLLECTIVE

I think this name is fun, interesting, quirky, welcoming and overall a great choice. It will also help us with our branding in terms of promotion and marketing as a simple subject such as a lemon is light hearted in its tone of voice and aesthetically pleasing as a logo and overall theme of our business etc.

"Life's a Pitch" - Marketing/Research

As a business we need to understand what our target market and customer base wants. Market research is key to determining customer and community needs. Think about how to introduce products and/or organisation, pricing and business costs. non-profit.

Advertising is a way of marketing our business, fit under the umbrella. Marketing encompasses a range of different thinks and it is important not to get mixed up between advertising and the larger picture of marketing.

Distribution, networks - buying into the brand and what our product culture is.
The creative process.



What can be marketed?
Goods/products, services, customer skills, experiences, practitioner personalities and approachability, organisations, properties, information, ideas and concepts.

The 4 P's

1. Product

2. Price

3. Place

4. Promotion

We are aiming to market an intangible service - not necessarily a particular "product/goods".
We need to consider as a business how we go about this and who to aim/communicate this too.

Benefits of marketing:
- allows you to expose and promote your service
- helps you understand what unique needs your service meets
- marketing delivers the message and philosophy underpinning your service
- helps differentiate difference between your service and competitors
- identify a range of audiences

Market research:
Primary- new data specifics that haven't been collected before
Secondary- gathering existing data.

Data:
- Factual information is called quantitive data.
- Information collected about opinions and views is called qualitative date.

S.W.O.T

"STRENGTHS, WEAKNESSES,

 OPPORTUNITIES, THREATS"

SWOT for our business proposal/idea:
Strengths
Non-profit organisation/business
Community based ( helping people from a range of backgrounds in local areas)
Educational purposes - Providing a learning environment.
Locally sourced products- giving back to the community and helping support other local businesses.

Weaknesses
Currently we done have the networks/contacts we need to get us started as a business. We need illustrators to rent the hot-desks/studio spaces in order to start generating money before we can set up the cafe side.
We need the perfect kind of space in the perfect location for what we aim to do. Environment is key for successful creativity
We want to be eco-friendly which is great, but could be expensive/unprofitable and effect the amount of funds we have to put back into the business.

Opportunities
 We would like to gold interesting and immersive events. With careful research into already existing events, we could go one step further.
We would also get in touch with existing events and see if we could collaborate or get ourselves involved. Not only would this publicise who we are and what we do but it would also kick start our networking opportunities.
Workshops, fun days, exhibitions and events are just a few of the many opportunities we could have. Exhibition space on walls for local practitioners to showcase their work  - free to hang work, we take 40% commission from sales?

Threats
Any competition we face, e.g... coffee shops, other art based venues, other running workshops.
We are all different as individuals. Although we aim to capital on this - working in a group could also be a potential threat if we were to come across any prominent disagreements.

OUIL504 Summative Evaluation

OUIL504 Process & Production

Jessica Dawson

jd255593

BA (Hons) Illustration - Level 5

Summative Evaluation

Throughout this long module I feel I have been introduced to and undertaken many new techniques and processes key to the development of my own individual practice. Attending workshops such as lino print and monoprint steered me on the path to using new process to me altogether such as lino cutting, which I went on to develop and master for the final printed aspect of this module. It is because of this that I have resulted in creating some of the best work I have done to date, with the massive help of staff and the amazing resources available to us on this course.

The Adobe After Effects workshops have enabled me to learn a brand new and important piece of software, which I think will be really helpful to me in the future as I continue to try a wide range of techniques and strive to be as diverse as possible in my approach to briefs that come my way. 

Progressing from having no skills at the beginning of this module in these areas, to now feeling proud of what I have achieved and excited to use these skills in the future has been a valuable journey for me and I am glad I stepped out of my comfort zone and tried something new with successful results.

In terms of personal skills that I have developed, I feel I have gained a lot of confidence throughout this module and applied myself with much more dedication than I ever have with any work I have done before. The lino cuts as part of the printed element of this module have a lot of time invested in them and the perseverance and level of focus it took to continue on cutting every day for 5 weeks, despite many people telling me to do otherwise, really paid off. I have learned that anything, any idea, any aim is possible if you are dedicated and are willing to spend the time to get it right. I no longer feel I need the praise and support from peers with regards to this, although it is always welcome and have really enjoyed creating a strong final body of work for myself, with my own expectations in mind.

I feel that the strengths of my submission are my lino cut prints and my animation. Both final results came together better than I could have hoped for and have opened up a whole new way of working which I plan on developing further in the future. My lino cut plates became extremely important to me, and have been the focus of my life (and family and friends lives) for the past few months. Creating artwork this way feels very organic and physical and I feel that the results became a lot more important to me because of this, whilst also feeling I had a true connection with the imagery I was creating.

I have always approached my own illustrative practice in a mainly analogue way, and to have now completed an animation and enjoyed the process has given me the confidence to try other things I am not used too.

A major weakness clear in my submission is my lack of development work. Absence due to health and personal problems has been a key factor in this and despite being pleased with my final outcomes for this module, I am disappointed in how I got there. Experimenting, developing, investigating, testing and researching are all major parts of the process in creating a full body of work and I wish I had invested more of my time in these aspects instead of the amount of time spent on my final prints.

This module has been a big eye-opener for me in terms of the flaws in the way I work within my practice and how I approach my workload. I need to be able to balance all aspects of this course as well as life outside of university in order to stay healthy, positively minded and motivated to progress. I ned to be able to approach new tasks with a more open mind and develop my ideas in depth in order to push my practice in new directions. I need to find a way of developing and pushing my own boundaries whilst remaining realistic to what is achievable.

In the future I will be more dedicated to the journey of creating, not settle for one idea but instead explore many possibilities and approaches, and manage my time 100% better than I have throughout this module. I will have improved studio presence, interact with my peers and tutors, communicate and overall be more involved in university life and what it has to offer me throughout the rest of my degree in terms of my development as an Illustrator.

Market Research / Competitors

Leeds based competitors

Munro House
Street/customer view:

Website: http://munro-house.co.uk/

Products/services: A gallery showcasing local/visiting practitioners and up-and-coming illustrators/designers. A cafe/bar for launches/events and any customers visiting the gallery or shop.
The space available at Munro House for specific exhibitions and events is great and we hope to be able to offer these services in our business premises, to increase profit and status within the local creative community.

Colours May Vary
Street/customer view:

Website: http://www.colours-may-vary.com/

Products/services: Shop with high quality selection of creative products such as zines, magazines, journals etc. The set up of colours may vary is an inspiring one. The way in which each product is chosen and how they work as part of an in depth resource on show for customers to buy is how I envisage our in-shop store as part of our business concept. You need to be able to pick up, read, sample the products on offer and be able to pop in for a little inspiration or visit the current exhibition at Munro House next door. A space like on offer at colours may vary is also great for special events/parties/launches, which we hope to be able to offer as part of our business also.

Duke Studios
Street/customer view:

Website: http://duke-studios.com/

Products/services: Provides a hot-desk/studio space for practitioners and individuals interested in creativity to work within a creative hub and network in a co-working collaborating environment. 
I think Duke Studios website is a great portrayal of their business and what they have to offer the community. I especially like the ay in which the website clearly states what they want to achieve as a business and what their ethos is all about. How Duke Studios have on their website, I hope we as a collective based business can put across our concepts and ethos as clearly in our pitch/presentation.

Social media

 

All of our competitors are on social media, showing the importance of social status within the community and marketing our business ethos. Also a great way to advise public of up-coming events, exhibitions, workshops, in-house deals, new products etc - all of which we hope to be able to do by also having a social media presence for our business.