Our Rationale

Background
The National Portrait Gallery is looking to encourage local business workers and residents to make “pop-in” visits to the gallery, and improve their brand image. NPG regard their brand as “welcoming, inclusive, fresh, inspiring and enriching”, and want the campaign to have a “warm, clear, informative, accessible as well as, lively and stimulating” tone of voice.

Concept & Proposition
We want to encourage more visits to the NPG by advertising and using promotional packs in the local vicinity, by targeting businesses and frequenters of the area. We feel that using the advertising opportunities that are readily available in London is the best way to reach commuters and those travelling by public transport. We want to produce a range of work that would be suitable for use in newspaper supplements or local publications; as well as posters, leaflets, postcards etc. The ideal way of providing individuals with information, and motivation to visit the NPG is by packaging it together, and distributing it as a mail shot type promotion.

From discussing this brief we have found that the implementation of our work is going to be the main element of persuasion. Therefore, we need to come up with strong design solutions that can be implemented across arrange of formats and media.

Considerations
The brief has dictated our target audience of 20 – 35 year olds that frequent the area around the NPG, such as Trafalgar Square, Covent Garden, Soho, The Strand and Whitehall, who possibly work in media or creative industries, and are culturally aware. These types of people will be professionals that either travel through the area, or work and study nearby.

We know that we are working for YCN and NPG, and will need to adhere to their specified deliverables. We may wish to create more design solutions that are not directly related to this brief, but would be relevant to our college assessments.

Deliverables
YCN & NPG – Deadline Wednesday 25th March 1pm
• Artwork mounted on boards (A3 size, suitable for posting)
• All material must be clearly labelled
• Any additional support material must be A3 or smaller, and bound.

College – Deadline Tuesday 31st March 1pm
• 3-5 A2 boards demonstrating the research, development and resolution of the brief
• Additional support work must also be submitted
• All individual blog addresses must be provided

action plan for weekend:

1. Initial design ideas for posters etc

2. Research content for leaflet - what is relevant etc

3. Update blog

4. Concept ideas - tours, workshops etc

5. Communicate findings!

6. Logo/design for 'Culture and Coffee', 'Pop-in Portraiture', 'Bite-size....'

1st brainstorming session...

Alex and I have decided to use a range of different tools to promote and publicize The National Portrait Gallery. We are going to produce posters for the underground, buses and bus stops, as well as adverts in the newspapers - such as metro. We also have decided to do an advert for the Sunday newspaper supplements in the culture section. Another element would be a postcard range, which could be used as a coupon. Perhaps a guidebook as well, to let people know what is going on at certain times so they can decide when to drop in. The coupon idea is going to be pushed in all appropriate elements as a way to get people into the gallery - perhaps offer a free coffee in the cafe, this could be a play on 'Culture and Coffee'.

Once we had talked about design ideas and strategies we planned what we actually need to do to achieve this. Below are the following stages we need to cover.

1. Research a. existing publicity for NPG
b. other galleries advertising - the tate, yorkshire sculpture park, leeds art gallery, saatchi gallery etc.
c. cost, format and layouts for each element of advertising
d. existing advertising, not necessarily for art galleries, just anything we find inspiring and interesting.
e. look at sunday supplements.

2. Develop a. prototypes
b. evaluate continuously
c. refine and re-explore ideas
d. push ideas to max.

3. Evaluate

welcome

Welcome to my new blog!

I have set this blog up in order for me to record my progress through this latest brief. I intend to show my findings, research, development, critical evaluations and my final product in this space.

The brief is for YCN and my partner in crime is Alex Bucktin. (You can find a link to her page on the right-hand side). The actual aims and outcome for this brief is to encourage more people, who live and work around the gallery, to visit it. The age range is 20 - 35 year olds and the aim is to welcome more 'drop-in' visits, such as during lunch breaks etc.

Wish us luck!