Target Audience

Knowing your target audience one of the most important parts of being an illustrator because if you get that wrong then you wont be aiming your work at the right people and no one will want to buy it. I did some research into the Target market of the Halloween party that my class is planning. Hers is some information that i have collected

• The target market of this party is university students that attend CCAD.  
• Students spend on average £9.30 a week on alcohol [1]
• Students study an art subject. 
• Not many students live near campus.

These things all have to be taken into consideration when planning the party to make sure it is successful. For example, because not many students live near campus it has to be at a venue that everyone will recognise and because all of the attendants will be university students living off student loans, the drinks prices will have to be kept low. 

After thinking about the parties target audience i decided to think about my own target audience as an aspiring illustrator. These are the things that i took into consideration:

• the age group that my style suits 
• the gender
• how much money they might have to spend 
• geographic location 

After thinking about all of these  things I decided that my work would suit a younger female audience but would also have to appeal to the young persons parents because often a younger person does not have a disposable income. I feel as though my illustrative style would be more likely to appeal to a female audience because of the feminine colours that i often use. I don't think that the geographic location is too important to my target audience as my style is diverse and could fit in with all different cultures from around the world. 

[1] Nat west student servey, http://personal.natwest.com/personal/current-accounts/compare-current-accounts/student-account/student-living-index.html (accessed: 06/10/2014)

Halloween Party update

This week the party planning preparations have progressed massively as a lot of things have been sorted out and put into motion.

• The posters have been designed and printed.
• Tickets have been designed and are ready to be printed for next week when we start selling them. 
• A rota has been made for ticket sales so everyone knows what days they will be selling tickets on.
• A table has been confirmed for us to sit at in reception to sell the tickets
• Skyy have confirmed that we can partner with them and do a deal on tickets.  
• The venue manager has confirmed information about the venue, bar and bar staff. 

So far the party planning is looking pretty good and at the moment it seems like we will be able to host a great halloween party and have everything done in good time for everything to run smoothly. There are still a few things that need to be sorted for example music and decorations but they are in the process of planning. These two aspects are not things that needed to be planned as urgently as the others because these things happen on the night of the event not before.

Defining markets and understanding consumers

• A Consumer is a specific group of people that buy a product. To know your consumer there are a lot of different things that have to be thought about. Consumers are constantly changing and evolving with the times as trends, environment and their age changes. There are a few exceptions to this though for example if you illustrate for children's books then your consumer age never really changes. Many things can be done to help you understand the consumer more, for example you could interact with your consumer through the use of social media platforms such as blogs, facebook pages, youtube, instagram and other similar platforms. Another way of collecting your consumers opinions and feedback is through surveys, this is a good way of contacting a lot of people and getting a fast response in a small amount of time.  

'Once the consumer journey is defined, the channel strategy is aligned to each phase of the targeted response path including: payed media, owned media, (properties owned by a brand [e.g. website, facebook page, videos and physical events]), and earned media (volume and sentiment of social media discussions). The owned and earned media channels are mission-critical for non profits as they provide a lower cost option to reach consumers and have them interact with the cause.' [1]

• There are 3 main points that you need to think about and know the answers to in order to understand your consumer. they are: 

1. Who? Who will be buying your products for example, if you create childrens books then your target audience is children but your consumer will be the parents as they are the ones to buy the books. So your product has to appeal to the parents as much as the child. 
2. Why? Why will your consumer be buying your product, for decoration? education? as a gift? This is important to think about because you can taylor the aesthetic and pricing to the purpose of the product
3. When? When will the consumer be buying the product, what will be the peak times that your product will sell, Holidays? birthdays? You need to know this information to know when to bring out new products. 

• As well as these points there are other things to consider for example how do you want your image to come across?, how should you approach your consumer?, is your market captured or not?.
• You have to sell yourself as well as your product because the consumer will feel as if they are buying into a more personal experience with the company. Its all about giving your consumers a good experience when buying from you.  

• A market is where your products fit in within the industry, this is defined by your consumer. Within the market you always have to consider the future of it as your consumer may change throughout the years. Your market is defined by the consumer feedback, if you go onto the market without knowing your consumer then you wont really be aiming your work at anyone in particular causing your product to not sell.  After getting to know your consumer you will know how to define your market to suit them. 

I decided to do some primary research into a company and their consumer and how they go about targeting their consumer. I decided to look into Coca Cola as they are one of the most widely known brands throughout the world. 

• I found straight away that they have a Customer care survey to connect with the consumer and get feedback on their product.
• Their website has a community section allowing consumers to feel as though they are part of a larger community, as if the product is connecting them to people all around the world that share a liking for the same product.  
• Coka cola target a captured market by getting involved with events such as the Olympic games.
• They build relationships with consumers by executing well thought out marketing campaigns, promotions and merchandising.[2]  
• For the last 2 summers in the UK Coca cola have had a huge marketing campaign called 'share a coke' where the companies logo has been replaced with popular names. The company knew that this would result in more sales because they know their consumer well. 

About the 'Share a Coke' campaign- 'The company said there have been more than 125,000 posts about the campaign across all channels from June 2 through July 14 and said 96% of consumer sentiment toward the campaign is either positive or neutral.' [3]

     

[1] Marketing for goods, Markets for Good Selected Readings: Making Sense of Data and Information in the social sector, Published january 2014. 

[2] http://www.coca-colahellenic.com/aboutus/customers, marketing and merchandising  (accessed 08/10/14) 

[3] Tadena.N, The wall street journal online, Coke’s Personalized Marketing Campaign Gains Online Buzz (accessed  08/10/14)

Level 5 Professional studies introduction

Within professional studies this year we will be learning about and expanding our knowledge of the illustration industry and where we fit into this fast paced industry. We will learn more about things such as networking, markets, working with clients and other similar topics.

The main aim of this module is to help us know the industry inside out so that we are prepared for the real working world when we leave university. We will research all areas of the industry then choose an area that we would like to focus on in more detail and in the end produce academic evidence of our findings. This module should help us realise where we fit into the industry and be able to correctly identify our target market.

I enjoyed professional studies last year and look forward to taking my studies in this subject further in level 5.

Level 5: Halloween Party (side project)

As part of professional studies we have been asked to arrange a Halloween party for the university students that will also double as a fund raiser for the illustration and graphics courses. The skills needed to do something such as plan an event like this will be very helpful for us in the future as the transferable skills we will gain from it will help us learn things such as marketing, self promotion, managing budgets and workloads and working as a team. It will also help us have a better understanding of how to plan events such as gallery openings, exhibitions and other similar events.

As we had just started to plan the event we had to take a number of things into consideration for example: how much budget we will have, finding a venue, ticket prices ect. to make the event planning run more smoothly and to make sure none of these details were forgotten as a class we decided to assign people small tasks for them to do o the workload was evenly distributed. we decided that we needed people to 

• Make tickets and posters
• Source venue and beverages 
• Source bands and music
• Set up a Facebook page and do marketing
• Ticket selling 
• Room Decorating 
• Co-ordinator 

We had some things that had to be thought about straight away to get the planning process moving along such as... 

Budget planning

Budget planning is very important to us in this case as we are aiming to plan this event with as little funds as possible to optimise the money that will be raised. I think as this is an art university and we have access to art materials for the posters and tickets and we know people that will be willing to play live music for free, we will be able to achieve this goal and plan a great party with a small budget. 

Choosing a venue  

We had to decided this before anything else could be arranged as it is the main priority for planning any event. We were given 2 options for the party venue, option one was the Art Cafe (the college canteen) and option two was the old theatre in Hartlepool.  We were quoted prices for both venues and unfortunately option two was completely out of budget so this had to be ruled out. Option 2 would have made a better venue but we can raise more money and spend more on decorations ect with the art cafe as the venue.

Assigning jobs

As there is two classes coming together to make this event a success we had to assign jobs straight away so it didn't get confusing as to who was doing what. By doing this it minimises the chance of things going wrong or things been forgotten as people only have one or two tasks to complete each. 

Hopefully with everything we have done so far the party should get planned in time and the event will run smoothly without any hitches. I will do a few updated blog posts as the events planning goes into full swing. 

Questionnaire response from Quatro Publishing Group UK

Quatro Publishing group were also very kind and answered the questions that i asked. They had different views to Candlewick press on the topic of trends. It was great to see companies with opposing views so i could compare them within my report.  

1.       Do Illustrations in children's books respond to changing trends in colours and styles?

Not really. I would say the illustration styles we choose for our books are quite traditional, and timeless as we hope the books will sell for many years to come, and not become old fashioned looking.

2.       If so how long does it take for the changes in trend to influence illustration?

3.       Do trends influence your choice of illustrator?

We have series styles to follow. The choice of illustrator is made on what would best suit the project.

4.       Are Illustrators given remits that reflect current trends?

No

Kind regards

Laura

Questionnaire response from candlewick press

Jessica from Candlewick press answered the questions in my Questionnaire and she was beyond helpful she gave me a lot of information and starting points for more research. I am so grateful for her help, she made my report a lot easier. Here are her answers to my questions: 

Hi Melissa, 

I'm Jessica, the Art Coordination Associate at Candlewick Press. I'm responsible for scouting new illustration talent, maintaining a database of artists who might be right for illustration work on Candlewick projects, and matching illustrators with manuscripts (among other things!). I'd be happy to help you with your project. 

Do Illustrations in children's books respond to changing trends in colours and styles?

Yes, I think they certainly do. I think, in general, palettes are becoming brighter and more saturated, and with more white space integrated into the illustration. There is also a kind of counter-movement to this with muted colors that are very fresh and contemporary but done in a sort of retro style.  

     And there are certainly trends in styles too. Of course, digital coloring/drawing (i.e. in Photoshop) is a huge difference between contemporary illustration and that of 10–15ish years ago. I am personally not a big fan of the flat, digitally colored look, so I'm glad to see a swing back towards more textured illustrations now—both with traditional mediums like watercolor and acrylic, and digital art that looks more like traditional media. I think a lot of illustration artists are combining traditional and digital media too—creating physical paintings/drawings and scanning them to either tweak the work or digitally color the sketches. A few of my favorite artists also work in digital collage, where they paint lots of patterns and then scan them into their computer, creating collages without physically cutting and pasting anything. 

    When I think of art from 20ish years ago, I think mainly of a warm, slightly murky palette that's somewhere in between bright and muted, and realistic paintings. Now, I think illustrations are becoming much looser, less realistic, and incorporating more mediums into each illustration (so not just 100% watercolor or 100% acrylic, etc.). Though of course there are certainly a huge amount of exceptions here. 

    Looking at the Caldecott winners and Honorees (and, in the UK, the Kate Greenaway winners) over the years is a great way to see the trends, I think. For example: 

• 1993 winner – traditional watercolor; palette is definitely a bit murky; and characters are pretty realistic 
• 1994 winner – traditional watercolor; highly realistic style. (Note palette quite bright here—many, many exceptions to the generalizations!) 
• 2013 winner – mix of traditional and digital media; style is graphic, subtle, simplistic; palette is muted but still rather saturated with all the deep black—this is the kind of retro-muted style I was mentioning.
• 2014 winner – kind of harkens back to the older picture book look, but note that the human characters are much less detailed (especially their faces), and there is a lot more variation in the typography and page layout than in 1994's Grandfather's Journey; this is, I think, a very successful modern take on the old picture book style. 

If so how long does it take for the changes in trend to influence illustration?

This varies of course but I think not very long. There are thousands of new picture books published every year, and illustrators and publishers are always looking for styles that look different and will thus stand apart from the rest. I think because of this crowded marketplace, the boundaries are always being pushed to keep illustrations looking fresh and unique. 

Do trends influence your choice of illustrator?

Yes, we will certainly discuss what style of illustration will best complement a text. For example, if a text is very contemporary, we will often look for a similarly contemporary-looking artist, which of course changes according to present trends. We also sometimes pare more traditional texts with contemporary illustrations as a strategic way to set the book apart in its corner of the marketplace, or to highlight its contemporary attributes (i.e. a modern retelling of a classic fairytale). 

Are Illustrators given remits that reflect current trends?

I'm not quite sure what you mean by this question! Happy to answer if you want to clarify what you mean by "remit" for me. Maybe this is a US/UK usage thing :-) 

     If you mean something like art direction(??) then yes and no—yes in the sense that art directors and designers will always gently push illustrators to give their best work and to evolve their style slightly with every new book. But no in the sense of pushing an artist to do something that isn't true to his/her personal artistic style… or at least a good art director wouldn't do that, though I'm sure it happens sometimes!