WK2 Analysis: Businesses & The Visual Web

Full Sail University’s Pinterest is full of ideas for future student in regards to housing, places to dine, decorating your place and your mac! They also provide an abundance of “pins” on educational interests like Art History and Creative Writing for Entertainment. They also focus on the campus itself, the degree programs they offer, student success, and inspiration for students.

All of this content supports the Full Sail brand by engaging in students who use social media to seek information. People love visuals and the fact that Full Sail has made a Pintrest account with various “boards” and “pins” shows a future student that Full Sail is current and innovative.

Full Sail engages their current and future students by providing not only information about the degree programs offered and student success stories. They draw in other people with their boards for fashion and inventions. When Full Sail creates other boards like fashion, they expand their audience. Every time a person “re-pins” a pin, they are able to see where the source came from. With this, people are able to see Full Sails name and go look at their boards and find more information about the University.

Dollar Shave Club uses their Instagram to showcase their humorous product packaging. Each of their razor packages provides a humorous quote to engage their customer and make them laugh. They also provide picture of their staff and their facility but their main focus is their product.

Dollar Shave Clubs content support their brand tremendously by having 90% of their photographs being of their product. Because their product packaging is humorous, it’s far more likely for their photo to be shared or commented on, thus engaging a larger audience.

Dollar Shave Club engages with their audience by consistently providing a source of laughter. Each photo of the company’s workers and events are also shown in a humorous light. By using humor their photos are far more likely to be passed along to a potential customer.

Science World provides engaging information having to do with all things science. They also provide a lot of information about current events that are going on at their facilities. They showcase information about current exhibits and future exhibits.

Utilizing Facebook supports Science World’s brand by giving people another resource in which they are able to connect with the facility. It provides a great way for those to instantly know what exhibit will be showcased next and what’s currently there. It’s also a great way for Science World to share articles and fun facts with their audience that can be shared by them to gather more interested people.

Science World engages with their audience by sharing fun videos like “How does sugar effect kids? You might be surprised” that engages their audience to take a closer look into fun science facts. They also share science news and lots of visuals of their current exhibits. It’s good for them to do this via social media because their “posts” can be re-shared by others easily.

Best regards,

Taylor Kearney

WK2 Practice: Voice Over

A reading of A Tale of Two Cities - "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way..."

Take 1 (no emotion):

https://soundcloud.com/user6707971/a-tale-of-two-cities?in=user6707971/sets/wk2-practice-voice-over

Take 2 (emotion): 

https://soundcloud.com/user6707971/a-tale-of-two-cities-2?in=user6707971/sets/wk2-practice-voice-over

Best regards,

Taylor Kearney

WK2 Exploration: Storyboard

For this assignment I've taken my MCBS Story and added visual elements to enhance the story. I've created it using PowerPoint. Unfortunately the link SlideShare's provided to embed the PowerPoint isn't working properly, so here's a link to my PowerPoint presentation via SlideShare.com:

http://www.slideshare.net/taylorkearney/wk2-exploration-storyboard-33258294

Best regards,
Taylor Kearney

WK2 Practice: Visual Communication

For this week's assignment we were to create an abstract cluster of images that relate to the words we were given. I chose to use the word strategy and find images that I believe depict strategy.

I decided to use the image of chess pieces. Chess is a game of strategy and people can identify that image with the word well.

I used the image of keys to depict how strategy is key in any project or idea.

I then picked the photo of a person pointing at a map. You can see that this person is showing a place or maybe even a route on the map. To me, this photo looks like someone is making a strategy.

Finally, I chose a man walking a tightrope over a canyon. He clearly knows what he is doing and has a strategy to reach his goal. We can see the he's finishing the end of his tightrope walk and has been successful with the strategies he's made.

Enjoy,
Taylor Kearney

WK1 Project: My MCBS Story

Before I started the MCBS Program I went to beauty school and got my Cosmetology license.

I then started working as a hair stylist for six years doing hair for locals in Washington State.

I had always thought I wanted to be a hair stylist for the rest of my life.

But then I was then given the opportunity to move to California.

I wouldn’t be able to transfer my license between states without going back to beauty school though.

I decided to take the opportunity and moved to California.

Because of that I ended up working for a video game accessories company.

Because of that I realized I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life doing hair and decided that when I moved back to Washington I would find another career path.

Because of that I realized I wanted to go back to school, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to major in yet.

When I moved back to Washington I eventually got a job at Nintendo of America as a product tester.

Because of that I was able to attend the gaming convention PAX Prime as a video game demonstrator for Nintendo.

At PAX I got to play unknown games made by independent developers (or indies), most of which were really great games.

I was surprised to learn how many indie developers hadn’t published their games on larger platforms for companies like Nintendo.

Because of this experience I knew I wanted to make a career within the gaming industry.

I also knew I was great at communicating with people, organizing events, and loved working with technology.

Until I finally realized I should go back to school and pursue a degree in communications.

And ever since I found Full Sail University, I realized I wanted a degree in Media Communications.

I decided to pursue my passion for gaming and use my skills to one-day help indie developers reach their dreams.

I will soon graduate from Full Sail University with my Media Communications degree and will one day have my dream job as a Public Relations Specialist working for indie developers.

Super Mario 3D World - Nintendo demonstrators (I'm in the middle to the left)

While reading my classmates’ stories I was intrigued by some of their minor detailed sentences describing what career they originally wanted for themselves but didn’t pursue. I found myself wanting to know more about why they made those choices. Because of this, I was inspired to add more details to my story about why I left my original career as a hairstylist. I also decided to give more detail into how I figured out to get my degree in Media Communications.

Best regards,

Taylor Kearney

WK1 Practice: RSS & Industry Blogs

I’ve decided to follow the industry blogs of Game Life, IGN Video Games, IndieGames, Joystiq, Kotaku, and Polygon.  All of these industry blogs follow the gaming industry. Because I want to work within the gaming industry helping Indie developers, it’s important to me to keep watch over all industry news. Figuring our game release dates, console release dates, application launches, technical issues regarding products, etc. is all important information for me to follow so that I can grasp all areas of the industry.

It’s also important for me to keep an eye out for how these blogs portray their news and voice their opinions. If I’m to become a Public Relations Specialist it’s important for me to see a bloggers take on a controversial story that may arise for a game so that I can see how the gaming company handles their press (weather they handle it positively or negatively is also something to watch for.)

Unfortunately I could not find any peer blogs to follow through the Wiggio NMT 201404 group. Because I couldn’t find any classmates blog addresses, I decided to follow more industry blogs. I will add classmates’ blogs once I see them posted. I apologize for the inconvenience.

Best regards,

Taylor Kearney

WK1 Analysis: Businesses & Blogs

Full Sail University, Dollar Shave Club, and Science World all have created an online presence as they all provide the ability to share their blog posts through other media sources like social media apps. Dollar Shave Club has excelled in this by using the media outlet YouTube to create their gag commercial that went viral over social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

Science World has built up credibility because their blogs pull information from credible sources like the journal Science. Dollar Shave Club promotes their product and has credibility from their customer reviews. Full Sail University publishes blog posts about their current student and showcases great student work. Full Sail also posts events that are happening at the school and trending industry news that’s relevant to their students,

Both Full Sail and Dollar Shave Club promote news and events for their blogs. Dollar Shave Club promotes their product for shaving. Science World promotes news in the field of science.

Full Sail and Science World both allow their readers to comment on their blog posts. Dollar Shave Club doesn’t allow their readers to comment on their blog posts. All three websites give the ability to promote their articles through social media platforms, like sharing on Twitter or Facebook.

Science World, Full Sail University, and Dollar Shave Club’s blogs all showcase current blog pages that they've posted. All three websites have navigation systems to find out more about the company/product.

Both Science World and Dollar Shave Club have similar layouts for their websites. They showcase their blog posts in a landscape style. They both have their blog posts listed  by the most current blog written, ascending down to the oldest blog post.

Both Dollar Shave Club and Full Sail University’s blogs are similar in their visual appearance, where as Science World’s blog is very clean with minimal background color or photographs. Both Full Sail University and Dollar Shave Club have side bar categories that link the reader to more information about their company (or school) whereas Science World does not. Instead Science World showcases other blog posts they’d like to encourage their readers to read next.

Both Full Sail and Science world’s blogs feature a section for readers to comment and voice their opinions about the articles they've posted. Dollar Shave Club uses their blog section to promote their events and news more than posting interactive articles. Readers are also not able to comment on Dollar Shave Club's blog posts.

Science World’s blog is unique in that their blog is fully dedicated to science news. There is no reference to visiting Telus World on the sidebars on the blog section. Instead, they feature and highlight other blog posts for their readers to experience.

Full Sail’s blog is unique in that they encourage their readers to share the blog on all types of social media platforms. They also encourage people to have conversations under their blog posts. The layout of Full Sail’s blog is also unique in that they display a scrolling photo bar to highlight featured articles as well.

Dollar Shave Clubs blog is unique because they are posting news about their product, events, contests and encourage people to share their product/website through online resources like Facebook, to make their brand stronger and gain more customers.

Best regards,Taylor Kearney