Background

Serenity Hotel is a fictional hotel located in Boracay, the Philippines. It’s located in a beautiful resort like setting, with surrounding blue waters, palm trees, and is known to be a prime vacation location. I came up with this idea to incorporate my love for travel & the hospitality industry, and intertwine it with the creative industry.

Task

I gave myself the task of creating a fictional website using WordPress. I had to consider a reasonable template, and considered if it was responsive, equipped with HTML5 tags, customizable, user friendly, and suitable for the needs of the hotel’s clientele. I first created a logo to represent Serenity Hotel. I wanted to focus on the ‘S’ and found a font that I found suitable. Continuing on with creating mobile versions of a potential start to an Instagram feed for Serenity Hotel. I wanted their Instagram to be bright, welcoming, and vacation-like. Then taking on the task of website creation, I customized the homepage, and this is the final creation.

Click to see the website.

Background

Aphrodite’s is a restaurant in Vancouver dedicated to providing organic, farm-to-table eats & desserts including vegan & gluten-free options.

Task

A classmate, Allyce Kranabetter, created a marketing proposal for Aphrodite’s Cafe. We took into consideration their goals, and created strategies and tactics on how to achieve them. Varying from improving search engine optimization, to increasing sales during weekdays, and boosting social media engagement. We worked together to think of how we would implement these strategies to achieve said goals. Take a look through our process and see what we came up with!

PDF Version Web Marketing Proposal

Check out their website at www.organiccafe.ca for further details on what Aphrodite’s has to offer.

Background

Beauty Bar is a full service beauty studio located in Peterborough, Ontario. They specialize in brows (microblading, ombre, combo and blade & shade), eyelashes (extensions and lash lifts), face (microneedling, dermaplaning and chemical peels), and training programs.

Task

I wanted to help with the advertising sector of Beauty Bar’s 3 Day Microblading Courses. These display ads I created take into consideration the text/image ratio, colour use, and design aspects to best complement Beauty Bar’s brand. As social media platforms are major for advertising, I also created a Facebook and Instagram ad. The owner of Beauty Bar can use these ads in the future, and set up a Facebook pixel to measure the results of the ad. For Instagram, she can use Instagram Insights to track the metrics. The display ads can be analyzed with her Google Analytics account.

Check out their website at www.yourbeautybar.ca for further details on their services.

Beauty Bar PDF Version

Summary

With a group of five people, we were tasked with creating prototypes for a hypothetical app. We had to brainstorm an idea together, and find a way to execute it into prototypes. There were certain deliverables required such as: a style tile, logo, one-page website prototype, a responsive email template, and the app prototypes. For this project, we had to follow the Waterfall project management methodology.

Narrative

I was the Project Manager for this group project, and this is where I learned about managing a team of creators. I spent a large amount of time on the initial planning stage. By creating a Work Breakdown Structure, communicating with each team member about their wants and strengths, creating Gantt charts to follow, I set the project up to run as smoothly as possible.

I believe that communication is key with any type of management. We had weekly team meetings, a Facebook Messenger group chat, and I often checked in on each member to see how they were doing and if adjustments needed to be made. I created the Gantt chart with each team member having their own colour, to give them a visual of their specific tasks.

I also focused on organization to ensure everything ran smoothly. From the beginning of the project, I set up a Google Drive folder with specific structured folders within, for the group to always have access to. We each had access to each other’s work, which helped each other with ideas and flow. I set extra days within the Gantt chart specifically saved for testing and overflow time in case it was needed.

Fortunately, we all worked extremely well together as a group, and our schedule was followed as planned. I’m happy with our overall deliverables, and greatly enjoyed learning to manage a team! I would happily do so again.

Please take a look through the final report I created, with detailed descriptions throughout.

Team mates: Janet Antonio, Clarisse DeGuzman, Anastasiia Makarochkina, Marquis Odobas.

Project Management PDF Version

Summary

This booklet was a project for a design course at BCIT. The objective was to design a brand booklet which promotes one unique aspect of a city you’ve lived in. The design had to have a clear concept or theme. The goal was to inspire understanding for what makes the city you live in unique.

Narrative

I chose to design my booklet for the Peterborough Lift locks. Peterborough, Ontario is the city I’m originally from, and I wanted to showcase our unique aspect to our city. Read through to learn more about the lift locks!

I started my process with some research, then some sketches of what I had in mind. From the sketches, I brought them into Adobe Illustrator and traced each piece. I selected a colour scheme with the blue for water, grey for the colour of the locks, and touches of light red to represent it’s Canadian aspect.

Summary

This project was for a business located in the heart of a small town, by the name of Ennismore, Ontario. Established in 1910, the Sullivan’s General Store has been owned by an Irish family, generation through generation. Originally, the business had a basic website, not portraying the true nature of the company itself. They wanted to re-brand with custom colours, adding a logo, and redesigning their website as a whole.

For this website, I chose to use WordPress to create it.

Process

To suit the client’s needs, I felt it was important to start with choosing a colour scheme to represent them. Factors of influence: – Irish company (should incorporate at least some sorts of green) – Welcoming (should have the green mix with lighter colours) – Rustic (small town feel incorporating lighter browns as a sense of age).

I knew the logo was a major aspect to their business, and had to represent them in the best ways possible. Factors of influence: – Irish company (incorporate shamrock) – Store Visual (centred illustration of the store itself) – Sign Visual (rectangular box with store title inside is how the sign physically appears on the actual store) – Circle (expressing Sullivan’s as the heart of the community)

Website

Factors of Influence: – simplistic navigation (5 items in the global navigation bar – organized by order of importance) – ease of explanations (no overloading with information – just key facts) – include brand colours – add social media –  ‘about’ piece must be short yet clear (descriptive enough, yet inviting) – ‘services’ must be easily understood.

For the rest, you can currently find the site live here.

Summary

This is a logo design I created to represent myself. A carnation flower with symbolism.

Narrative

My logo started a little differently than most. I actually got inspiration from sitting in a café in Vancouver. On the table were these beautiful carnation flowers. For some reason, they caught my eye and I connected with them. I took a photo, and began researching more about carnations. I discovered they have different meanings:

The striped carnations apparently resemble regret and rejection, which I found interesting. This flower somewhat reminds me to not have regret – to push further, keep going, and live the best possible life I can live.

In a business sense though:

I also wanted to have a flower to represent growth. That when I help a business, I want to help them bloom into something even better than what their current status is.

I began to trace the flower and each piece of every detail in Adobe Illustrator. This started all in black and white. I began to think about colour and how to add it.

I chose the light red with gradient and black outlines on the petals for contrast. I tried multiple combinations, but in the end, this was the one I felt best represented the flower. As far as my wordmark, I decided because the flower is complex, I should keep my name simple. I placed in on top of the flower so that it’ll draw your eye down to it. The font is bold, capital letters, to ensure my name stands out clearly.

Summary

This is a promotional piece, created for a company in Brazil, by the name of MarDiCô. The product they sell is a healthy coconut-based yoghurt substitute. As they are located and supplying only to Brazil, this video is delivered in Portuguese. This is a project which was completed with a partner, fortunately, from Brazil! In this video, we make gnocchi from scratch, and use MarDiCô’s product to create a sauce to top it with. It was delicious!

Narrative

Working with a partner, Eduardo Muramoto, to complete this task, we brainstormed the desired outcome together.

Recipe Brainstorming/Ingredient Planning
The client wished to showcase the product in such a way which it hasn’t been seen before. The typical content created with their product are breakfast bowls (as it is a yoghurt substitute, this is common) – they wanted us to create a new recipe, to show that their product could be used for cooking, too. We decided on gnocchi, and using MarDiCô as part of the sauce.

Storyboarding
We had to carefully storyboard and plan each aspect before we began filming. Working with food, it’s important to plan and ensure you get the desired shot.

Lighting
An important part of this, was the lighting. We shot in an apartment with big windows, letting in a lot of natural light during the day. Along with this, we rented lighting and planned the placement with the set to portray the food in the best light possible.

Audio
Using an H4N Recorder device, we were able to achieve fairly crisp audio. With slight adjustments in post-production, we improved that audio even more.

Visuals
This came down to looking back up at our plan of action during the brainstorming/pre-production phase. As there were different elements cooking, each shot needed to be carefully planned in terms of framing, lighting, slow-motion, sped-up, close-ups, camera tilts, zooming, etc.

Editing
Using Adobe Premiere Pro, GarageBand, Audition, and Photoshop, the editing took place. We shot a fair amount of footage, and played around to find the right amounts suitable for each piece. The music in the background was also a mix created in GarageBand, and the final audio edited in Audition.

Delivery to the Client
The video has been given to the client for their desired use, and was pleased with the overall product created.

Requirements
As this was also a project for a Video/Audio course, there were specific requirements to be met:

– 2-3 minutes in length
– Original Music Component – with a minimum of three tracks
– Correctly Recorded Dialogue – using microphone gaining and staging techniques
– Automation used effectively for intelligibility (ducking)
– Some use of Sound FX
– Average Volume 0dBVU = -15dBFS
– Peak Limit -1.0dBFS
– 1 Second black slug at beginning and fade to 100% black at finish
– One on-screen persona
– Use of motion graphic
– Use of lower thirds
– Watermarked logo for presentation
– Framing, use of composition rules and lighting
– Exactly 5 second company logo and contact info slide at the end

Summary

This is a video piece created for a Video & Audio class at BCIT. Myself and project partner Eduardo Muramoto wanted to create something slightly different. This video is called ‘What Moves You’ and entices the audience to think about what truly moves them. Whether that be something physically, emotionally, spiritually, etc. Something to open up your mind a bit and think about the answer to that question.

Narrative

Together, we had to come up with a concept. Once deciding on ‘What Moves You’, we could start to really dig in to the pre-production process.

Pre-Production
Our script was the first thing we came up with. From there, we could form a storyboard, and was a major part of our process. We physically sketched out each scene and our desired outcome. We decided we wanted to try some part of the video in stop-motion, as this was a new challenge for us. By visually mapping out each element we would need to successfully tell the intended story to the audience, we proceeded. A large part of our success is from successfully planning and mapping out each detail before shooting.

Lighting
As this video has two completely different aspects to it (one shot outside, the other inside with stop motion), we had to consider lighting variables. While shooting outside, we considered each location and how the time of day would affect lighting. We shot all of the outdoor footage in one day, and were careful with different angles to ensure the light hit the subject appropriately. While shooting the stop-motion inside, lighting was an important factor. We set up lighting from directly above the subject, and kept this same lighting throughout each shot we took. This mattered as when we pieced each shot together, we had to ensure there weren’t drastic lighting changes.

Audio
Recording dialogue with an H4N Recorder device, we were able to achieve fairly crisp audio. With slight adjustments in post-production, we improved that audio to our desired result. We matched the audio to our video shots, to sync up with each other. By adding some subtle sound effects to the begin of the video, it carried into the overall theme we were looking for.

Editing
Using Adobe Premiere Pro and Audition we began to edit. We had to piece together each photo for the stop-motion to create movement. The other footage was carefully selected, trimmed to appropriate lengths, and moulded together. As we spent a lot of time with pre-production in this video, we were able to quickly execute our editing towards the desired outcome.

Requirements
As this was also a project for a Video/Audio course, there were specific requirements to be met:

– 2-8 minutes in length
– Correctly produced audio (includes microphone and gain staging techniques as well as Post Work)
– Average Volume 0dBVU = -15dBFS
– Peak Limit -1.0dBFS
– Correctly produced video (includes Framing, Lighting, Composition Rules & Post Work)
– 1 Second black slug at beginning and fade to 100% black at finish
– Correct Youtube setting submitted on disk
– Required Release forms in PDF on disk

Project

Examine Cactus Club’s website through User Testing. Working in a team, we began by factoring in the audience Cactus Club is trying to reach. We created a script, different quick tests performed by users, and evaluated the outcome. Take a read through to discover more about our findings!