Yahoo // Direction

I have a new direction for the Yahoo brief as the last idea I had was going into too much depth and moving away from what the brief wanted.

I was focusing more on what the brief wanted, now I am focusing more on what the target audience want from a website and what they could get from Yahoo.

The New Idea...

Thinking slightly more outside the box.

Make Yahoo more personal by re-introduce blogging back to Yahoo. They used to have Geotagging but this was shut down.

The constant interaction with the new blog site of Yahoo will mean the constant interaction of the Yahoo homepage as the sign in tool will be set on the homepage.

Reason

Teenagers today like to make their mark, especially when it comes to the internet. They like to have a social presence and be heard, they like to be listened to and be taken seriously. By having a page to themselves on the internet whether this may be Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, Youtube, Blogger or Tumblr...it means they are being heard.

Yahoo is impersonal, you can create an email address and account but you cannot be seen.

Teenagers use the internet for a variety of things apart from social networkking. Media uses include; photos, videos, online tutorials, following people / blogs, music and gaming.

Concept

Incorporate the main features from each of the leading websites into this new Yahoo Blog
Facebook - social networking / chat with friends
Twitter - networking and having a 'voice', following people who are 'untouchable' e.g. celebrities.
Blogger / Tumblr - sharing views, work, ideas - being listened to by a 'faceless' audience
Pinterest - sharing their interetest through images.
Youtube - music, videos and video diaries

Function

Users would have to set up an account with a Yahoo email address

They would then be taken through a series of questions to decipher inters test, likes and suggested pages / ads - also could cut the junk from the yahoo homepage that won't interest them...making the current Yahoo more personal to them.

Name

Play on Yahoo and teenagers use of slang and use 'Yah!' before the name e.g. Yah!Blog, Yah!Me, Yah!page...

For the 'Yah!' I would keep it in the current logo format.

Design Deliverables

Design the page for the blog - layout etc

Online adds promoting the page

Design an app for smart phones and tablets.

Research;

Other blog designs
Other website designs
App designs
Online ad designs

Yahoo Moments // Concept Developments for each section

The worksheets below are where I have gone through each of the pages on Yahoo and researched a bit behind the content and thought about how I could make that into an advert campaign that would interest 13-18 year olds. 

Yahoo // Concept Development Worksheets

I spent the majority of yesterday mapping out my brief, researching, and looking through books at past advertising campaigns. Then working out a clear concept for the digital ad campaign. This is the first advertising campaign I have done for a project so I need to make sure that I have a water tight concept.

I came up with two concepts but this morning I was talking to one of my peers and he mentioned that I should probably use some sort of 'slang' or language that the age group would relate to, this was one of the concepts I came up with so I am going to combine the two ideas I came up with yesterday and develop it from there.

I am carrying on my ideas from my previous day of brainstorming when I thought I was going to be re-designing the website. I am still going to have the different sections of Yahoo that the 13-18 year olds will be most interested in using. This sheet is just mapping out the different areas and ideas I need to explore before starting on the brief. 

I was having a bit of a problem cutting down the sections of Yahoo that teenagers are most interested in. I felt that Music was one of the main sections that teenagers use the internet for, Youtube in particular. However when looking back at all the different sections of the Yahoo, music is not something that features on the website. When I revisit this brief next term and propose the re-design for the website, this is something that I will add in as I feel Yahoo would greatly benefit from having a music related page as the majority of teenagers think, drink breath music! On this sheet I was also starting to think about ideas for strap lines, noting down various words that would be good to use. I want to keep the strap line simple and straight to the point, not use elaborate language which might distract from the design / campaign. The research for this worksheet is on my design context blog. I read on one question / answer website that was asking the public if they thought Google or Yahoo was better to use, and one comment was 'Yahoo is good for chilling and hanging' and 'Google was better for browsing'. Hanging and chilling...this is one idea / train of through that I am going to follow on because it is a typical characteristic / activity of the target audience. 

This worksheet is working on the tone of voice and more wording for the strapline. I need to engage the target audience with a short statement that preferably needs to be using words they use / slang / abbreviations. I think that the adverts need to be 'cheeky, humorous, witty' and be a combination of type and image. I was reading one of the books about creative advertising and it was talking about the first glance at an advert is taken into the subconscious, and the second glance the advert is taken into the conscious and understood - this is clever creative advertising. My idea is to have a photography based campaign where the idea is conveyed in the setting, and then to have a clever message / play on teenage slang combined with Yahoo.

My initial idea; at present Yahoo is a digital product, you cannot physically touch it (although you can see it on a screen.) I want to flip this around and make it something physical, I want to incorporate this new physicality of Yahoo into the world around us and make it a 'physical reminder'. For this I would come up with a range of situations that the target audience would need to use Yahoo, construct and image / photograph of this then place a either a structure of the logo into the background or an icon of yahoo placed in. On my design context blog I found a couple of images that ignited this idea. I would also have the photographs monochrome and then have the icon and possibly the 'point' of reminder in the spot Yahoo colour, another physical connection to the website. The concept of this would be that the target audience would have constant interaction with the website, weather they are using their smart phone, tablet or anything else where they could access Yahoo and use it. I would also have a strap line underneath which would be something on the lines of...'Yahoo...one click away from your daily essentials' or 'everyday / one needs Yahoo'...'everyone has a Yahoo moment'. Each of the designs would have a short line of text relating to the different situation e.g. gaming, lifestyle, mail / hat, music / entertainment, yahoo answers, and then the main strap line. 

The second idea I came up with was more to do with the name of each of the sections and using a language / slang that relates to teenagers. In general, the slang the target audience uses to replace the words 'your' or 'yes' is 'yah' - which is the first 3 letters of Yahoo. By using 'yah' in context of 'your' it is also making the sections of the website more personal to each users Yahoo account. The plan for this would to be to have "Yah" in the form of the logo at the moment and then just add on the word for each of the different sections. I haven't quite decided on the names for each of the sections yet but the start is 

- YAHmail

- YAHanswers

- YAHgames

are the start....

I thought about having 'thrills' for the entertainment section but I don't think that the word relates to this part of the website enough, this is t

This are a couple reasons / responses I found to why people use Yahoo over Google, and I wanted to see if I could use them and have a play on words to help people connect more with the website. 

This is the final sheet that I did yesterday which just incorporates all my research and ideas.

I am going to incorporate both of the ideas that I have written about above and move forward with the concept of...

Yahoo moments..
Everyday / one has a Yahoo moment
Everyday needs Yahoo

The next step

1. Decide on the sections I am going to create the campaigns.
2. Work out the main strap line. 
3. Brainstorm a list of situations where the target audience would have a Yahoo moment
4. Work out the wording for each of the situations.
5. Visual stimulus - logo in a photograph - work out which is the best way to go about it. 
6. Design the icon / logo / 3D construction that will be placed in the photographs
7. Test out the typefaces / colours. 
8. Sketch out indents / situations for the photographs
9. Test run out the photographs
10. Take photographs in London. 
11. Edit and construct the designs. 
12. Edit and c

Worksheets // Publication Layout

I needed to work out by hand the order and the potential layout of the pages of the first publication so that I don't get confused. Publication design is something that is new to me, I have done layout before in the type module in my second year but this is something new!

I have decided to keep the pages simple and for each of the featured artists / producers I am going to have 3 double page spreads on them

1. Introduction page on them - large scale photo, their name, a quote about or from them
2. Biography, track listing and discography. The track listing will just feature the best of the songs
3. Selected parts from the different interviews; I am going to combine the interviews I found for each of the artists and take the best bits from each, just as long as it makes sense!

I drew quick sketches of the different formats that I could use for the magazine but I thnk that I am going to use the a5 portrait format for at least two of the publications, and I thought that for the dj's / producers who I couldn't find much information on and who I really want to feature (like Bit Funk) I would use a slightly different format, portrait A4 size but the half the width. I will have to print it out and see weather this actually works, if not then I will just include more photographs and make it more typographic based and focusing on the tracks and discography rather than written content about them.



Layout Worksheets

Worksheet mapping out the publication and range

Before I started researching, I wrote out what I needed for the publication, the formats and the range so I had a clear working process.


Publication Mapping Out

Music Logo Design // Initial Worksheets

Logo Worksheets

Curious Eats Logo // Initial Designs

Starting off with the logo design for Curious Eats

Below are some of the quick designs I have played around with on Illustrator and experimenting with typefaces. 

Logo Initial Designs on Illustrator

Refined Brief; focus, skills & deliverables

After the progress tutorial I have gone through my 4 significant briefs and refined them because before I was trying to design too many deliverables for each. 

Visual mapping out of the briefs

To help work out my design process and the range of design outcomes I visually mapped out 3 of the briefs