Monday, 22 June 2015

Session 8-2 Create your Print material

Things to NOTE when creating your print materials

Spelling and Grammar

Please make sure that you proof read your content to make sure that all spelling is correct (unless purposely wrong for effect) and your grammar and punctuation is used correctly and matches the tone and target audience of your publication.




https://cybertext.wordpress.com/2012/11/22/a-light-hearted-look-at-how-punctuation-can-change-meaning/

http://www.future-perfect.co.uk/grammar-tip/fun-with-punctuation/

Fonts and Kerning

http://www.boredpanda.com/funny-letter-spacing-fails/


Colours


http://www.sitepoint.com/10-troublesome-colors-to-avoid-in-your-advertising/


FINAL ASSESSMENT

Create 4 pieces of print material as per your marketing plan

See assessment sheet for full details

Social Media Marketing

As well as print based marketing, you can also use the power of the web and Social Media. Here are a couple of articles if you are interested.

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/essential-elements-social-media-marketing-strategy/



Session 8-1 Create a facebook group or page cover photo

Final Assessment

No new work today - just your final small assessment task, which is to create an image from scratch. This should be easy as we had some good practice last week.

Mysty River Library services needs a new cover photo for their library page. They also have a couple of Facebook groups that they administrate.

Create a cover photo for any one of the following:

Mysty River Regional Library Services (MRRLS) Facebook Page
Mysty River Regional Library Service (MRRLS) Homework Club (Closed Group)
Mysty River Regional Library Services (MRRLS) Book Club (Closed Group)
Mysty River Regional Library Services (MRRLS) Young Mums group (Closed Group)

AND just because it is the last assessment, any group that you can think of that would be relevant for MRRLS.

This worth 10% and graded based on good quality graphics relevant for the chosen topic.

Facebook Cover Photos

Last week we looked at the dimensions for a Facebook Cover page for your personal profile. From my research, the dimensions for a cover page for a Group or a Facebook Page are as follows:

Group 801 X 250 pixels

Page 851 X 315 pixels

Upload your picture when completed. If you like, you may also share in our Facebook Group. I completed one just to show you how bad my design skills are. Don't laugh........

Setting your Dimensions in Pixlr



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Monday, 15 June 2015

Session 7-2 Non Paper based marketing items

As well as paper based marketing materials, novelty items are often used as marketing tools. Some are very cheap, and some are more upmarket and can be expensive. When you run an event, there is an expectation that you might get some free stuff if you attend - and everyone loves free stuff.

https://www.promotionsonly.com.au/




http://www.dynamicgift.com.au/





Activity

1. Find 3 websites (not the 2 above) that you could use to order promotional material that is not paper based.

2. For each of the scenarios below, select 3 marketing items that may be suitable. Justify your response. Think about the target market when selecting the items.

a. To try and get some of the resources that are about to be written off back into the library, South East TAFE will be having an amnesty on fines during November.

b. Mysty River Regional Library services will be running special school holiday events

c. The grand opening of the new branch of Mysty River Regional Library services will be on Saturday the 25th October. There will be activities for young children such as a petting farm and the multimedia games section will be open for teenagers with a singstar sing-off.

d. In November, the library will be running some classes on using iPads, Android tablets and e-readers with a focus on senior members (over 60). A government grant has been provided as part of an Accessibility program rather than stocking the limited number of large print books.



Session 7-1 Using the Pixlr Editor

The Pixlr Editor Tools

The Toolbar is located on the left hand side of the screen.


This is a bit messy, but the following image explains what each of the tools do. It kinda grew as I was going.


The best way to see what these tools do is to play with them!! So here we go.

I will start with some of the photo editing tools and go from there. For this exercise, I have loaded an image from my computer.

Marquee, Lasso and Wand

The Magic Wand tool allows you to select pixels within a colour range. You can increase the tolerance to select a larger variation from the selection. If you hold the Shift key down, you can add to your selection.


Once you are happy with the selection, you can apply a variety of tools or you can copy and paste it onto another image. The magic wand works best when there are solid colours. To see how well this worked on my image, I will invert the selection and cut the selection.


Not perfect, but not too bad.

The Lasso tool allows you to draw around the edge of the item you want to select. There are 2 different lasso tools that you can select from the options. The freehand lasso and the polygonal lasso. The freehand lasso is where you can use the mouse to trace over the selection. The polygonal tool allows you to click the mouse and place markers along the way. Shift key adds and the Alt (option) key subtracts points.



A simple Cut and Paste onto another image will show how well my selection went.


Activity 1

Use the selection tools to cut/paste/combine a couple of images together to create a new image.

Post your result onto our Facebook group for critique.

Drawing tools


For this exercise, I have started an image from scratch using the default size


You can start by adding a plain or gradient background colour, or create colours using shapes. All of the tools have separate options so make sure that you look at what is available.





When you use the gradient tool, you can use one of the predefined styles or create your own.



Lots of different brushes available. Use the More button to add them to your pallette.




So my masterpiece......



Text

The Text tool allows you to add text to your image. You can change font, size and text colour.



Activity 2

Use the drawing tools to create a "masterpiece" like my amazing work of art.


Photo Editing Tools

Colour Replacement

You can use the Colour Replacement tool to change a colour within your image. The colour replacement tool keeps the original shadings of your selection and colours it to your main coour.

From Girlie Pink to fluoro green.



You can use the Clone tool to remove items from your image.


Take a sample from somewhere near that can replace the area you are removing, and then just paint away.



Lots of tutorials available on the website blog
https://support.pixlr.com/hc/en-us/sections/200581900-Pixlr-Editor

You can even use Pixlr to create a fancy timeline banner for Facebook.

Final Assessment

Download the Facebook template from Pixlr support and create a banner that incorporates your profile picture or create a Facebook banner for a library or other group of your choice.

https://support.pixlr.com/hc/en-us/articles/209349878-Customize-your-Facebook-profile-timeline-with-a-Pixlr-Editor-template

Share your creation on our Facebook group and tag me in it. Complete and upload the cover sheet, stating that you have uploaded your photo to Facebook.





Monday, 8 June 2015

Session 6-2 Create your Marketing plan

In our first session, we had a look at the definition of marketing and read a few articles on why we should create a marketing plan. The reason we create a marketing plan is to get clear objectives as to what we want  to achieve with a particular marketing campaign and be able to measure our success.

Today we are going to create our marketing plan with the second stage being to create the marketing material defined in our plan.

You may use a template to create your marketing plan (see link from week 1) or you use the headings in the Our Community website link.

Week 1 link - Australian Government Business.gov.au
http://www.business.gov.au/business-topics/templates-and-downloads/Pages/marketing-plan-template-and-guide.aspx

Our Community - Not for profit organisations
http://www.ourcommunity.com.au/marketing/marketing_article.jsp?articleId=1510


Assessment Task 1 - GROUP TASK

Your Assessment Task is to create a Marketing Plan and then produce marketing materials for a particular scenario. Your marketing plan should include details of at least 4 print based materials, which you will each have to create for Assessment Task 2, plus 2 other items of promotional material, which we will look at next week. You are to choose from one of the scenarios below.

Decide as a group which scenario you would like to do and work on creating the marketing plan AS A GROUP using the shared document on Google Drive.

DO NOT DELETE ANOTHER PERSONS WORK - Just add your ideas underneath. Once everyone has contributed, we can decide on what needs to stay for our end document.

1.     You work in a primary school library. The State Government has allocated funds and built the school a new resource centre. In typical Government style, they built the centre, but did not provide sufficient funds to adequately resource the new centre. You need to create a marketing plan and promotional material that will allow you to raise funds for the resource centre. You initial aim is to raise $20,000. You may make any reasonable assumptions about the organisation and goals.

2.    You work for a public library located in a growth corridor of Melbourne. Although the library is quite successful, you have noticed that there has been a drop in the number of young people who have been using the library. You need to create a marketing plan and promotional materials to promote the library as a fun place to visit.

3.    You work for a public library located in a growth corridor of Melbourne. Although the library is quite successful, you have noticed that there has been a drop in the number of older people who have been using the library (60+). You need to create a marketing plan and promotional materials to promote the library as a place where older community members are welcome and catered for.

4.    You work in a Secondary College library in what would be considered a disadvantaged area. The problem is that the culture of the demographic is that it is extremely “uncool” to visit the library, and students who regularly stay to study there have been the victims of some bullying and name calling. You need to create a marketing plan and promotional material to change this attitude and increase the popularity of the library.

5.    You work in the library of a well-known and respected University that has a large number of International students. Your job is to create a marketing plan and promotional material that can be included in a “welcome pack” for new students. It needs to have a focus on International students, but should also be suitable for all new students.

To start with, you will need to come up with a name for your organisation and some fictional background information (fictional, but must sound real).





Sunday, 7 June 2015

Session 6-1 Online Photo and Video sharing tools


This week, we will look at a couple of online video/photo sequencing tools. Most of these online tools have a free option that gives you some basic functionality as well as the ability to share your creations.

If you have a facebook account (and you ALL should have), most will allow you to log in using this.

Social Media

In our social media class last term, we discovered a range of photo/video sharing tools that were available. The difference between social media photo/video tools is the amount of "interaction" that both the sharers and the viewers have with each other. Social Media tools allow you to "follow" or "like" posters and to comment on items shared.

Activity 1

Which photo/video sharing sites would you classify as social media/social networking?

Online photo/video tools

There are heaps of tools out there that allow you to create slideshows and/or videos out of your images, without necessarily sharing via social media.

Photo sharing


Photobucket http://photobucket.com/


500px https://500px.com/

Slideshow/video creation


Stupeflix https://studio.stupeflix.com/en/


Roxio Photoshow http://www.photoshow.com/home/start


Slidely http://slidely.com/

Video


YouTube   http://www.youtube.com/editor


Animoto


https://animoto.com/

While there are lots of these tools around - this is one that I have been using for a number of years.

If you would like to try Animoto - I have created some EDU accounts.

Login: chisholmlics+1@gmail.com (chisholmlics+2, chisholmlics+3, chisholmlics+4....15)
Password: cul40111

Activity 2

Find some online Photo sharing, video/slideshow creation or video editing tools.

What do you get for free?
What plans are there for paid services?
Try one out - create a short photo/video clip and share on our Facebook group

ASSESSMENT TASK

Using any tool that you like, create a photo/video story. A video photo story is a sequence of photos and/or videos that have a common theme and/or tell a story. It should be around 3 minutes long.
 

Here are some samples:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YnbVB6tx_4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs9lsC653Do

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1_w9TZ1yQE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg7c18m3GAs