Devoloping a Brand
Logo Transitions After Effects
In this session our task was to use after effects in order to create a glitched transition between the different types of logos
When opening After Effects I imported all of my PNG images of the logos that I would be transitioning between.
I sized all of the logos so that they would be a similar size and the put them all in the centre of the composition
By selecting the images from the top layer to the bottom layer and right clicking I used the keyframe assistant tool to sequence my layers and sort them in order of the selection
When sequencing the layers I set a 5 second overlap so that I could transition between them
The vr digital glitch effect gives the effect seen on the left that I used for transtioning. In order to make the effect only show up when I was ready to transition I had to use keyframes
I put the key frames when the two logos where overlaping each other
Without keyframes
With keyframes
There where two sets of key frames. 0 to 100 keyframes used at the end of a logo and 100 to 0 keyframes used at the beggining. This meant that every logo would glitch twice at the begginng and at the end. The glitch at the beggining is so that it can glitch with the previous logo and the glitch and the end is for the next logo
Final Video
I organised the the logo's into their shapes so that they could have cleaner transitions into one another (The circles are all kept at the end and the longer Wordmarks are at the start)
Adobe Illustrator
Our task for this session was to learn how to use Adobe illustrator in order to make our own logo for our radio show.
When opening the software for the first time the properties, layers and libraries tabs where all stacked into one, I split these up so that I could work more sufficiently and faster.
The workspace is all on a transparent checkered backround. In order to be able to see better I used the rectangle tool (M) to draw a rectangle and make a white backround on layer 1 to work on.
On the second layer ,Using the Ellipse tool (L), I made a circle as a basis for a practice logo.
Then using the line segment tool I drew this segmented arrow. All of the lines are seperately drawn lines on the same layer joining at different points
By selecting the red box on the right the whole
layer is selected allowing me to use live paint and the paint bucket tool
By pressing (K) after live paint the bucket tool is selected
Final Logo
I created another design using different a different bordering shape and similar colours
There are a few other skills that we learned in Illustrator after watching a tutorial explaining different tools.
By using the up and down arrow keys whilst making a star or a hexagon you can adjust the number of points and sides
Using these tools along with photoshop I was able to create the logo for our radio show
The name joined the chat came from the first letters of our names joining to build a phrase commonly used in video games with in game chats
The colours I used around the corners where representative of the main 4 ways of playing games via consoles (Nintendo, PlayStation and Xbox) and PC
For our christmas special episode at the end of the project I redesigned the logo to have more of a christmas look to it
I changed all of the corners to be red and the centre to be green as those two colours are most comonly asosiated with christmas, I changed the font so that it was more legible and worked with the lighter blue more. In photoshop a placed a png of snowfall and overlayed it on the image. The last big change I made was that I made it look like a bauble that hangs off of a christmas tree as it was already circular and seemed like a good fit
Creating a stinger and jingle
Radio stations often use stingers and jingles when transitioning from segments or switching from song to presenter, presenter to advert, advert to music etc.
Initially I was really worried about making a jingle as i wasn't sure how I'd be able to make one with absolutely no musical capabilities under my belt. Most jingles you hear on the radio have a short bit of music made specifically for the station.
Because our station was about games spreading across all genres and creators. I thought that it would be good to show that in the opening jingle by using snipets of soongs from different types of games across different platforms.
I got 5 songs from different games and put them into audition so i could cut a short snippet of them to use for the jingle.
I downloaded some audio glitch and static effects, and put them when the song changed so it sounded like an old radio being tuned into different channels.
In order to add to the old radio I had a record cracke effect over the top of everything alongside an effect added to the first audio track
On the first track with all of the songs i put an FFT Filter to make the final touches and to perfect the feel of the old radio aesthetic
The opening jingle
I wanted to use that jingle for the opening and the ending and use shorter ones in the middle of the show, so after creating this I made a shorter jingle using a variety of different sounds from different games
Using similar glitch effects to before I created a main audio which I added sound effects and voicelines to.
I wanted the jingles to be the same and yet still stand out from one another and I think they came out very well
Creating an advertisment
Using after effects we had to create a short infographic advertisement for our radio shows
I first came up with a question that related to my radio show that I could record and use for the for the advertisement to make people want to know the answer and thus listen to the show.
When opening After Effects and making my composition I knew that I wanted to use bright colours and have a more friendly, safe and comedic approach at the advertisement in order to help sell this I made the background colour red when setting the composition settings
To make sure I had clear guidelines for the design of the advert I activated the rulers on the side bars and made the composition "Title action safe"
The ruler tool allows me to add guidelines to keep everything in line and making it title action safe gives me the guidelines showing safe areas to keep everything on screen.
I decided that my question should be "Do you know the highest grossing video game company" as I have a lot to talk about in regards to that topic
When deciding the font I decided to hint towards the answer in the way the question looks.
The highest grossing video game company is game freak the creators of the Pokémon franchise. I made the colour of my font look like the pokemon logo using the same shade of blue and yellow
I used a similar style of font to the pokemon font changing the font depending on what the words where
The font colour alongside the background colour reminded people of McDonalds which was along the lines of what I was going for (something brand safe and friendly)
Before using Position key frames I made sure that my text boxes had their anchor points in the correct place by using the anchor point tool (Y) and ctrl clicking the point to make it centered. By doing this it means that my text will move to the exact place I want it more precise and simply
the anchor point can be seen on the bottom left and the center
When recording the audio I spoke in a slightly witty, cocky and sarcastic voice creating that sense of comedy I wanted from the outset
When having the logo appear,
I wanted it to bounce onto the screen.
Using both size and position keyframes I made it come down from the top left hit the ground then bounce into the middle. In order to have it look less static I made the logo squash and stretch by using size keyframes which gave the whole thing more life
I was told that my advertisement was good and should lean more into its comedy and take itself even less seriously
I added a few silly characters and funny images to the most empty part of the advert working alongside with my voice to show the comedic side of the show and gaming
These images fade out when the logo starts to fall onto the screen which I thought looked quite slick and kept a good quick pacing of the advert
I also added some music that added to the lightheartedness of the advertisement.
Once again hinting at the answer of the question the music I chose was from Pokémon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire
Final Video
I think my advertisement stuck out very well from the other advertisements in the group due to my less serious take on it
I uploaded my first edit to a OneDrive folder where we could all see each others and give constructive criticism
The second edit was as a result of said constructive critcism
Creating an Ident
Using After Effects we had to try and create an Ident with our logo as a basis
When starting my ident I knew that because the logo was circular I could use that for a design in the ident wether it would be rolling on screen or something else taking advantage of it's shape
When opening after effects I decided that i would have a streak circling the logo and have it appear over time
I focused the logo and using the brush tool (B) outlined one quarter of the circle every three frames, I looped this so that it lasted round 3 seconds and then copied the effect onto a black solid
I set the black solid to screen so that only the blue lines would appear on the layer. Copying the brush effects to the solid allowed me to apply a glow effect making the cyan blue look bright and flashy as if electricity.
I doubled the glow effect to make the lines look brighter
After finishing the with effect had the idea of matching the streak to each colour in the corner of the circle (Red,Cyan,Green,Blue)
At first I thought I could just recolour the lines already drawn but i couldn't so I had to delete them and redo them all changing the colour depending on where on the circle it was
At the end of the loop I had the streak fly away which I did a frame less than everything else as it was a quicker motion
Using opacity keyframes I made it so that the logo would fade in over the course of three seconds. This was quite a bit faster than I wanted it to be however I still wanted it to be fully visible by three seconds so I put more keyframes in the middle which helped dictate the speed at which the image would appear.
I knew, after finishing the main effect, I needed to audio to make it feel more lively and look lot better. I added a looping swoosh noise to help sell the fact that the streak is moving around the circle. Because the glow effect made the lines look electric i also put a sound of some electricity over the entire time it's on the screen. Using the Youtube Sound Library i found a song that had a droning startup which I felt fit the ident well
Final Video
I think that the Ident looks fine but the Circling streaks definitely need tweaking. I think there are two things that could fix them. When the streak leaves it looks quite good and fluid and that was done at 2 frames not 3, maybe if I kept all of them at 2 frames it may have looked a bit better. Another thought I had was that i could have made more brush strokes of each quarter, Having two strokes for each colour may have made the lines look more like they where moving and not flashing.
Creating a Social Media Account
Social Media is an integral part of marketing and branding now so to help promote our radio shows we created 3 social media accounts
The first social media account I created was a twitter because it's one of the better social medias to promote on due to it's versatility and accesability
When creating the banner I wanted the background to be different games on different consoles behind an opeque blue colour
I got three game cases off of google and put them into photoshop. I made a new layer and coloured it a dark shade of blue, I turned the Opacity down a bit and and gave it a hard light overlay successfully creating the effect I wanted
When putting the text and logo on top of the background i had to adjust the shade of blue a few times and using the Blur tool I blurred the image to make the text and logo pop more
Originally I had the text as black but it didn't work well on the background so i changed it to white and inverted (cmnd+I) the HCRonair logo
The finished banner and account
I tweeted the advertisement I made for the show and pinned it to the account
Other social medias
I also created an Instagram and a TikTok account which where simpler as they don't require a banner
Radio Poster
The poster for the show uses bright colours like the advertisement again for more marketability and friendlyness
Research
Logo Design
Logos are a key marketing tool in the creation of any product or production. The logo will be used to market the radio show to the wider listening audience. Things that are particularly relevant in logo design are: Form, shape, colour, size, detail, recognisability and texture.​
Different types of logos
Wordmark
The wordmark is a type of logo that very simply just has the name of the company
Pictoral
The pictoral is a type of logo that as an image that represents the brand.
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Iconography is a type of logo that uses a stylised design to represent the brand.
Stylised
The logo system
The logo system is a type of logo that uses multiple of the afformentioned types of logos
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The History of
The two main materials for comercial printing was wood and metal. Wood used for large scale advertising like posters. Metal was used for smaller products like books and newspapers. These where used even up until the turn of the 20th century using linotypes. Oswald Cooper, originally working on advertisement for different companies eventually created his own type face in 1918 called cooper which took the usual font of a Roman Form and softened the edges. The Barnhart Brothers asked Cooper to make a bolder version of the font after seeing it's promise and versatility, this is what led to the creation of Cooper Black. The font was a huge hit and was immeditely used for newspapers, car adverts, music lessons, etc. Oswald Cooper believed that the font was at it's best when the font had very little spacing between words and lines and was crammped together. This helps the font to flow into the next word very cleanly and softly. This was greatly helped by the jump to paper and film for printing. Using these now ways of print the font could be placed as close as people wanted so much easier, it also meant people could get alot more creative with designing. The more free design let cooper black flourish and meet it's best uses.
Radio stations
In this session our task was to research radio stations and answer some questions so that we can eventually make our own
How do you access radio platforms / Stations?
According to Rajar 59% of radio listners access the radio by Digital radios (DAB) with 20% listening on smart speakers, 15% on websites and apps and 5% on TV
How do you find Schedule information?
Scheduling information can be found in magazines like Radio Times and on the dedicated websites for the radio stations
What types of programmes does this platform present?
Radio usually provides entertainment through means of basic talk shows, comedic sketches, games with viewer call ins, DJ slots, reviews etc
What is the audience profile for this platform?
The target audience differs between each radio station and purpose. BBC radios 1 through 6 all focus on different age ranges getting older as you go on.
How do we know? Where do I find this information?
Almost all information on Radio can be found on Rajar however there are debates on how accurate Rajar is due to it's way of getting information being essentially estimation
BBC Radio 1 is a radio station that's target audience is people of my age range (14-19) however not many people in this demographic actively listen to the radio, According to Rajar BBC 1 radio has almosr half of the viewship any of the other BBC stations have
Reach (000s)
One reason for this may be the choices of scheduling and people being used
Alot of the people on each segment aren't incredibly popular or well known by people ages 14-19
If I had to change the schedule I would just change what people are used, trying to get any influencers to do segments talking encouraging people to watch their favorite influencer, creator or artists live on air.
Idents
In this session we where to look at Idents for different brands and eventually create our own one for our radio show
An ident is a short sequence shown on television or before movies to represent the company or brand
I chose to look at the indents for E4 as they're really memorable and stand out really well in the crowd of other Idents
The E4 Idents (from 2013 - 2018) used this robot called Eefer(e4) and had him doing menial tasks.
The different Idents are really strange and Eefer sticks out like a sore thumb due to it's colour and proportions
All of them have different jokes on the signs and any texts. This helps to show the personality behind the channel and it's sense of humour
They all show the sort of dumb nonsensical humour behind the channel and the shows it airs but they also depict alot of scenes often thought of as very british in nature showing things like going to a stereotypical british cafe, getting on a bus and going to a caravan site
Channel 5 has used this style of ident for a very long time with the 5 sliding out of the back into the main focus
This ident was for Christmas in 2020 and depicts different activities and events from the Christmas season
The 5 has lights on its side that cast a shadow onto the back. The colour of the lights work really well with the dark blue showing a somewhat cozy feel, perfect for the cold weather and relaxed by the fire nature of Christmas
News and Interviews
For our radio show we have to have an opening segment of any news and some interviews
We looked at interviews by Louis Theroux, Krishnan guru-murthy and some other interviewers on what makes a good interview
The different tones of voice above are often used in interviews depending on the severity of the interview and how seriously it should be taken
In this interview Louis is trying to get Stormzy to reveal information about his dating life which he hasn't spoken about before
Louis starts the interview by flattering Stormzy calling him "one of the most eligible people in the uk" , "Talented, Successful, Attractive, The total Package"
Different from most interviews both of them are sitting on a sofa incredibly relaxed and laid back, It makes it seem like a conversation between two friends instead of an interview. As a result of this more laid back nature and flattery Stormzy would be more open to questions, giving Louis more "content" a better interview, and the soundbite he needs.
Louis then asks Stormzy about dating and keeps prying about different dating sites until he gets his soundbite and Stormzy starts to in detail about why he woudn't do dating
This interview is incredibly laid back and casual, Louis is being really respectful about the topic and just let's stormzy tell his opinions on dating as a celebrity
Radio Regulation
Ofcom is the regulatory board for communications in the UK. They oversee multiple different forms of communications from Radio to the Royal Mail postal service. Despite working from parliament they are funded by the companies in which they regulate Ofcom also don't have much legal power given to them from parliament, however, they are able to demand information from tech companies on how they deal with harm and are able to take action if they fail in their duties. Ofcom also provide a set of rules to abide by which if broken can result in punishment and penalties. Some of these punishments involve getting your licence taken away and fines. Ofcom research a lot of different popular genres trends and even their types of audiences and who they market towards. The Ofcom guidelines for broadcast can be seen here. Breaching these guidelines could risk offending viewers and having complaints raised against you sent to Ofcom.
Some important rules to look out for whilst on the radio
No offensive language
Intending to cause offence is unacceptable
You aren't allowed to voice your political opinion as a presenter on the radio
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The Advertising Standards Authority are the regulatory board for advertisements in the UK. They make sure that all advertisements stick to the Advertising Codes. The ASA are seperate from the government and are not funded by tax payer money, Instead they are funded by a charge placed on advertising space. When people purchase ad space they get a fixed charge of money. Anyone who breaks the Unfair Comercial Practices law, instead of being taken to a court, is usually dealt with by the ASA. For advertisers who consistantly break ASA rules are able to be transfered to different bodies. ASA also works off of complaints like Ofcom, 73% of complaints are due to the advertisment being misleading. A KFC advert had a dancing chicken which recieved 755 complaints satating it was distressing for vegitarians as it depicted the chicken walking to a slaughter house,it was overturned due to it not being specifically explicit. Ads are pulled is the complaints are seem fitting however companies often see the backlash themselves and pull their own ads followed by an appology. The ASA give tips on their website to help with advertising. Helping with things like avoiding misleading in advertising and how to make good ads for mobile games. These tips and research can help radio stations recording advertisements to make sure they don't get any complaints and can make the best possible advert. All of the advertising codes can be found here.
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When Radio Goes Wrong
Being live shows radio doesn't always go the intended way. Sometimes slip ups can happen on the radio and all you can do is apologise and hope nobody notices and you keep your job.
BBC radio are often subject to mistakes like this due to their refusal to have a dump button
The Dump Button
The dump button has several empty seconds recorded and essentially any mistakes you've just made can be erased and spoken over, the picture shown has 8 seconds of delay time allowing up to 8 seconds to be called back and deleted. The dump button means that most radio is delayed a few seconds instead of being truly by the second live.
Below are some examples of radio going wrong
BBC Radio Devon DJ David Lowe loses job over racist word
11 May 2014
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The DJ played the children's song "the sun has got his hat on" completely unaware that the second verse of the song has a racial slur the presenter stated it was an honest mistake and yet still lost his job, He was later offered his job back with the bbc stating that it could have been handled better.
Andrew Joseph fired for lewd remarks about Chloe Kim
Feb 14, 2018
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U.S. snowboarder Chloe Kim (17) won the gold medal in women's halfpipe. Andrew Joseph lost his job after the following remarks about the gold medalist "No doubt, and in fact just to keep it on that tip, her 18th birthday is April 23, and the countdown is on baby, 'cause I got my Wooderson going. "That's what I like about them high school girls." "She's fine as hell! If she was 18, you wouldn't be ashamed to say that she's a little hot piece of (expletive). And she is. She is adorable. I'm a huge Chloe Kim fan."
Radio Recording and Practice
Audio Equipment
Tascam
Zoom with attached microphone
Zoom
These Microphones are both stereo mics and both allow added mics (seen in the middle) Both microphones can be connected to a computer by using a mini usb or the sd card
Smartphones can also be used for recording audio with a similar quality depending on the type of phone
This microphone has an AUX plug that can plug into the phone and be used to record audio
News and Interviews
For our radio show we have to have an opening segment of any news and some interviews
Using the equipment above we were tasked to record an interview on a news story using some of the different interviewing tones
Our job in the interview was to get a soundbite from our interviewee
I was told that my interview was to be funny, casual, irreverent and enthusiastic which i thought would work well with the news story of a boy spending all his dad's money on football gambling
A soundbite is a short snippet of the interview that can be played and understood without hearing the exact question.
Essentially we want the question in the answer
I interviewed Emily about her thoughts on the boy spending his fathers money on gambling
The Interview
Soundbyte
Full Interview
Class practice
In order to get to terms with using the studio and all of the equipment we did a practice session as a class with all of our own segments in groups of two or three
Me and Logan compiled a few notes about the animated movie shrek so we could talk about it in our segment
Most of the research was just release dates and actors names as we for the most part would be talking about our opinions on the movie and speculation for the rumoured 5th movie
I think that the recording wasn't terrible but listening back to it, it's very clear it was our first time based on how we're speaking and how awkward it is. The main problems with this come just out of a lack of radio experience which after doing the rest of the project and my own radio show I think I've definitely improved on my ability to talk about topics on the radio.
Joined The Chat Radio Show
Every Thursday from 11:30-12:30
Initial proposition for the show
Radio Clock / Show Timings
Because our radio show is based on more of our conversation then the music I put the presenter chats as longer segments throughout the show with two tracks breaking up the chat giving us a little bit of a break and time to think
Finding a sponsor
As a part of our radio show we had to find a client that we could advertise for free on our show
I made the advert alongside the group at Let's Talk Radio so we both decided to use the advert as a shared one as our groups are a fairly close (I was on Let's Talk as a guest)
Our Advert that we did is for a company called DB Bodyworks and is owned by Dean Bateman. The company is a car accident repair centre and he fixes up cars with affordable prices and does the fixing in a good amount of time. The DB Bodywork also does Insurance, Same Day Repairs, he also does customizing. The company has 4.9/5 ratings and has good reviews about the customer service and how nice the owner Dean is and how amazing the cars look when they get it back and how much of a good job he has done. We chose him as there are many drivers here at college and also to anyone who is listening to the radio and are in need of their car to be fixed
120 Second News Segment
At the begining of our show we had to have a news segment highlighting news from the week
Jayden collected some news articles for us to talk about and put them in a powerpoint, I added some things like the world cup standings and news about it as it's a big headline at the moment
We took the news into a booth and tried to record the news together having each say a segment after each other, however when I went to edit the audio the audio wasn't recorded well, the mics in the booth had alot of static which drowned us out and was louder than us, I tried different effects from the rack like a single band compressor to help bring out our voices more but it made the static humming louder and worse. The audio also only recorded us speaking in the left speaker and not the right however I was able to make the audio mono so that wouldn't of been an issue if it was the only problem.
Instead of returning to the booth with Jaiden and risking the audio coming out the exact same way I re-recorded the audio on my own in my "recording booth"* at home
*My recording booth is a my wardrobe with a booklight and a microphone
I put some music behind the news and got the news that we used in episode 4
Every live episode
Episode 1
I think the first episode of the show went better than I initially expected. I forgot to use the opening stinger for the show and instead used a normal short 3 second stinger
Episode 2
We had some audio problems this time with Live DJ. The first audio track didn't seem to be playing any audio when i loaded up my stingers onto the track. Eventually, whilst looking at all the settings during our news segment I saw that for some reason the track was muted and i had to turn the volume up. As a result of this problem our opening once again stinger wasn't heard despite being made. Excluding that I think the show went fine however Toby and Jayden spoke slightly too quiet to be heard well
Episode 3
This episode was quite strange in how it turned out. Our groups were switched around and instead of jaiden we had damani join the radio. Initially I was going to sit this out as i was in alot of pain that day and didn't feel able to do the radio, however Toby said he wouldn't be able to come in for the episode and I didn't want damani to be alone so I came despite my pain. Jaiden offered to help us with the show so he also came. When we got to the studio Damani didn't show up so it ended up being me and Jayden. The show itself was alright, however I feel that the last segment wasn't done very well. I think that if we want to do something like that we would have to make it an entire episode due to how much there is to talk about. As it is it was just a messy talk about game controllers.
Episode 4
When doing this show we had a problem with the audio on Live DJ. When i put the audio on the track the audio was pitch shifted witch you can hear on the news at the begining. I wasn't sure what the problem was at first but then i noticed something I hadn't seen before on the deck. The audio had a a pitch key next to it which said -1. I made that 0 which fixed the problem. What was hapening was the audio was pitch correcting the audio to match the other track. I wasn't sure how to completely solve the problem so I had to keep making sure the audio was the right pitch
Guest on Let's talk radio
I had a lot of fun on Let's talk radio, The vibe is really lax on the show and it feels a lot more chill and like conversation amongst friends. The group chemistry works really well and everyone pitches in to show show making sure they're heard
Looking back at the shows on JTC radio i feel for alot of the conversations i took control which wasn't my intent at all when doing the show. I just wanted to make sure that the show wasn't alot of deadspace and we had things to talk about
Preparation for Final Show
Radio Clock / Show Timings
This time the radio clock is a bit more specific with it's timings and sessions which is usually how a show clock should be
In order to fit the 1 hour length i shortend the talk about Video Game Music as we don't have to talk incredibly in depth about that topic
When making the clock I also made a setlist along side it helping me with timings
Get Lucky - Daft Punk
El Manana - Gorillaz
Make Luv - Room 5
Brandy - Looking Glass
Something Good Can Work - Two Door Cinema Club
Boys Don't Cry - The Cure
Good Old Fashion Lover Boy - Queen
Hug Me - Pharell Williams
Happy Xmas - John Lenon
120 Seconds News
Jaiden once again sent me news for me to record in my "booth"
Because I was recording before the world cup game with France and Morocco I recorded multiple different outcomes for the match and will use the applicable one
This isn't all of them
Final news
Final Show
Full show
58 minute show
Podcast Version