Thursday, January 23, 2014

VIA Special Assignment





Purpose
• To visit a local advertising agency in order to gain an understanding of the many possible career opportunities
• To engage in a fictitious design problem with authentic graphic designers
• To present and receive feedback about your artwork from authentic graphic designers


Visit 1:
        I found our field-trip to VIA to be exceptionally worthwhile. Taking this trip taught me much new information involving the way VIA operates, the types of advertisements they produce, the tasks carried out by each of the various staff members, and much more. One thing that surprised me was the broad range of advertising they take on. The word advertising covers a lot of ground, much more than this eleven letter word suggests. Advertising ranges from posters, to flyers, to commercials, to bumper stickers, and countless more. Before this trip, I was aware that there were many different kinds of advertising. However, I was not aware that it was possible to have an agency specializing in all of these (i.e. graphic posters, television commercials, etc). This was proven evident to me when we were shown a video including six of their ads for their most acclaimed clients. The advertisements created each of these companies included a commercial for a tequila brand, a new package design for a chicken company, posters for a headphone brand, and more. Thus, as you can see, VIA embraces the entire scope of advertising.
        Furthermore, our trip to VIA helped me become more confident, optimistic, and excited to enter the workforce in my future. Knowing that I’ve wanted to pursue a creative career for a while now, this trip only further settled this. The creative, unique, and collaborative environment of VIA is something that I know I want to experience in my life. Overall, our field-trip to VIA taught me an incredible amount. It was an experience involving the learning of much new knowledge, the meeting of incredibly creative, kind, and inspirational people, and the participation in an unique and imaginative team-task.

Visit 2:

        I had a wonderful time on our second visit to VIA. The creative atmosphere, friendly people, and extremely unique decor is unlike any other “office” building I have ever stepped foot in. There’s something about the vibe at VIA that I find extremely welcoming, energizing, and refreshing. Knowing that I speak for myself and, based on the bus ride there, everyone else, we were very nervous to present our logos. Although we knew from the previous visit that the staff is extremely kind and supportive, we were still a bit timid knowing we were going to present to professionals who do this for a living. Nevertheless, when we got there, we were immediately brought to the upstairs “loft,” offered OTTO’s pizza, drinks, and seats on the comfy, leather sofas. Thus, this forced us to loosen up a bit. As we ate our pizza and hung out, various employees began making their way up to the loft to listen to our presentations. After a brief introduction from Teddy, it was time to present. We started by presenting our logos for the “green burial” scenario. I found this a bit easier to present, as it was with a larger group and a pre-created situation. When it was Casey, Abby, and my turn, we made our way to the front of the room and began talking about “Corpse-2-Compost.” Once we started sharing our work, my nerves went down substantially. Due to periodic questions, laughs, and constructive comments, I felt as if I was talking to a group of fellow peers instead of a group of professional designers. I also found the feedback extremely helpful and applicable, noticing that they all made an effort to deeply understand the process we went through in designing our logo’s as well as why we did what we did. In other words, what was the meaning we were trying to convey? In addition to noticing their attentiveness, they were very positive in their feedback; they all looked for at least one good thing they liked and that worked well in our logo, name, tagline ideas, and marketing concepts.
        When the time came to present our personal logo, I felt a bit more pressure, as it is for mine and Casey’s actual business. However, we were both very pleased with the feedback. They liked our logo very much and made some very interesting suggestions as to how to improve various aspects of our business. For example, one suggestion involved using an actual feather as a tag attached to each shirt as opposed to a printed feather on paper. I thought this was a really unique, creative, and memorable idea! Overall, our trip to VIA was a great experience. I found that it was a great learning experience, as public speaking isn’t my strong-suit. I also learned a lot from everyone’s feedback, both positive and constructive. All and all, I am very thankful to all of the VIA employees who took the time out of their day to come and listen to us present and am very glad and appreciative that we were given this opportunity!

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