PPP 2: EVALUATION

The 'Lifes a Pitch' module has been a really insightful module in regards to learning about the industry and what it takes to set up your own business. I feel that this module had opened up my eyes to many different avenues that I would never consider before such as 'what type of business are you' and 'how much are starting up costs' all these little things are essential for a successful business and to enable that you don't find yourself in a lot of debt.

Another thing that I have really liked about this module is the group that I have worked within, I have worked with people that I have never worked with before in a collaboration which is something new and refreshing to get other peoples outlooks on design. I also think the group that I worked with were really enthusiastic and dedicated in ensuring that we created a liable and professional business which made the brief even more enjoyable to do. 

In regards to our presentation and overall aesthetic I think that we did really well in considering a multitude of avenues such as branding guidelines and creating a company outside of England and learning about their culture. This was something that I felt quite interesting with thinking outside of the box and doing something really different.

Overall I have really enjoyed this brief, if I could change anything about the brief it would be to create even more design outcomes to present to our peers. However I think this was a successful brief and would like to work with these people again.

PPP 2: PRESENTATION

PPP 2: PROMOTIONAL VIDEO

For the presentation, John always expresses that you should make a SHOW! With this in mind I decided to ask my peers if we should create a small typographic video to play alongside the oral presentation.

With this agreed I created this video using type as image and the iMovie software. We wanted the brand to come across as sophisticated, contemporary and professional. So I stuck to the branding guidelines of the company and also added some spanish music to reinforce the companies ethos.

Design Slides

I broke down the slide into different sections describing to the audience who we are and what we are about using adjective beginning with 'e' to fit in with the name of our brand and logo. I then transitioned through our logo, name and the a ref feral to any questions that might want to be answered at the end of the presentation.

Completed Video

I really enjoyed this process of making the video as I felt it would set our other presentations apart. I also like how we all agreed upon this presentation decision and all contributed with ideas.

PPP 2: PRACTICE PRESENTATION

Today we had another group meeting to discuss our presentation. We decided to rehearse and write lines for ourselves to memorise so that we would be prepared for the final presentation.

In doing this it was really beneficial for us to see what we needed to say, our queues  were we wanted to stand and also the format in which the presentation would take place. 

In doing this practice presentation, we really benefited in being prepared and feeling more confident for the presentation. I really felt that working within this collaboration everyone was really dedicated and enthusiastic in putting on a good show and coming across and professional.

PPP 2: GROUP MEETING

After completing the design elements and other research that everyone had set out to do, we decided that we would all really benefit in meeting up and going over our presentation or any queries we had.

We set up a to do list of things we needed to consider in order to make sure our presentation and company covered everything that had been discussed in previous sessions with John.

• Allocate roles in presentation
• Include what kind of business we are - Limited
• Market area - clients

With this in mind we will go ahead with targeting these goals to ensure that we are prepared.

PPP 2: BRANDING GUIDLINES

Branding Guidelines

Along with Lizzy I looked at creating some brand guidelines in regards the the placement of the logo design. 

I reflected back to the Film4 branding guidelines that were presented to us in a previous module as a source of influence and considered the arrangements of the logo and its size.

Presence

This is a collection of pieces that represent Equilibrio's design presence, which everyone in the group had an input in, but was further developed by Bobby and Jasper.

PPP 2: NETWORKING

Despite our group meetings we also set up a Facebook contact page throughout the collaboration were could constantly share ideas after meetings and things to consider which was really beneficial in us developing our work and receiving design work that we had completed.

We often posted tips on building a brand, pictures, to-do lists and regularly update each other on what we had achieved. In doing this I think it kept everyone in contact and in the know with what was going on with the collaboration.

PPP 2: ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Today we had another group meeting to show the ways in which we could take on specific roles to make the workload quicker and identify who we were in the company.

Within the collaboration we all decided to set Responsibilities for one another in regards to our strengths and interests so that we could make the work load easier. We set ourselves questions to ask and things to research further into to find out more for our presentation which are listed below.

Bobby: Branding / Creative Direction 

Jasper: Branding / Studio Competition

Lizzy: Company Values

Sam: Studio Design Style 

J'nae: Promotional design / Location

Joe: Costings / Business plan

After assigning these roles we will discuss our findings in future group meetings to see how we can progress as a company.

One of my roles was to also find professional titles for each of my peers to take on within the company. Considering their interests and what they liked to do, we all selected different roles that we wanted to work within. Despite being a design agency we all had branding roles however we also extended our roles to other specific fields that we work within. I researched further into the proposed roles and wrote a monologue for each of my peers to recite for the presentation.

Bobby: Creative Director 

"My roles include leading the communication design, interactive design, and concept forward thinking in any work assigned. I also guide my team with skills and experience related to graphic design. Some examples of my work can include visual layout, brainstorming, and copy writing."

Jasper: Art Director 

"My role is to make sure that illustrators and production artists produce and complete their work on time and to the creative director or client's satisfaction. A major part of my role in the development of a project is to make decisions on the visual elements of the project, and by giving the final say on the selection of models, art, props, colors, and other elements."

Lizzy: Brand Identity Developer 

"Brand identity design is concerned with the visual aspects of a company or organization’s brand or identity. Some of my roles in terms of design include creating a unique logo, or signage, and is then often integrated throughout all the elements of a company’s materials such as business cards, stationery, packaging, media advertising, promotions, and more."

Sam: Visual Image Developer 

 "My roles is to develop images such as photography, 3D modeling, and image editing. My specialty is to aid web development, software development, or multimedia development in a job"

J'nae: Account Executive 

"My role is to bring more clients into the agency to increase revenue. I establish relationships with clients and closing deals being a direct link between the agency and the existing client, managing day-to-day affairs such as media placement, distributions, contract negotiation, etc and ensuring customer satisfaction."

Joe: Illustrator and Linguist

"My roles include conceptualising and creating illustrations that represent an idea or a story through two-dimensional or three-dimensional images. I do drawings for printed materials such as books, magazines, and other publications, or for commercial products such as textiles, packaging, wrapping paper, greeting cards, calendars, stationery, and more."

I think that by identifying roles, responsibilities and selecting alternative specialist skills within the company is something that will enable us to be alternative as a design agency and also help with the work load.

PPP 2: STUDIO SPACE

One of my roles within the collaboration was to locate a place in which our studio would be based. I researched into different studios and apartments that could be potentially used for the brief.

Initially I researched into advice about studio spaces in Barcelona and found a lot of forums and online articles, with the do's and dont's of renting out a space there. I thought this would be real invaluable information to consider when looking into potential places to let. - Barcelona Business

Studio Spaces


Garcés De Seta Bonet Arquitectes

This is a studio space in Barcelona with beautiful architecture, two floors and a lot of work space. However the location of this studio is very discreet and in the middle of a forrest in Barcelona which would be quite difficult for our agency to meet other clients and creatives.

Price: Not Disclosed / Negotiable.

BCN

It consists of 50 offices with a variety of rentable surfaces (15,18, 22, 28 and 35 m² built). Prices include the community costs (security, cleaning, wifi, maintenance, air conditioning, etc..). Consumption of electricity and community water are billed separately. The spaces have community toilets, meeting rooms, conference room, office, canteen and a community of professionals. The costs of this space looks very reasonable and also having a bills included, However the atmosphere and overall size of the building didn't seem big enough and we would still have to consider living space.

Price: €265 to €495 a month. 

Talent and Co

TALENT&CO is a community of changemakers, game-changers, pioneers, social artists, and entrepreneurs. By working in the same flexible office space we walk an unknown path together, co-create & collaborate, inspire, expand and grow.

Address: Carrer Llibertat, 13, 08012 Barcelona

Price: €50 a day

Betahaus

betahaus | Barcelona is a social space, both physical and virtual, designed for the development of independent creative professionals and entrepreneurs with an open mind.

Address: Vilafranca 7 08024 Barcelona

€229 a month

Pangea

Pangea Coworking is a cool and creative place. Its sole design encourages human relationships and fosters creativity. Every inhabitant helps and learns from each other, because everybody here understands that it is in that very moment when magic happens.

Price: €200 a month

Home Session

A two floor studio space in the centre of Barcelona with 5 tramline and 7 bus stations in the area. The second floor acts a living space and is located in the centre of Barcelona, where other creative industries lay.

Price: €280 a month 

Useful guide to other spaces.

From my research, I presented the potential spaces to the rest of m group and as a collaborative we decided to go ahead with home session studio space as it was a prime location, a reasonable price and also a living space for the rest of the designers which has will enable us to cut costs also.

Interior Design

Despite us picking this studio, there were no actuall images of the space online, so I took the initiative to mock up some designs that suited the rest of our brand guild lines for the studio. I took some images from pinterest and mocked up our logo and other interior decorations to the design.

PPP 2: STUDIO LOCATION

One of my roles within the collaboration was to research into a location for our studio. After brainstorming with my group a few locations that we wanted to use, we decided upon having the studio in Barcelona.

The location of Equlibrio is based in Barcelona due to it's extensive culture in design studio's and strong economy.

Where we work and why?

Barcelona is one of Europe's best city for business and is the fastest improving European city, with growth improved by 17% per year. Barcelona is also one of the world's leading tourist, economic, trade fair/exhibitions and cultural-sports centres, and its influence in commerce, education, entertainment, media, fashion, science, and the arts all contribute to its status as one of the world's major global cities.

Benefits of Working in Barcelona

- Website

What are the cultural and design considerations of working in Barcelona?

Culture of Barcelona

Barcelona's culture stems from the city's 2000 years of history. To a greater extent than the rest of Catalonia, where Catalonia's native Catalan is more dominant, Barcelona is a bilingual city: Catalan and Spanish are both official languages and widely spoken. Since the arrival of democracy, the Catalan culture (very much repressed during the dictatorship) has been promoted, both by recovering works from the past and by stimulating the creation of new works.

Museums
The National Museum of Art of Catalonia possesses a well-known collection of Romanesque art, including wall-paintings from Romanesque churches and chapels around Catalonia that have been transferred to the museum, Gothic art from the 13th–15th centuries, Renaissance and Baroque art from the 16th-18th centuries, Modern art from the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century, as well as the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection.

The Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art, usually known as MACBA (acronym of Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona), focuses on post-1945 Catalan and Spanish art, though it also includes foreign works. Adjacent to the MACBA, the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, or CCCB, hosts temporary exhibitions, a cinema, concerts and other cultural events.

Architecture

The Barri Gòtic ("Gothic Quarter" in Catalan) is the centre of the old city of Barcelona. Many of the buildings date from medieval times, some from as far back as the Roman settlement of Barcelona. Other historical areas include El Raval and El Born.

Catalan modernisme architecture (often known as Art Nouveau in the rest of Europe), developed between 1885 and 1950 and left an important legacy in Barcelona. A great number of these buildings are World Heritage Sites. Especially remarkable is the work of architect Antoni Gaudí, which can be seen throughout the city. His best known work is the immense but still unfinished church of the Sagrada Família, which has been under construction since 1882, and is still financed by private donations: as of 2007, completion is planned for 2026. Other examples of his work are the Palau Güell, thePark Güell, the Casa Milà (La Pedrera) and the Casa Batlló. Many turn-of-the-century buildings were constructed in the context of the huge widening of the city which came with the construction of Eixample and the incorporation of other municipalities into a larger Barcelona. This was based onIldefons Cerdà's linear mid-19th century urban plan, which was revolutionary at the time and which is still notable for allowing new architecture to be built on unused ground.

Another notable architect was Lluís Domènech i Montaner, who designed the Palau de la Música Catalana, the Hospital de Sant Pau and the Casa Lleó Morera. Josep Puig i Cadafalch's Casa Ametller can also be seen on Passeig de Gràcia. Adolf Florensa, one of the first architects to adapt structures from the Chicago School, was in charge of many original works in Via Laietana, the Palace of Communications and Transports of the 1929 World Exposition and most especially the new urban plan of the Gothic Quarter.

Since the constructive work done for the 1992 Summer Olympics and with grand-scale urban regeneration taking place in time for the 2004 Universal Forum of Cultures, Barcelona has become a center for avant-garde architecture, starting with the Hotel Arts and its twin the Torre Mapfre. Among those works, the Torre Agbar is one of the ones that has caused more disparaging opinions. As a result of its unusual shape, the building is known by several nicknames, such as "el supositori" (the suppository), "l'obús" (the shell) and some more eschatological ones.

Barcelona won the 1999 RIBA Royal Gold Medal for its architecture, the first (and as of 2011, only) time that the winner has been a city, and not an individual architect.

Transport

There are two airports within the Barcelona which is Gro is Girona airport which is under an hot away from the city and the BCN is Barcelona airport. The use of two airport allows international affairs for the company to be easier for travelling.

Language

In Barcelona there are two official languages: Catalan and Spanish. Next to Catalunya there are other territories where the Catalan is used: the Valencian Community, the Balearic Islands and part of Aragon, the Franja de Ponent. It is the only official language in Andorra and its use extends to the south of France and the city of Alghero, Sardinia. As a result, it is calculated that there are a total of nine million people that speak Catalan and 11 million that understand it. The Catalan is the ninth most spoken language in the European Union.

PPP 2: GROUP MEETING

For our first meeting as group we discussed what the nature of business was going to be, our roles within the group, the location of the business and the name.

To start our discussions, I took the role of the scribe, writing down everyones idea's and contributions to the group for the first meeting.

Nature of the business

From this brainstorm we all added things that we individually liked in our own professional practice. After allocating these ideas we specifically narrowed our design agency down to being a branding and identity agency that focuses on events; ranging from fashion, music and even food based events.

Group Name

Due to our group having more than 5 like the rest of the groups we experimented with the idea with incorporating the number 6 into our name. However when considering the location of our studio we expanded on these names and came up with the name Equilibrio which is a spanish word meaning balance and harmony. We felt that this was best fitting to our brand and design studio as we discussed that there would be equal shares in the company.

Location

As a collective we wanted have the company abroad and chose Barcelona due to some of our favourite agencies being based there and also it's a good location for graphic design and other creative outlets. Looking at international graphic design and studios some of the favourite agencies in the group were Lo Siento and Solo which are studios we aspired to be like.

Contract

<copy of contract>

After making some of these crucial decisions in the development of our work we wrote out an agreement contract where we could assign roles within the collaboration and give John an insight into what we were about.

I think with the first group meeting we had quite a success, although it did take a while to find out the outcomes above, we all considered everyones interests and tried to make it equal for everyone.

PPP 2: A BUSINESS IN A NUTSHELL Q&A

Today's session we will be looking into things that we need to consider and make initial idea's on for the upcoming group work. Below are some of the questions we have to consider.

• What is the nature of your business?
• Where will you work from?
• What MUST you consider?
• Who is your intended market area?
• Are you a sole trader?
• A partnership / CooP?
• A Limited Liability Company?
• A Limited Company?
• Working from home?
• From a start up organisation?
• Renting office space?
• Within another Studio (Desk Space)?
• What will you charge?
• What liabilities do you incur?
• What financial things must you keep?
• What records must you keep?

These areas will need to be research and document everything onto your blog. The deadline is the 25th march for the group presentations. 

You will need to get together on a regular basis, so make sure ALL members of your business pull their weight. If they don't. Blog it. AND /OR if necessary you can fire them!

PPP 2: INTRODUCTION: SET UP

Today we had a talk with john were he presented some thoughts about what we can do as designers in the future.

Whats are your options?

• Freelance
• Working for a studio
• Going into partnership
• Setting up a company or studio

What can we look at to plan a potential future: 

• Where will I work from?
• Where do my clients come from?
• How much do I charge?
• Will I get paid?
• What will I need?
• Do I pay tax, VAT ext?

For the next few sessions, we will look into setting up some potential businesses. Using 11 groups of 5 designers we will work as small enterprises. Within the groups give your business a name, apportion specific tasks to each member and have regular meetings to achieve an agreed plan of action.

There will be tasks that you will need to complete over a period of time which will culminate in a 'pitch' or a presentation, by your 'business' to the year at the end of the PPP period. We will be going through all the relevant areas well in advance.

YOU WILL NO BE ALONE.

The following sessions will take this format.

• Introduction
• A business in a nutshell Q & A.
• Review and Q & A
• Pre presentations review.

On your PPP blogs you will all post on what you have done in your groups. If you are in a group, you will need to elect a 'Manager' to control the whole exercise, and to make sure that all tasks are completed on time. Research is key and you will be reported to john as you go on the project.

The presentation should be as professional as you can  make them, It is up to you which items, and what you will put together for a professional presentation of your 'business'.

DON'T FORGET TO ENJOY THE PROCESS

We then looked into some useful pointers to remember when doing freelance work for clients and how to ensure that you get paid.

• Talk about your terms and conditions and wait for them to agree with a official document showing this.
• Send an invoice to the accounts department.