Thursday, 1 December 2011

MEDI 322: Collaborative Practise: Intermediate Proposal

Initially my plan was to make a website to both advertise and sell my friend`s custom/ bespoke cake shop. This idea has evolved into making other promotional items such as business cards and also doing the professional photography for the gallery that she would like on her site.

As this is her business she is obviously involved very heavily in the creative side of things in terms of the actual style of the website and has agreed to feed back on a regular basis about how she thinks the website should look. This will be discussed between the two of us since I also would like some creative input. Technically I will also be collaborating with her father who is providing the domain and server space so I will have to communicate with him mainly via emails.

A major change is that my collaborator also would like me to design some graphics for the website in the form of cupcakes to be used as buttons etc. I aim to have the basic coding done before Christmas break and also to have a selection of graphics for my collaborator to feed back on. I would like to use one of these for a place holder so that I can actually get something in the domain space as quickly as possible because time is money and in the retail world it's smart to not waste either, even if the products are to be custom order. Also my collaborator has mentioned that she wanted a blog that tied into her site as she feels this would be a good idea both personally and for her business. This I would need to set up for her, theme, link in and show her how to operate and maintain.

It has been a both a challenge and enjoyable working with a friend, as it makes it difficult to know where the boundaries are and how professional to be. I do think that this will get easier overtime and as the project develops. Also sometime contact issues can arise since organising around two people is always harder than organising around one person, I think this is part of the process though. 

I have a very strong foundation now in terms of the artistic direction of the website so I feel confident that me and my collaborator know where we both stand but obviously we will need to constantly feedback to one another as the project grows and develops. The theme of the site will be very much 50's kitsch as well as obviously cakes. I am looking forward to creating the graphics as well as the actual website but this will be an added challenge. It will need to be fairly closely collaborated on but it also gives massive artistic responsibility for the company so I am effectively helping in the general branding of the business which is fairly huge! 

I also think that is important that we focus on a few photo shoots so that I have a nice selection of images to work with in terms of building a gallery into the site. Also it would be nice to showcase the items in the layout of the actual site itself. I have actually done food photography before so I am actually fairly confident about this area of the work because food photography is enjoyable and I have researched the psychology of how to market the images well. I have just purchased a Canon PowerShot compact camera to complete the photography required. As it shoots in film, my collaborator will have the option to 'vlog' about the creative process of anything relevant to her site.

I am thinking it may be smart to do a bit of market research so that I can really make the website effective. Although in principle the website advertises food, so uses some of the same 'retail psychology' it has to function and look good as the figurehead of a business.  

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