rjcrouch's posterous http://rjcrouch.posterous.com Most recent posts at rjcrouch's posterous posterous.com Mon, 12 Dec 2011 08:26:00 -0800 REFLECT http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/reflect http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/reflect

A feeling of relief comes over me just thinking about the hours I spent in this studio getting this all together. Not necessarily because it was an INTENSE amount of work, but because my time management was severely underestimated. For a couple days I was occupying the studio until a couple hours prior to class and once all the way through 48hrs. In the end I'm happy. Not the happiest I could be but happy. But that's how it seems to go with all my work, I'm never to a point of completion in my own head.

This semester was the hardest and most work intensive semester I have experienced to date and that will most likely stand through my college career. I don't know if I have too much to say at this point. I'm just relieved and happy it's over. I feel accomplished and I guess that's all that matters.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/hdozADJsg7cQW rjcrouch rjcrouch rjcrouch
Mon, 12 Dec 2011 08:16:00 -0800 Process of a Process http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/process-of-a-process http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/process-of-a-process

PROCESS_for_the_Process.pdf Download this file

Above is a pdf of some of the process that was involved in developing my end of the semester process book. 

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/hdozADJsg7cQW rjcrouch rjcrouch rjcrouch
Mon, 14 Nov 2011 07:33:00 -0800 Entity Research: Reflection http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/entity-research-reflection http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/entity-research-reflection

Looking back on the project as a whole the most interesting part for me was learning what I could do with after effects. It's been a while since I was really inspired to learn new things to this extreme. I look back and see that I could have gone about using the program in a more effective manner but that's what comes with learning from our experiences. Unlike some of my other classmates I did not have any experience with video from last year so this was all a new experience for me when it came to the animation side. I have honestly been inspired to go back and redo the video regardless of the use for it. To me I find it important to keep myself polished on all my skills much like when we learned how to design and code websites, I think it's important to keep that in your list of skills. Overall I learned a lot from the project I just wish I had time to go back and revise it all.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/hdozADJsg7cQW rjcrouch rjcrouch rjcrouch
Sun, 13 Nov 2011 23:24:00 -0800 Experience Piece: Final http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/experience-piece-final http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/experience-piece-final

LOW_QUALITY.mpg Watch on Posterous

(This is a low quality version of the video rendered so it was small enough to upload.)

The final video was somewhat disappointing to me. I think the message was still there but the execution didn't come out the same way I envisioned it. I wanted it to really feel like the Gatorade commercials I was inspired by. Unfortunately The feeling was lost in the still images. If I could go back I would have seemed out footage I could use for the video rather than images. 

Another change I would look into would be extending the length of the video. Emphasizing the "it starts here" message with more repetition. I feel as thought the message was lost on the first time viewer. 

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/hdozADJsg7cQW rjcrouch rjcrouch rjcrouch
Sun, 13 Nov 2011 23:17:00 -0800 Entity Research: Video Inpiration http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/entity-research-video-inpiration http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/entity-research-video-inpiration

After doing some research and brainstorming companies I thought may have a mood I was looking for in video I stubbled upon Gatorade's "League of Clutch" campaign. Their commercials themselves seem to be created by slowing down actual footage and adding some visual elements. I thought a similar feel could be achieved by utilizing the 3D camera in After Effects and create the illusion of moving in a 3D area even if I was using a still image. This allowed me to access more material without having to seek out an extensive amount of lacrosse footage.

<p>Gatorade - League of Clutch from crissy cicco on Vimeo.</p>

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/hdozADJsg7cQW rjcrouch rjcrouch rjcrouch
Sun, 13 Nov 2011 22:46:00 -0800 Experience Piece: Story Board http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/experience-piece-story-board http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/experience-piece-story-board

My story board may look incomplete, and visually it is. But that's not to say I didn't think out what I was looking to make. I wanted a dramatic team building type of video. Something that would inspire the feeling of belonging to something important and the feeling of victory.  The overall concept is as follows right reading from the page.

1) There is a view of a lit field with a slow zoom outward. 
2) cuts to a close up on a player covered in sweat, under the lights. 
3) Shows the crowd cheating, in slow motion. Inspiring a school spirit. 
4) Cut of an action shot of players on the field [possibly repeating through a couple different shots] 
5) Flashes back to a practice or some sort of instruction. 
6) Flashes back further to a younger age of the player on the field. 
7) Comes back to the player scoring in the present day. 
8) Fades to the phrase "It all starts here"

Photo

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/hdozADJsg7cQW rjcrouch rjcrouch rjcrouch
Sun, 13 Nov 2011 22:43:00 -0800 Experience Piece: Mood Board http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/experience-piece-mood-board http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/experience-piece-mood-board

Empire_board_2_white
This mood board for Empire was rested with all the intentions of being a very structured mood board. I used the default colors of the company to build the whole board. At the bottom you can see a word cloud representing the company as a whole. A feeling of team sports and outdoors should be an overall feeling in the board. I think the idea of instruction and/or coaching is felt in the images on the left. My exploration of type really stuck with the Gotham type face, this was decided because of my own personal experience with past designs with the company the typeface really expressed the overall feel needed.

If I could go back with enough time I believe I would try and push the board in a more emotive direction rather than the structured board I produced. In all honestly it feels bland to me. 

 

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/hdozADJsg7cQW rjcrouch rjcrouch rjcrouch
Tue, 11 Oct 2011 19:44:00 -0700 Reflection http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/reflection http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/reflection

Looking back on my executive overview presentation I just keep thinking about how I, and many others missed the big point. The point that we were supposed to be presenting to our executive. Many of us got caught up in the environment of the classroom and the fact that our class mates would be in attendance. I feel as though this really changed the way we looked at our speech and how it was constructed. I myself feel as though much of my information was solid and sound but the way it was presented was regrettable. I even believe the organization of the speech would have worked. In the beginning I only had the logo presented as I explained who my organization was, I did this purposely so as to no have a slide talking about the basics of my organization. There are a few problems I foresee with getting away from this though.

 

I Don't like that I would be presenting to a class that has no knowledge of what my entity is about. It seems impractical and unfair that we would put presentations on that way. I feel like we would only end up confused with each presentation and it would be hard to captivate the class as an audience. I also see this being a problem when it comes to the Q&A stage where I feel like many of the questions would end up being about "what does your company do." This would really side track much of the valuable time we had for real learning questions. 

 

On the other side of things is, "Would they get it?" Meaning would the executive get all the terms we were using. Would my exec know what a SWOT analysis was or where I Was even going with it. Would that turn them off to the fact we are trying to help them, or could it possibly even cause them to lose interest in the presentation overall. I just feel as though I would have constructed my entire presentation differently around explaining the information in a way that someone who had no prior knowledge in the research we did would understand it. 

 

These are just some thoughts I feel should be taken into consideration next time the presentation is being constructed.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/hdozADJsg7cQW rjcrouch rjcrouch rjcrouch
Mon, 10 Oct 2011 01:26:00 -0700 SKETCH BOOK http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/sketch-book http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/sketch-book

I thought I would give you a little insight to what my sketch book looks like. It's funny I feel as though in previous years my sketch books looked far more "designed" where as now I think much of it is thrown in there as fast as possible while the thoughts are there. This isn't the whole thing but at least a taste of some of the elements from this project.

 

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/hdozADJsg7cQW rjcrouch rjcrouch rjcrouch
Mon, 10 Oct 2011 01:16:00 -0700 FULL SYSTEM MAP http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/full-system-map http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/full-system-map

I noticed I never posted an image of my System map all together so here it is.

SYSTEM_5.pdf Download this file

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/hdozADJsg7cQW rjcrouch rjcrouch rjcrouch
Sun, 09 Oct 2011 20:35:00 -0700 S.W.O.T. http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/swot http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/swot

I feel like I struggled to expand to a wide range on my swot analysis but found a decent amount of information.

 

Swot

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/hdozADJsg7cQW rjcrouch rjcrouch rjcrouch
Mon, 26 Sep 2011 11:24:00 -0700 PERSONAS http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/personas http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/personas

Personas_1

These are the select personas I decided to explore, like many others probably figured out there in an extensive amount of personas that may interact with your entity. I picked the few that I thought would span some important areas of interest. 

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/hdozADJsg7cQW rjcrouch rjcrouch rjcrouch
Fri, 23 Sep 2011 20:37:00 -0700 System Map: COMMUNITY http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/system-map-community http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/system-map-community

COMM_1.pdf Download this file

This is the community side of the map. Most of it is pretty self explanatory and really shows how Empire gets involved with different areas of play. I thin the largest thing to take away from this is the "KEEP THEM PLAYING" area of the map.

Empire provides off season clinics and tournaments to keep players playing year around. This allows Empire to stay in season and selling equipment at all times. They provide indoor play during the winter, fall tournaments, and summer leagues. But nothing will top sales during regular season in the spring. 

The other aspect of keeping them playing is the start up clinics Empire provides for school systems that may not have a program at one level or another. Empire is always trying to expand the sport in Indiana and that shows with the free clinics and donation of equipment to the sport throughout the state. There is always the thought that further expansion is really an investment in the company.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/hdozADJsg7cQW rjcrouch rjcrouch rjcrouch
Fri, 23 Sep 2011 19:09:00 -0700 System Map: SUPPLIERS http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/system-map-suppliers http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/system-map-suppliers

SUPPLIERS_1.pdf Download this file

Empire Lacrosse Goes through a number of suppliers. Lacrosse as a sport is really evolving every single season. New technologies are emerging every year and yet these companies still seem to stay small businesses. You may see some familiar names here though. Nike has recently entered the Lacrosse market with their own line of shafts and heads. All the other companies either started as lacrosse companies from the beginning or came from other sports.

Warrior started as a lacrosse company and soon bought out a hockey company. Warrior was then brought on as a Brand of New Balance shoes and has since then bought out Brine Lacrosse, who was also involved with a large soccer market. This bring two of the largest Lacrosse companies together under one roof still bringing out their own separate products.

One thing that sets lacrosse and Empire apart from big box companies is that these small companies still send out personal representatives to their retailers so that they can give a hands on preview of new products each year. Surprisingly even Nike sends out a personal rep for their lacrosse products. I really don't think Empire would buy any other way.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/hdozADJsg7cQW rjcrouch rjcrouch rjcrouch
Fri, 23 Sep 2011 19:02:00 -0700 System Map: COMP http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/system-map-comp http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/system-map-comp

Back in the day the large corporations would move in on small towns and shut down small businesses and now a-day's the thing to look out for is internet business undercutting prices and upping convenience. Empire is no stranger to internet competition. The majority of their competition comes from large inventory online companies.

Being that many people who take up the sport in Indiana are starting at the middle school level or even younger their parents probably take most of the direction in where they shop. To many parents Dick's Sporting Goods in the default for local sports equipment. But their selection is limited and usually overpriced in comparison to Empire. And when their kids know they want something that Dick's doesn't have in stock many times the option is default to online shopping. So the question is, how do we keep business coming back to Empire each time a new wave of players steps into the sport?

Empire already works with just about every coach in the business to bring in as many customers as he can. It just seems as though it somehow needs to be policed that the coaches keep up the advertisement for him. 

COMP_1.pdf Download this file

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/hdozADJsg7cQW rjcrouch rjcrouch rjcrouch
Wed, 21 Sep 2011 08:28:00 -0700 System Map: IDENTITY http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/system-map-identity http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/system-map-identity

IDENTITY_1.pdf Download this file

Above you can see the Identity part of my system map. One thing I like about Empire's logo is that it can stand with or without the text included. The 'E' really exemplifies the brand well. Including the crown on top and the crossed sticks behind really showing the company's power. The Empire logo is copywriten in 3 different configurations. All using the Empire Blue and Orange.

As your eyes follow through the map you can see that the logo can be seen outside of the store on the sign as well as inside the story on the multitude of apparel he offers. This apparel can be seen at events around Indiana. 

Empire has a strong web presence with a newly redesigned website that include all Indiana league sign ups outside of the IHSLA you have to see the Empire website to play any lacrosse in Indiana. The new online store also allows for him to further push his brand to new customers outside of central Indiana. 

Empire has a strong following on both Twitter and Facebook with many players around Indiana conversing and socializing through their pages.

 

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/hdozADJsg7cQW rjcrouch rjcrouch rjcrouch
Mon, 19 Sep 2011 08:19:00 -0700 CONTINUUMS http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/continuums http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/continuums

Each attached image has a visual continuum with a description of why the entity has been plotted in that position.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/hdozADJsg7cQW rjcrouch rjcrouch rjcrouch
Fri, 16 Sep 2011 07:48:00 -0700 Marketing Aesthetics http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/marketing-aesthetics http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/marketing-aesthetics

I am working on a digital form of this as I type but I wanted to give you a heads up on watching for an update! My written form is below.

Photo

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/hdozADJsg7cQW rjcrouch rjcrouch rjcrouch
Fri, 16 Sep 2011 07:27:00 -0700 Distribution Meeting with Maverik Lacrosse http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/distribution-meeting-with-maverik-lacrosse http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/distribution-meeting-with-maverik-lacrosse

On wednesday I attended a meeting between my client and one of his distributors. The distribution rep was there for Maverik Lacrosse. He was there to show off equipment coming out for the upcoming spring season, set to drop in December and January. I got to see a lot of products I was already familiar with with new aesthetic designs attached. The really interesting part came with the introduction of new products. Many of these were not physically there to see but instead in a PDF catalogue for their 2012 line. 

I wish I could have gotten my hands on the PDF to share but they seemed to be somewhat confidential. I thought it was odd that they wouldn't bring in new products considering many of the images in the PDF were physical pictures, as apposed to digital renderings. I guess that't where the company's relationship comes into play. Maverik, like all the other product companies, has a log standing relationship with Empire. I was told since the store opened the distribution rep had been the same. You have to take his word and his company's word to heart and just believe they will be bringing you a quality product year after year.

 

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/hdozADJsg7cQW rjcrouch rjcrouch rjcrouch
Wed, 14 Sep 2011 07:18:00 -0700 Skipping Class http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/skipping-class http://rjcrouch.posterous.com/skipping-class

Today I skipped class to attend a meeting between my client and one of his distribution reps. He invited me to come along and see what it's like. I'm getting ready to leave as I type. I'll post an update later!

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/hdozADJsg7cQW rjcrouch rjcrouch rjcrouch