(B4) The Guardian: Research & Initial Ideas

POS:

• Positive articles as well as serious ones
• tailored articles to you
• Affordable price at student discount
• Daily Updates from App
• Global news

Bonus:

• Ad free
• 20% discount = £1.52 per week

At the heart of the campaign: reliable, open, honest journalism.

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Need to keep the brief in mind:

Have the audience...

Think: That the Guardian is a crucial part of an open, progressive, liberal world. 

Feel: Intrigued and inspired about how to access Guardian quality journalism through a digital subscription. 

Do: Support and subscribe through a digital subscription. 

From website, points of interest relating to reliable, open, honest journalism:

• Our journalism is editorially independent, meaning we set our own agenda. No one edits our editor and no one steers our opinion. We are free from commercial bias and are not influenced by billionaire owners, politicians or shareholders. This independence matters because it enables us to challenge the powerful, and hold them to account.
• The Guardian has an illustrious record of holding power to account and championing the voices of those less heard. 
• We remain dedicated to truth and to bringing about a more hopeful future.
• Deliver independent, investigative journalism.
• With two innovative apps and ad-free reading, a digital subscription gives you the richest experience of Guardian journalism. It also sustains the independent reporting you love (about the apps but good to have).
  
  

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Visual Research:

Website:

- Lots of blue for the banner bar.

- Bright eye catching colours used within different sections to present a hierarchy.

- Use illustrations for a more lighthearted tone, can also be used to present something more dramatic and serious. 

- There is a seriousness but also a softness.

Uncommon (creative studio in london) 
This brand campaign by @uncommon_ldn for the @guardian highlights the Guardian’s purpose to not only hold power to account but to explore new ways of doing things, bringing new ideas to the table, and giving people the facts to challenge the status quo.

- Bright and vibrant campaign.

- Eye catching graphics, simple but effective use of type.

- Demonstrates the aim successfully of communicating a sense of hope through a news story. 
- Strong visuals throughout, more out there design than previous works, it's striking and eye catching shows a level of visual range The Guardian are happy to go with. 

Karmarama - Space for Responsibility: https://www.karmarama.com/work/the-guardian/

• 'In a context of falling print sales and advertising revenue, The Guardian had to reinvigorate the buyers of its printed format and increase its online donations to financially support the business, and maintain its vital role as an independent, challenging voice in a media sea of fake news, knee-jerk reactions and corporate agendas.'
• 'The Guardian team made it clear we were advertising much more than a paper, or a website. The Guardian, historically and today, represented an alternative way of thinking, that combined clarity and imagination.'
• 'We dramatised this space by creating a recurring visual motif that would bring it to life. The motif was a simple white space, sized the same as the new tabloid.'

- The visual is simple but strong, can be applied to many different elements and works consistently between these.
- Clean design, visuals are developed using photographic elements which helps present a dynamic visual with a clean motif.

- Feel this aesthetics of this campaign are more similar to the articles and imagery The Guardian puts out more regularly. 

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Initial Ideas:

Running with alliterated topics: 

- Thinking about handwriting over to add a sense of movement.

- Thinking along the lines of notes, casual, nothing intense, relating to uni and lectures.

- Very basic idea, can combine with other elements.

- Using an iphone, thinking about having image of the app functioning.

- Rough mock up of the idea.

- Does it look too much like the photos used to demonstrate how the app works on the app store?

- What visual elements could be added to make it more interesting? What is the visual style? 

- Mock up of having a young person on their phone and then a whole breadth of imagery spanning a range of topics on the side.

- Wanting to communicate the range of content within the articles (thinking about feedback and how people didn't just want to hear negativity). 

- Adding in colours from the colour palette provided in the guidelines.

- Feel the colour adds a youthful feel to the work.

- Also added brand elements that need to be included so can start developing a visual around these.

- Going back to the note taking idea, having there be lines underneath where the text goes.

- This related to the idea of it changing from poster to poster (the topic) but visual staying the same and can be connected. 

- Combining notes with lines.

- Feels a little like a shopping list sort of, not as professional.

- Could work with other elements. 

- Hand drawn illustrations instead of images.

- Like the idea, could experiment further and see where it goes.

- Feels very flat, doesn't have much of a punch to it. 

- Illustration in a different presentation, not a big fan of this one. It feels forced and looks a little too serious for the tone I want to communicate. 

REFLECTIONS:

• Feel like the alternating editing idea could have legs, might be a nice place to experiment more.
  
• Think incorporating the statistics I've found could be an interesting direction to go in.
  - Would need to be careful with the presentation, still want it to be visually interesting and enticing.
• Need to think about the direction it's going in, how and what is it communicating?
  - Interesting what Rosie said about beer mats and alternate ways of presenting the information so it feels less obviously advertising. 
• Just experiment more and see where it leads. 
  - Don't be scared to push the boat out!