March 26th 2014

Things are starting to become simpler now... I think. We got all the sponsors up and formatted to the page. And all the conference pages have gotten cleaned up. I received the parking map, the venues info, and a few other things from people this week; all of the changes for those people have been made. There are now only two pressing tasks. The first thing that is really important is to finalize all the changes on the schedule online. This needs to be done ASAP, and should not be too hard. I am having trouble fitting the locations on the image without it starting to look crowded. The second task is less pressing and more based in aesthetics; Channing and I are working to reformat the film pages. Right now they are blocky and not very pleasing to the eye. Hopefully by the end of the weekend we will have sorted this out and made it easier for the website people next year to just model future film pages after our carefully coded example.

March 21st 2014

This week is all about getting the sponsors, films, and conference pages ps to date and synced on the website. This has been a challenge because we are still waiting on stills and descriptions for some of the films and papers, and I also was still missing some of the logos and sponsor levels information until just recently. Also the sponsors page is really hard to format neatly but as soon as I figure that out we should be looking a lot better. The last thing on my mind right now is the question of whether we should make "Current Sponsors" and "Become a Sponsor" two separate pages. I think that's it. It's a lot of work, but I'm sure we can get it done.

March 13th 2014

This week has been interesting to say the least. We are making a lot of changes to the website this week and the to do list was pretty long. The biggest thing is a restructure of the menus and the site map. We are revisiting everything in the tabs and pages to ensure that nothing is confusing. We also are going to look really hard at the homepage to make it as inviting as we can. There may be a few aesthetic changes to come in the next week. And then lastly we are deciding exactly how to handle uploading blogs to the website, and even whether the 'Recent News' Page is even necessary at this point.

The Dirty Dozen

Identify the "what".

1.  What is the project supposed to achieve?

I am to help develop a theme for the advertisement campaign, and update the website accordingly.

2.  Who is the customer?

Anyone who is interested in Visions is the target audience. We want this campaign to be clear and constant through all out media so that anyone who sees it immediately associates it with Visions4.

3.  What are the deliverables of the project?  (These are tangible and intangible.)

The biggest delivery will be a peak in interest, and hopefully more views on the website. We also will gain an ease of use because the website’s interface will be cleaner and more inviting.

Identify the "how".

4.  What is the budget?

There is no budget as far as my specific job is concerned. I have the laptop and the programs to design some really great stuff. The only budget I can really deplete is battery life, and personal creative energy.

5.  How long will it take?

Longer than I expect, first of all. But overall it will take the entire weekend. I expect that I will be working with my team on the campaign for about 4-6 hours in meetings, and then I will spend around 6-10 hours of work just on the website… plus any other things that pop up unannounced.

6.  What specific skills are needed?

We need to be creative with the visuals, while also keeping them clean, simple and recognizable. I personally need to know exactly what I’m doing in Photoshop, Illustrator, and Dreamweaver to be able to troubleshoot the website and I reorganize it.

7.  What special resources are needed?

Just my laptop and the programs

8.  Who is working the project?  What is each person's job?

Channing – Team leader

James, and Kyle – Graphics

J’aime – Website manager, and designer

9.  What is the schedule?

Simply… the website and campaign are due in a presentable form by 1/29/14 at 3:30.

Other considerations.

10.  What are the risks?  (Small vs. large impact, likely vs. unlikely)

Really the only risk we take with making this many changes so quickly is that we will walk into Visions meeting on the 29^th, and no one will like the campaign that we have worked so hard to develop.

11.  How will you communicate with your team?

We have Google docs, and we all have each others’ numbers. We will be texting back and forth whenever we are not in meetings, and will keep a constant eye on the FB page for our specific departments.

12.  How will you determine if the project is successful?

It will be hard to tell this right away. First we want the approval of all the people in Visions. But after we have taken feedback on the campaign and website it becomes trickier. The only true determination of a campaign’s success is whether or not people understand our intent and are pulled in by our visuals, advertisements, and website. And I suppose we won’t see those results for a few weeks.