1.Brief
According to The song “The Mercy Seat” sung by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, each of our team members made a book with The lyrics, and cooperated to complete The promotion and publicity work to introduce our work to The world.
2. Meeting notes
（1）First meeting
Our first meeting was held on Teams. First, we showed each other finished drawings of project 2 and explained the ideas, which allowed us to learn a lot from each other. We found that most of the team members were going to make paper books, not e-books. Therefore, we initially decided to make videos to publicize our flat books in the form of videos. Allen suggested that the style of the video could be retro, 80s style, and we also found corresponding resources and videos. Then we discussed the aspects we are good at and the software we can master well.
Personal Skills
Allen: Dynamic Visual Design
(Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, After Effect, C4D)
Bolang: Graphic Design
(Illustrator, Photoshop)
Susan(me): Graphic Design, Illustration
(Illustrator, Photoshop, After Effect, C4D)
Song: Graphic Design, Video, Drawing
(Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effect, Premiere Pro)
Xiaoyu: Environmental Art Design
(C4D, Illustrator, Photoshop)
（2）Second meeting
In the second meeting, we mainly shared some references and reference materials found by team members, including directions of various aspects, videos, installation design, online exhibition, etc. Finally, we determined the video as the main form to show our work, and made a preliminary division of labor. Since we thought that the early work was suitable for group members to do together, we did not take charge of one position according to the brief requirement at the beginning, but made visual assignments together.
（3）Third meeting
At the third meeting, we had a heated discussion. We first reported the task completion of each of us last week, me (Zhang) and Allen finished the storyboard.
A man suddenly wakes up in an empty room with only a computer
I forgot who he was
Open the computer
→ Computer screen malfunction
→ Open the E-mail, the criminal’s resume is himself
→ Project coverage
→ Failure transition, five people’s works appear
→ Five people work introduction (dynamic poster)
Song drew a sketch and a rough draft of the logo
Our group was re-divided as follows:
3. Outcome
Creative director（Susan）
Susan is mainly responsible for communicating with our team members and deciding on our design plan as a leading member. At the same time, she also presided over and took minutes of the meeting, and made PPT for the presentation and delivered the speech. She is the ‘ spokesperson’ of our group.
Social media&marketing (Zhang)
I was responsible for preliminary market research and social platform publicity. Based on the results, I found the exact target group and made pact analysis charts and Personas to fully analyze the characteristics of these groups and their common social platforms. Then we analyze our competitors at this stage and learn from their strengths. Finally, Susan and I were responsible for putting the promotional videos and posters on YouTube and instagram.
Social networking platform：
You can access it through the following buttons：
This is my marketing and social media copywriter：
Brand design (Song）
“An eye for a tooth, an eye for an eye” is a line from our book. We extracted the two elements of “eye” and “tooth” to design the logo. There are both eyeballs and upside-down teeth in the logo, which exudes a strange atmosphere, very consistent with the atmosphere of the poem. He also created a visual poster that incorporated design elements from all five of us.
Video design（Bolang & Allen）
Bolang and Allen share responsibility for video, code design and dynamic design. They created a dynamic logo and created a vibrant poster for each of our work that reflected both our personal characteristics and our common themes. Then they made a long video to finish our work.
Personal statement
Introduce
In our team, I was mainly responsible for marketing and social media. I also participated in the creative discussion of videos and the drawing of sketches in the early stage. I choose this position because first of all, I was responsible for the social media account of the student union when I was in undergraduate period, so I have experience in this field. Secondly, I am very interested in social media. I am active on various social platforms, so I have certain confidence to complete this job.
Working process
In the early stage, I was responsible for part of the video creative discussion and sketch drawing, which was something I had never experienced before, so I didn’t know what to do, but with the help of the team members, we also completed this part of the content. From there, I focused on marketing and social media. After two meetings, our team decided to name our team is 404 Not Found, target millennials who love subcultures, and define the concept of our brand. Then I began to do a lot of research, collecting a lot of information about subculture from the Internet, and through the data, I learned that the social entertainment platforms favored by subculture youth are mainly on Instagram and YouTube, which also determines the propaganda and delivery platform of our brand. Then I made PACT system to analyze the youth characteristics of subculture and made personas. At the same time, the analysis of similar competitors’ products and publicity channels enables us to have a more comprehensive understanding of the real situation in the current market, and learn the successful parts to avoid the wrong part. Finally, after discussion in group meeting, the marketing strategy of our brand was determined.
We established social accounts belonging to our brand and put them on Instagram and YouTube to complete the launch of product promotion.
Difficulties and challenges
In the whole process of work, our group held four meetings, but I have to say that the first two meetings were not efficient, probably because we were not familiar with each other and were ashamed to speak. However, in the later meeting, our group’s efficiency was improved and everyone became active. At the beginning of the research, I put too much scope, which caused the target audience to be very vague, and thus fell into a deadlock. Fortunately, we finally defined the final theme in the discussion of each meeting, and my work proceeded smoothly.
Conclusion
This group work has made me learn a lot. On the one hand, I have systematically learned the steps and working process of promoting a brand through marketing and social media. Although I may still have many deficiencies, I have also learned a lot in practice. On the other hand, it also made me realize the importance of communication and cooperation with team members. In order to achieve the success of the team, it is not possible to rely on oneself. Only by communicating with team members can we improve each other and make the whole work more smoothly.