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Laura’s Diary: Day 6 – Bit of everything

Feb 27 | by Laura Allen | Student Work Placements
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Today I’ve been working from home and have made a start on the client questionnaires that I’ve been meaning to make a start on for a while now.  After doing this I began typing up my marketing tips- yes I’m still doing them, although I don’t think I’ve mentioned them since my first day, but I’m keeping on top of them.  I’m writing small blurbs of information on each of them so hopefully they can go up somewhere on the website sometime in the future and hopefully you will fing them useful.

I have also started on another press release for a feature on Koogar on another business online magazine, which should generate a lot of interest.  We will be in April’s edition and once we’ve got the details sorted feel free to check it out as we will have a special offer on there too!

All of this has kept me busy for the majority of the day and I’ve got a fresh list to make a start on next week that I can’t wait to get my teeth sunk into.

Laura’s Diary: Day 5 – VERY productive day

Feb 24 | by Laura Allen | Marketing Strategy, MyWirralHub, Student Work Placements
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Today has been a very busy, but very productive day for me!

I’m pleased to say that I have finalised the wording on another marketing campaign, which will hopefully be produced and ready in the next few weeks so I can finally talk to you in detail about some of the things I’m doing.

I have also updated some details on MyWirralHub for one of its upcoming events in March.  Although this sounds relatively simple and mundane I’m excited because now I am able to log into the site and update anything or create anything that the site needs, which is great- another string to my bow sort of thing!

I have proofread a couple of client case studies, which I spent a couple of hours on , but I love proofreading and editing anything so was in my element for these two hours.  Koogar has now created two new pages on the website – one dedicated to client testimonials and the other case studies.  I have introduced these two subjects with a small blurb and the case studies page now has a case study from a client on there, which is great and should hopefully be posted on the website (as it’s only been saved at the moment) within the next couple of days.

The testimonials look quite exciting and I know I know…how exciting can they be??? Well from my point of view…very! I came across some different styles of presenting your client testimonials which Amanda saw me looking at and now she is designing our own Koogar style testimonials for our new page!

I have finally started to look at prospective client questionnaires, which I am going to be re-wording in the near future so future clients…watch out for this!

Although it’s been a hectic day, especially for Amanda, it’s been very interesting.  I am looking into Koogar becoming part of an online magazine in order to raise our profile, but everything looks promising and Amanda is excited too, which is a great sign!

Matt’s Diary: Day 4 – Structured list for the day’s tasks ahead

Feb 19 | by Matthew Buchanan | Student Work Placements
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The first thing I did today was to write a structured list for the day’s tasks ahead. So as to ensure that I will complete all of the objectives intended to be met that day, at the very least. The list sets a minimum output for each day, it also gives a quantifiable volume of work to be completed that you can gauge yourself against. I find this helps, keep a steady workflow and enables the project to remain within a constant progression throughout the days and the weeks.

Today I added all of the shadows and tones to Koogar’s body and to her facial features. I duplicated the fill layers for Koogar’s trousers and shirt, dropped the brightness the new, duplicate layers. I then just cut out large areas of the dark layer to reveal the lighter layer beneath and toggled the opacity to make sure the tonal difference was just right. This gave her a fuller and life-like appearance and brought the image a lot closer to the finish line.

I gave Koogar some black markings on the  tips of her ears and tail  which feathered out into her lighter, fawn coloured fur. This  distinguished her from a your everyday household feline and presented her as a cougar mountain lion.

I subtle adjustment I made today was to reposition her right hand to better match the supposed temper of  her character in this image. I thought the hand hung  a little too low and loose …so I lifted it up and tautened her wrist. Koogar now looks relaxed instead of fatigued.

Koogar’s eyes, they needed to hold a stronger  presence within the image. I began building this presence by first adding the muscle tissue fibers to her eyes with the paint brush. Using first a broad and then a fine brush, loosely painting on the fibers. I then added a couple of blurring effects to soften and refine the image. And shrunk the pupils down a little which were covering a lot of the interesting details of her irises. I kept the old larger pupil layer and took the opacity down to around 10% which served a shadow giving eyes a touch more depth. These elements really gave depth to her eyes completing that glossy three-dimensional look. A combination of different layers and effects, utilizing both manually created and preset effects is what really gives that appearance of realistic depth to characters eyes.

Koogar’s eyes are much more detailed than the rest of her body. There’s a reason for this; the extra detail draws the viewers attention to her eyes, engaging her as the web site guide rather than simply just the image of a cat in humans clothes.

Matt’s Diary: Day 3

Feb 17 | by Matthew Buchanan | Student Work Placements
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I was working from home again today. I’ve been a lot making alterations and new additions to the original image I drew of Koogar sitting down.

I removed the fur from the hands to give her a little more femininity …and avoid any “Sasquatch like” similarities.

Koogar is supposed to be wearing a belt, which is yet to be seen so I added that in. I have been trying to keep to a very limited colour scheme consisting of only three base colours with just a handful of tonal variants from each. In keeping with the colour scheme, I chose a solid black tone to distinguish it from the charcoal coloured trousers.

Another alterations I made when I resized and then reshaped the left foot to sync it in better with the right. I gave her the tail a quick bit of lipo-suction, reducing its width as well the weight of the line encompassing the tail. Koogar’s left foot did not completely match the right foot. Aside from being a little larger than the other foot it was much too angular, the composition was over pronounced. This needed to be amended, so I reshaped it into a more organic form, which bore a much closer resemblance to Koogar’s right foot

The image is not at the point of adding the shading and tonal depth just yet but Koogar was looking a little too much on the flat side. She needed something more to bring her forward. I drew some linear work, suggestive depth and shape to remedy the condition, still keeping a simplistic style but reducing the look of vacant space.

Some of the colours of the have been refined such as the eyes and belt buckle. The buckle was temporarily a garish blue to make it stand out so as I had a better view of the overall composition. Like the buckle, Koogar’s irises were looking too much of harsh colour. I changed them to a fern green which looks much more natural.

This is the first digital image of Koogar and will serve as good a reference and model for all following digital work. It has already come in very useful today when, working on another digital image of Koogar at a different angle. One of the things that I really like about doing this type of work is that the deeper you get into the project the smoother the project runs.

Laura’s Diary: Day 4

Feb 17 | by Laura Allen | Student Work Placements
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The MyWirralHub meeting last night was great and everyone was so friendly and had some great ideas.  I really got to see exactly how dedicated Amanda, Ida and Lucy are and how hard they work to keep the events interesting and relevant for the businesses in the area.

When I got in this morning I listened to a CD by Chris Cardell on Internet Profit Strategies.  This was a great way to start the day as it really focused me on what I had to do during the day as well as giving me some great ideas which I can implement some time in March and hopefully enhance Koogar’s profile.  It also gave me some ideas for my marketing tips- yes I haven’t forgotten about them!  I’m still on track, but think it may be time to tidy them up a bit and type them up with some background knowledge and information to support them- so this is something I can do in my spare time.

What has taken up the main part of my day has been the ACME feature I’m working on at the moment.  I interviewed Amanda earlier and have now completed a couple of A4 pages all about Koogar; what the company does, its aims and philosophy.  I’ve even included some images of the logo, website and MyWirralHub.  Hopefully this will be ready to send off next week.

I am also pleased to say that it looks like one of the campaigns/ promotions I’ve been working on is almost complete.  I ran the wording past Amanda this afternoon and she liked it so all that’s left is the layout of the design, images and printing…but then I will finally be able to discuss it in more detail and you’ll be able to have a look at it yourselves.  As you can probably tell I’m very excited about this campaign.

I feel today as if I’ve actually accomplished my first official piece of marketing for Koogar.  Although it’s my fourth day I spent my first few days getting to grips with the company and marketing in general.  Most of my day was spent researching different topics and ideas so I could do these things quickly and comfortably.  Now though, I feel encouraged that I am on the right track for promoting Koogar and have completed two fairly big tasks today as well as a few smaller ones, which has helped build my confidence.

I’ve got several ideas I am going to be working on next week and I am really enthusiastic about them and am definitely looking forward to them!

Laura’s Diary: Day 3

Feb 16 | by Laura Allen | Student Work Placements
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Wow! I can’t believe that I was awake, dressed and functional at 06:30 this morning!  I was invited by Amanda to go along to a BNI meeting, whereby a group of local business men and woman go and talk about a new product/ service that they want to promote and who their target client is in 60 seconds!

The people were incredibly friendly and made me feel welcome immediately.  Once we had mingled and had breakfast the meeting began.  Once all the members had said their pieces (and I was asked twice if I wanted to promote Koogar, which I politely declined…heart racing) it was Amanda’s turn to give a 10 minute talk on her chosen subject as one person gets this 10 minute slot per week.  The subject was Social Media, focusing on Twitter.  It proved to be a very popular topic as the majority of people did not have or use this application and were amazed at how much interest in your business it can get you.

After the meeting everyone who had referrals (contacts that others had asked for) passed them onto each other. Amanda was passed a few and in turn handed out several!  Overall I was so impressed by how much efficient networking can be done and business created from a couple of hours every Tuesday morning.  This type of organised networking is definitely worth getting involved with if you are starting up your own business.

Throughout the rest of the day I worked on an interview for Amanda in order to create a report of Koogar to send to Merseyside ACME so they can put us on their website as a Featured Business.  This will hopefully be completed by tomorrow and ready to send off ASAP- I’ll be mentioning it in my blog when it’s on there so keep your eyes on the look out!

I also created the majority of the wording for a new campaign Amanda is looking to promote by the end of this month.  Unfortunately I can’t say too much about it, but you haven’t got much longer to wait and find out.  I’ve also been looking at a client questionnaire form to see if the wording can be changed to improve the quality, but I am still working on that so not a lot to comment on in regards to it…yet.

Although I have finished my work for the day I am off to a MyWirralHub meeting tonight to meet Ida and Lucy the other women involved in this business networking organisation for the Wirral.  I am excited as I will be able to see exactly how they organise an event, which will be extremely beneficial to me as I may be required to organise a new and upcoming event for Koogar in March- fingers crossed!

Matt’s Diary: Day 2

Feb 12 | by Matthew Buchanan | Student Work Placements
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I was working in Koogar, on site for the first time today. In the morning I was adjusting one of the more human like designs of Koogar. She was looking a little too casual to fit the company image, so I drew Koogar in more formal attire. Dressed in a long sleeve button shirt and another dress image of her in dressed in a suit jacket.

It was decided that Koogar was to have paws to emphasize the animal side to her so Amanda and I developed a big-cat paw with the dimensions of a human foot. This was a straightforward enough task, which though adapting the pad pattern on the soles of the feet fit the proportions of a human foot was not quite as easy.

Amanda and I have been talking about possibly animating Koogar.  Drawing her at different angles gives you a reference to work from, making it easier to animate her. Having multiple angles of Koogar eliminates the static nature of the character in the form of a still image. This way potential clients viewing the web site will not get bored from the repartition of the same image.

All of Friday’s pictures were scanned in, ready to turned and to digital versions. One of which is well on its way to the finished article.

Laura’s Diary: Day 2

Feb 10 | by Laura Allen | Student Work Placements
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I started the day by making a detailed list of what I wanted to have completed by 17:00.  My small list consisted of looking into marketing plans and the process which precedes them such as questionnaires.  I wanted to see how the questionnaires used by Koogar could be improved or updated.

Within the first five minutes of being in the office my list began to grow.  As in most businesses, especially those that focus their majority of time and efforts on marketing, ideas flow constantly and as one cannot stop thinking it is important to make lists (as I have found out today).

Amanda had a PR meeting at 10:00 with Train 2000 (http://www.train2000.org.uk), a company supporting women across Liverpool and Manchester who are either running or wanting to set up their own business by helping to fund them, providing training and seminars and boosting confidence.

I was lucky enough to go along to the meeting, which was different to say the least.  Amanda first had to be interviewed and filmed for a podcast then she was taken through to have her photograph taken and finally she was interviewed again, but this time without the presence of a webcam! The aim of Train 2000 is to send Koogar the podcast and a copy of the chosen photograph to use for publicity purposes.  The podcast (which we were discussing only the other day as a useful marketing technique) will be really useful as it can go on the website.  Train 2000 will be putting Amanda’s interview on their website, hopefully within the next few weeks, which will definitely be worth checking out!

After lunch I was faced again with my list, but had a welcome distraction of Rachael – Amanda’s colleague, who very kindly brought me a coffee – a perfect booster in motivating me to approach the next bullet point.

Throughout the afternoon I worked on a couple of ideas such as trying to find out if I could make Koogar a featured business on a well known business innovation website.  I am pleased to say that I had a positive response back from the websites Marketing Director and will be working on the feature asap and will keep you all updated as to if and when it goes up on the website.

I have also started working on one of Amanda’s new campaigns which hopefully will be completed by the end of the month.  However, unfortunately I can’t and shouldn’t go into too much detail, but trust me- it will be of great interest to a lot of people and hopefully because of this a huge success.

It’s now 16:55 and I am extremely happy that I have completed my to do list, but in doing so have managed to create another lengthy list to start on next week…wish me luck!

Matt’s Diary: Day 1

Feb 10 | by Matthew Buchanan | Student Work Placements
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Today I continued working on the character development of Koogar. Focusing on the development of her facial features and head.

This can often prove to be a difficult task as the images that you create sometimes become distorted. This is due to the constant re-designing of the character you try to pull through to your sketchpad.

Once I was starting to feel comfortable with the appearance of her head and face, I began trying to match it with a body. Utilizing the outlines and specifications I have acquired during discussions with Amanda.

Developing a body to be paired with Koogar’s head should be an easier task, as the figure is not as complex to work with as the head or face.  I am glad that my workflow can now gather more momentum.

Laura’s Diary: Day 1

Feb 8 | by Laura Allen | Student Work Placements
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Hi! My name’s Laura and I am a recent graduate on placement with Koogar.  Throughout the next three months I will be keeping a diary about what I’ve been doing during the day and my thoughts and feelings towards these activities.  Now that my introduction, albeit short and sweet, is over I’ll begin…

This is my first diary entry and I’m still getting to grips with the whole idea of marketing.  If you have read my interview you’ll know that I was quite nervous about marketing the company and being very much involved with new marketing campaigns.

Well, it’s now the end of my first day and although I’m still a bit nervous I am settling in and becoming more comfortable and dare I say confident with the tasks ahead of me.

I started off the day by listening to a Marketing Mastermind CD and one piece of information really stood out; podcasts.  Needless to say this idea then proceeded to take up my morning as I wanted to find out how easy it was to create a podcast, which directories would it be best to post them, what is blog radio and how we could use podcasts to help promote Koogar.  From looking into podcasts I have learned, and hope you will agree, that by marketing/ promoting a campaign many clients would find it slightly different but more approachable if they heard Amanda’s voice explaining the campaign in more detail (as well as being able to access the information on the Koogar website).  As well as this clients could even if they wanted to raise a query on Koogar’s Q&A website by uploading an audio message.

Throughout the afternoon I was busy creating 5 marketing tips.  I will produce 5 per day that I’m on placement and these will be produced as a whole at the end of each month.  In this instance however, I feel slightly at an advantage as I am learning and gaining knowledge about marketing all the time as I did not posses a vast knowledge to begin with.

Overall, my first day has been very interesting, enlightening and most of all exciting.  A great way to start a placement I’d say.

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