Idea/Proposal

My proposal for the jamesons app is too create a game based of off their existing tall tales ad campaigns. The adverts which I have covered in an earlier post show John Jameson rescuing his whiskey from a four different predicaments, this gave me the idea to recreate these situations as addictive little games that whilst will not be over complicated will hopefully draw users in. I plan to stay true the jamesons brand and use there colour scheme and a typography similar to there which I have been through in earlier posts. 

I think this app idea will work as it keeps with the brand and builds on an already successful ad campaign, which with it's popularity amongst the jamesons customer will hopefully make the app a popular with them. 

Wireframes

Before I pitch my ideas to the class I made some very basic wireframes of how I am planning some of my app screen to look at this moment in time. I think however that these are likely to change depending on how the artwork goes once I have started to make it.

These wire frames being the general idea for most of the app I have however thought more about using nav menues at the top of the page. The white on the wireframes will be a background for the menues this will be a green gradient popular in the jamesons brand. 

Colours

For the colours I decided to stick to the brand a much a possible as it keeps the theme with the brand, this would give me a nice range of colours to use and also keep the bulk of my design in the elegant green gradients that jamesons use throughout there website/brand.

Typography

After doing some research I discovered that the main font used by jamesons whiskey is actually a font called jamesons which I was unable to find. However after looking for similar fonts and others that I thought suited the brand I have decided to use 'garabond' as the main type face for my project. It has a vintage look which is similar to the jamesons font itself, this look also gives the feel that it comes from the 1700/1800's around the time jamesons was established. 

So I very much thought that it suited the brand and as well as being able to be used on it's own the type face also looks right when used on images that feature the actual company font which is a big positive as I had plans to use the bottles and barrel as part of my artwork. 

Overall I think this font will work well for headers and short amount of text, I may however look for a less stylised/retro font for some of the text on the app particularly if it is long. I'm not sure what fonts what fonts will work for this purpose yet, but again I want to find something that I think suits the brand and does not look out of place when it all comes together. 

Chosen Brand

For my brand I decided that Jameson's whiskey was the brand that I wanted to go with, I chose jameson's over the other brands for a number of reasons. The two main reasons being that they have a unique ad campaign which is very popular amongst customers and has also won awards. The live action adverts which I have covered in another post really drew me in and I think that I could use these in my ideas for the jamesons app. 

The second big reason that I decided to go with jamesons is the history of the brand, the website talks a lot abut being a family brand and how John Jameson the founder and owner was one of the workers and had a personal connection with each of them e.g. through the use of a nickname for each worker. These types of stories and info on the website really bring out the family feel the brand wants that all the workers love working there and make the whiskey with passion, as well as this it really shows you how the brand want you to see john jameson as a unique boss who everyone liked. 

Overall I think the brand has a strong existing campaign and a history that I will be able to use to my advantage to make an app that really suits the brand. 

Existing Alcohol Apps

Part of the research for this project is to look into existing apps that are based on drinking to see what is out there but also for inspiration on what works and what doesn't. To start with I just searched for drinking apps which gave me loads of options so to narrow this down I looked for top 10 lists and top rated apps this gave me some good apps that are popular and mostly current. 

General Drinking Apps - 

Untappd - The first app is called untappd and is described as a free social app for beers, it has a lot of features allowing users to check and rate beers add personal taste notes as well as checking what your friends are drinking letting you 'toast' them as well as allowing you to check into the venue you drinking at. This to me is a really good concept for an app as the features really give you freedom to do what you want with the app. Also how good the app is will come from how many users are active on it,  which to me could go either way as whilst their are a lot of beer enthusiasts in the world the question is how many of these will take time to use and update the app. I really like the massive social aspect of the app but for my project I'm not sure if this is the route I wanna take.








Hello Vino - This app is rated the best app for wine shoppers and is a simple idea but very useful in the way it's done. It's a step by step question and answer process which results in a wine recommendation based on your answers. Based on a number of factors such as pairing the wine with a meal, wine for an occasion, wine based on flavours or country/region. I think this is a very useful app and the topic of wine suits this idea very well with there being many options and types. Whilst it's not really something I can use for my chosen brand it could be something that I mix in building a app that recommends different recipes or occasions to use my chosen brand. 


Mixology - This is the highest rated and most downloaded cocktail app available it is an example of the recipe style app I mentioned previously. It has over 8000 drinks and mixes these in with some useful options such as highest rated drink and searching by ingredient or even a bar finder. As an app for drinks overall this works as the options of drinks and massive but using a similar theme for my app would have to be done right as the options a much more limited. 






Branded Drinking Apps - 

Stella Artois - Stella Artois have a couple of apps out that offer different services one of them works as a bar finder called 'Le Bar Guide' It finds and highlights bars on a map it also rates these bars out of 10 gives them a feeling for the bar such as 'spirited' It also gives key words for the bars such as Crowded, busy, patio etc. Overall it's a good looking app and I can see how it would be useful on a night out it also gives it a more personal touch to stella by offering options such as rating the pour of the stella. For my project I could do a similar thing but the options of bars where the drink is available is pretty much everywhere now so adding the options which detail the style and feel of a bar which could be a useful app for users of my brand.  

The second app Stella use is a 9 step pouring ritual which is more of a entertainment app than something of use. It goes through the 9 steps of pouring to try and teach people to pour a stella properly outside of the app. The reviews i've seen for the app haven't been positive however without using it myself it's hard to judge. 

Overall the visual styles of these app suit the brand of stella artois with the colour scheme they use and the typography. As well as the elegant rich feel they create.

Jameson's Whiskey Advertising

In recent times the way Jameson's whiskey has been advertised is a very specific way and style where they have created the character John Jameson. The adverts make him out to be superhuman heroic character who saves his whiskey and protects the secrets of how it is made,  this also makes the whiskey seem to be more important than life. The adverts are clever in the way they do this more so the printed ads than the tv spot as the tag-lines used with the imagery have a comedic style to them that mix with the imagery really well.

For example this advert shows this really well as the tag line says he's 'holding on for dear life' which you assume to mean the branch but then it continues to say 'with the other hand I clutched the nearest branch.' Showing that the whiskey is worth dying for and more important than Jamesons own life.  This is the theme for this particular set of jamesons adverts that all have there own tagline which makes the whiskey seem loved and overstate it's importance in most cases, they also make Jamesons seem heroic and superhuman. The adverts all follow the same art style which is a really detailed style that depicts vintage scenes with the tagline telling the story in a short and often clever way.  The slogan 'Taste above all else' adds to this by making it clear why he is saving or defending the whiskey and why others want it or are protecting it this being the taste.

Here are a few more examples - 

For my app I could play on the theme they have set out here using a backdrop of a story where jameson rescues or defend the whiskey in someway this could work well in a game or some sort of information app where this story would be going on in the background. 

The TV and web commercials are a series based around these posters, the series is called tall tales so as you'd expect they put jameson in a unlikely story that he triumphs from to save his whiskey.  The adverts have been very successful and are very well shot and made especially to get a story across in the short time they have of 30 - 1:30. The adverts could be very useful for my project giving me story's that I could use as the base for a game or as a backdrop to an information app as I mentioned earlier. It also gives me the possibility to make a new story and tell this someway through the app. 

Overall this ad campaign has been very successful for jamesons and this gives me a chance to build on this and make an app that suits the brand and the campaign. 

The series - 

AF201/202 - The New Brief

Today we were set the brief for the new project which is titled 'Drinks Promotion: ipad/iphone app and Animated teaser' For this project I have to create an app based on an brand of alcoholic drink that offers something useful, informative or entertaining to the user based on my chosen brand. As well as this I need to make a 15 second animation which works as a trailer for my app with the aim of generating traffic for the app.

The brief also states that I must research alcohol brands and advertising as well as undertake visual research to help me develop a visual theme for my project which is suitable to the brand I choose. Fitting with the culture and values of the brand whilst bringing it to life, as well as choosing a piece of music that fits with this. 

The final outcomes for this assignment are 

• A pitch presentation of my ideas 
• A trailer for the app (.mov) 
• a dynamic visualisation of the app (walkthrough of how the app works) (.mov)
• Sketchbook 
• Blog  

Key dates - 

• Pitch - Monday 25th November 
• Crit - Monday 9th December
• Final deadline - Wednesday 11th December (By 12:00pm)

My Thoughts - 

I think this is an interesting brief which covers new ground in a way because we have to base our visual style on an existing brand and follow there values and style, which is not something we've ever really done. I think it will be a good experience to do this and hopefully I choose the right brand to do this for. My initial ideas are to base the project on brands that mean something to me in some way such as Jameson's, Magners and Guiness. As for the content i'm hoping I will get an idea from my research once I have looked into some brands.                                                                         

Evaluation

I've now finished the project and looking back on my progress I am fairly happy with work and my final product. Being the first project of my second it was difficult at first to get back into the process of designing. As well as this it seemed to be a really short project so there was no time to put it off or procrastinate as I needed to have an idea as soon as possible as there was only four weeks until pitch. At first this seemed daunting but after researching into climate change and how transport and food sectors affect this I started to get some ideas about where I wanted to go with my work. 

After deciding on an idea based around food miles I create loads of storyboards and sketches on the different scenes of the animation based on what I thought would and wouldn't work. This gave me a good basis for the pitch however I had not time to draw any basic digital artwork so just showing sketches for my ideas and my animatic during the pitch didn't really help me get across what I wanted my visual language to be. However that being said I hope that the types of animations I showed during pitch that inspired gave at least a rough idea of what I wanted mine to look like. 

So after the pitch was done the next step was to build the animation in after effects being new to the program I was concerned about making it in time for pitch. But once I was in the program and got playing with the different features it was fun to seeing what worked and what didn't. With my planning it also meant I wasn't creating the animation as I went along so this made it easier to use pre-comps to make parts that I  would need such as a walking animation.  It took a long time to build as I was new to the software but at the same time I was learning as I was going so it was a very useful process. 

So the final product, after making the changes suggested at pitch I was happy with my animation for the most part. I still feel like there are sections that could be tidier and some of the animations could be smoother. However as my first project in after effects I am happy with how it turned out and it is closer to the idea I had in my head than I thought I would achieve. 

For the sketchbook and blog I found it difficult to to get back into the process of keeping these up to date. With the sketchbook I found it really useful to plan my animation and draw out characters and how  I wanted the different elements to look. But after I got to the stage where I felt I could move onto software I didn't really know what else to use it for. For the blog I think I kept a basic update of my progress throughout but could of done more. 

Overall I am pleased with my work for this project being the first project of the second year with little time to use I think I got back into the process of designing fairly well. Also as I said it was my first time using after effects so learning this was useful but also difficult especially with the deadlines so I am happy with my final animation but I think I could of done more to go with this which is disappointing but gives me something to aim for. 

Colours

For my colours I decided I wanted to combine different parts of the animations I had researched an liked. As I though this would give a nice mix of brighter colours but also these boring browns and greys. My plan with colour is to use the darker colours on the parts of the animation that are bad such as the food being driven around. Then to use the brighter colours to show the positive side such as veg being grown. I think this will give the animation a nice balance of colour but also help get the message across and show the viewer what is good and bad in a subtle way. 

Crit

So the crit was on monday and I showed my work so far which was a near finished version of my animation. That being said I got some very useful feedback during the process, on stuff I could change or add to help imrove the animation. 

The suggestions - 

• Change speed of truck at city scene to make them fit in with plane landing. 
• Fix speed issue with final truck at city scene to stop it flying off.
• Add colour to grass with vegetable patch to help show it's positive. 
• Edit final text so it makes sense. 
• Add grainy textures to backgrounds to add retro feel 

Since the crit I have begun making these changes starting with fixing the speed of the trucks so they fit in with the airplane landing. Which now looks better and I much prefer it this way. Hopefully the other changes will be similar when I make them and really improve my work. 

Pre-Comping

One of the techniques that was suggested to me was pre-comping which I found very useful and used it a lot through out my animation it's a really good way of creating walking or driving animations for example and then adding them to the main composition.  

Also the time-stretch and remapping options helps to speed up a pre comp of loop it for example I used both of these options on my walking pre-comp to loop it so the guy keeps walking but a lot time-stretch to speed him up so he goes with the speed of the animation.