Class Blog

Case Study Research

Realigning an iconic retailer (REI) with millennials through advertising and branding.

Who are Millennials?

Millennials, also known as Generation Y, are a group of people that are born between the early 1980s and early 2000s. They are the target audience of REI.

Who are REI?

The Recreational Equipment, Inc. (REI) is an American retail & outdoor recreation service corporation. Based in Kent, Washington, it sells sporting goods, camping gear, travel equipment & clothing.

What is REI’s campaign about?

A holiday campaign with a simple and powerful concept: “holiday shopping season is about giving, not receiving”. REI aimed in making millennials into giving a gift that no one else does: the gift of an outdoor adventure.

Strategies involved?

REI’s strategy is to have a real personality to connect with a millennial audience by poking fun at holiday gifts to highlight REI’s products and its customer experience. REI had created brand content and advertising for social & digital channel platforms for audience engagement across online media and in-store retail. Consumers had the opportunity to interact with REI.

References

1) Basic. (2018). Realigning an iconic retailer with millennials through branding [Blog post]. Retrieved from: https://basicagency.com/case-studies/rei-back-to-campus-brand-advertising-campaign

Play & Structure Workshop

The aim of this workshop in class is to work around free writing and mapping to have a clear idea for our Statement of Intent which will result in a poster at a later class.

Activity 1: Themes

The aim for this activity is to work around on our talking skills with a given topic:

What do you enjoy?
What do you fear?
What do you want from the course?
What can you offer the course?
Where do you want to be/what do you want to be doing in 2 years?
Which designers/illustrators provide a context or inspiration for the type of work you want to do?
What current issues might graphic designers/illustrators need to focus on or address?
How would you define a bad design/illustration?

Activity 2: Summarise Yourself

Once the previous activity was done, we had to summarise ourselves into mid maps and drawings to explain our conservations.

Activity 3: Creative Writing

Shhhh… it is quiet time. For 15 minutes, we had to write anything that comes in our mind: goals, ideas, vacation, movies, etc., but the twist is, we cannot lift our pen from the paper.

What I Wrote:

Click on the button below to access my "Creative Writing" file.

Activity 4: The Four Questions

In this activity, we had work in groups of 4 to answer 4 different types of questions:

1) What sort of designer/illustrator are you and do you want to become?

2) What ideas are you interested in and why?

3) What media/approaches do you use/want to use and why?

4) What sorts of audiences are you hoping to address or work with and why?

Creative Writing

wRega Talk

The wRega talk, which was done on 14 April 2018. During the event, we had 3 speakers: Driv Loo, Muid Latif, and Kamarul Izam.

Driv Loo

- Works at Lie Studious

- Created a website using Adobe Flash called Salt Films

- Did a book design

- Quit his job and didn’t want to return to Kuala Lumpur

- After the Japan earthquake, he collaborated with artists and designed their music albums

- Raised awareness for buah-buahan temptation

- Did a poster design for Vincent Poyong

Muid Latif (“Be a Legend, Not a Diva”)

- Began his career in Multimedia

- Participated in exhibitions worldwide

- Graduated in Fine Arts

- Tips for life for success :

Growth & evolution
Finding the balance
Stability
Nurture
Proactive
Agility
Improvement

- Reinvent + Rebrand

Kamarul Izam

- Unfortunately, I could not concentrate with the speaker due to the way he was speaking to the audience

APA Referencing Workshop

A much needed workshop for referencing was held on 16th April 2018 for my class to brush up our referencing skills that is deeply needed for our writing.

"Beautility" by Tucker Viemeister

In class, we had to read about “Beautility” that was written by Tucker Viemeister. Beautility tells a story of the beauty of design being utilize as a whole. From the story, I found a few points which I found quite interesting:

Being around something that is beautiful stimulates us intellectually, emotionally, and sensually-a multimedia experience!
We polished our talents for making things work well and look beautiful, combining the intellectual with the sensual.
Designers are key players in the beauty business.
Today we have more time, energy, and technology to make our lives comfortable and fulfilling than the cavemen had.

Throughout the story, while it was unique and interesting, I do not support the writers view fully. Design is not meant to be beautiful always. Design must always have a meaning, a reason. If a design is beautiful but fails to be impacted, then overall, the design fails. Many designs out there in the real world, nether less posters, packaging, web design, etc. has its own functions and needs, but not necessarily is beautiful. This is just my two cents.

References List:

Journal References

Viemeister, T. (no date). Beautility: Good Design Has Utility, page no. not given.

Professional Grooming Workshop

The first stage of the workshop was an introduction. Everyone had to stick a piece of paper at their back and went around the auditorium to gain a first impression written on the paper. I enjoyed this activity and learnt that first impression matters in the outside world.

The second stage of the workshop was about how to be known in the outside world. The speakers introduced to us LinkedIn, where we can connect with employers from various companies around the world.

The third stage of the workshop involved with the do’s and don’ts, especially while seeking for a job and during working life. The most important that were mentioned by them is to always private our personal accounts if we believe it may affect our position hiring. Never ever show another side of ourselves to our potential employer.

ICAD/SHU Tutor Sharing: Ms A

Today’s lecture consists of a sharing session by Ms Amanda, one of ICAD’s lecturer who also won the 2016 SHU Teaching Inspirational Award. This is what happened:

What makes you the ideal fit for a desired job?

- Sociable

- Positive

- Bold

Designer Skills

- Creative Skillset

- Mindset

- Emotional Intelligence

Why designers don’t get hired?

- Lazy

- Arrogant

- Money minded

The Rojak Project

The Rojak Project is an informative talk about a group of designers rediscovering Malaysia’s culture through food. They went around Malaysia, across 13 states to meet people of various cultures to beyond the 3 races of Malaysia. They wanted to understand and learn more about the cultures and experience the food and unity that it brings. Their journey is well documented.

They also had organized Rojak parties to collaborate with people in terms of trying to get to know each other’s culture and heritage. A black & white photograph is taken of the guests, and their pictures are then transformed into a food portrait. A total of over 500 food portraits were made by the team.

Student Sharing: Hadis Abedi

Hades Abedi is a Bachelor of Arts in Graphic Design student currently in her final semester of the course. During class time, she was invited to share her student experience of her degree life and internship.

Part 1 : Semester 7

She tried to make the semester as fun and joyful as she can despite hardship. Hades discusses about her project : Sanitary Pad and explained why and how she did the project. She believed in her cause and refused to give up. In the end, her final design was excellent.

Part 2 : Internship Life

Hadis interned at a videography-type studio named Wildsnapper. At the time, the studio was not, and did not believe that they needed a graphic designer. So, Hadis seized the opportunity by persuading them into hiring her. She believed that one needs to find the right job by following their passion. She applied for 36 different internship, all leaning towards television & movie as she wanted to get into the industry. She enjoyed her time at Wildsnapper and managed to secure a job there.

Interim Presentation

At the end of the course (Part 1), we had an interim presentation with Mr Sean, Ms Tong Yin, and 2 representative lecturers from Sheffield Hallam University. It has been a long and tiring ride, but overall, I am happy with my final outcomes. I aim to touch up my work in Part 2 to strive for better!

Take a look at my part 1 interim slides here:

Research Inquiry Workshop

This workshop was to guided the class before starting our research hunt on our individual projects. Mr Sean conducted the workshop.

What I learned form the workshop?

How to thinking critically when writing a report.
How to conduct research online.
How detailed a writing should be.

Overall, I believe this workshop by Mr Sean was a success as it thought me the necessary skills to kickstart my report writing.

Presentation Guidance

Before we prep ourselves for our Grad Show pitching, Mr Sean had a presentation talk for us in class. He discussed with us some tips and tricks on how to present effectively to our audience.

I believed the talk was very useful. It gave me some confidence to prepare for the presentation. There was some important tips that I never got to learn back in Presentation Skills class during Year 2, so the talk was beneficial. Even though I did not present my Grad Show concept, I can use the knowledge gain for my future presentations.

Tutorial Feedback

- 21st September 2018

Feedback from Mr Sean:

Metaphor of rats to a certain group of people in life/society, if rat is important obviously this group of people is important too…
Make your objective clear.
Nice illustration in your sketchbook, have more confidence with your illustration, maintain the amateurish, ‘simply’ draw more…
Rats mask to human?!
Any illustrator/ practitioner inspired you?
Writing has too much fact of rats, now is the time to link it to design / project…
Submit writing proposal & research enquiry to BB next week!

My next step:

Start researching on the kind of people that are linked back to rats.
Do some sketches to show design processes.
Have fun with the process!

- 25th September 2018

Feedback from Mr Sean:

Proposal & research enquiry submitted
Understand your metaphor towards rats in order to develop the objective
Objective: awareness? Helping? Selling?
Continue your illustration in progress, draw more!
Continue the royale project: The royale of xxx
Royale of: uniqueness, weird, special, interesting
Live brief completed for client, print small and we ll look into details for improvement.

My next step:

Creating a layout of my book.
Start thinking the contents.
Continue researching how rats link to a group of people.
Do a survey & interviews.
Do more sketches.

Designers’ Portfolio

In class, we are shown different content from designers Colin & his wife.

After that, we were each given a designer to research about. I got Alan Fletcher. It was interesting to research about Fletcher because I got to know more things about his background and his story. I than presented my research of Fletcher to the class during discussion session. Click the button below to access my “Alan Fletcher” research:

Alan Fletcher

Final Presentation

The final stage of the course has arrived! After 24 weeks and many, many, many projects, I reached the final step. It took a lot of hard work, sleepless nights, and grumbling to complete all the tasks given. I am proud that I managed to finish it with perfection.

To see my final presentation slides, take a look here:

DAZE Degree Show

Meanwhile, while working on my final presentation and submissions, as part of the Design Team for my Graduation Showcase, I’m helping Public Relations (PR) with the Instagram and Facebook account. Among them are individual posts which the original idea came from the Design Manager: Madelyn Long. Below is the complete set of the graduation class.

Origami In Class

During one of our class, with Mr Sean away, Ms Tong Yin brought us to a origami workshop (kinda a workshop?) with Ms Amanda. The origami “workshop” is in collaboration with World Wide Foundation WWF. My class got to do an origami tiger and than decorate it. We kinda got addicted to the origami, and we all started to create more, even after the workshop, and days later.

IPAD 2018

I was invited for the Industry Partners Appreciation Awards 2018 (IPAD 2018) on the 25th of October 2018. My other classmates that got invited was Pavitra, Niki, Madelyn, Zella, and Neesa. IPAD 2018 is an event to honour the collaboration between INTI and other industry partners, such as AIA, Time Darby, MPSJ, and many others. Every faculty under INTI was set-up at the event. Some of our former works, like AIA, The Future of Ais Kacang and Nasi Lemak, and KLPAC was on display, and we were the exhibitors, in-charged of presenting the works to other industry partners.

Round Table with Dr. Jasmine

I was elected as a representative for INTI Center of Art & Design (ICAD) to attend the Leadership Series organised by Career Services Department. This semester, they had Dr. Jasmine Begum, Director of Legal, Corporate, and Government Affairs of Microsoft Malaysia to give a talk. After the talk, I had the pleasure to have a coffee session with 9 other students and with Dr. Jasmine. I got to ask her some important questions about the working life which was beneficial to me as I would be heading for internship soon.

I would like to thank Ms Tong Yin, Dean of ICAD, for giving me this opportunity, as well as Ms Naomi and Mr. Clement from Career Services Department.

Academic Awards

Since I received all 2:1 class during my second year, I was chosen as one of the recipients for the Merit Award, along with my classmates Pavitra, Zella, Niki, and Jing Yi. I was happy and proud that I was able to get good results and I hope it will be better for my Year 3. Take a look at some pictures from the event:

Throwback: Jack’s Visit

It is throwback time to the time when Jack, a Year 2 student from Sheffield Hallam University (SHU), came to visit us at INTI. Jack shared his story, life, and time in the UK to us. We also got to spent time with him around Kuala Lumpur. It was a great experience and I am glad that I got to be friends with him. "See you when I see you, Jack!"

DAZE: Degree Graduation Showcase 2018

This is it, the final leg of my journey: the graduation showcase that we have been planning for months. It has been a wonderful experience to be part of the graduation team. I learned so much from my graphic and interior peers. There were plenty of fights, disagreements, and cold shoulders, but I am glad it all worked out. Everything came together, and while there was a few hiccups, overall, the event was successful.

Of course, before my graduation showcase, I also had to produce a compilation portfolio of all my works from Year 3. I wanted to have 4 booklets, dividing the projects. This is how the booklets turned out like:

“Life without friends is a life filled with dullness. We may bicker, but this everlasting friendship can never be broken. A collaboration with graphic and interior students made us stronger, bigger, and better. It is what made this graduation showcase better than ever. Thank you all for those everlasting memories that I will cherish forever. From Foundation to Degree, those 4 years will always be apart of me, from those regular class gossip, to random food hunting, to planned and unplanned field trips. Thank you INTI, ICAD, and SHU for giving me these memories. This is Naveen Ruben, signing out."