The End!

The exhibitionErnie Bear!OutsideDrawing wallBio wallMy Bio!Teresa's food for Thursday

Not much to say on this post, so here's some piccies from the Thursday open evening of the exhibition, which ran smoothly and it was good to see the changes which had been made to the exhibition during the week; receive positive comments from the tutors as well as read the comments in the guest book and see the drawings people have made throughout the week on the drawing wall! I enjoyed the time spent at the exhibition mostly because it was a really relaxed setting to display my work and introduce people to what we did at ARU.

Quite strange to think this is my last university related writeup ever, so I'll end by saying everybody did a great job and I'm proud of what we achieved! :)

Invites...

Since what happened in terms of exhibition invites is a bit unclear, here's my take on what's happened to them:

- One of the tasks was for our group was to individually create lists of people we'd like to see at the exhibition, which was done
- We then discussed who would be creating the actual invites (were the graphics team to print them/mail them or would they be emails etc)
- We decided to wait for the website team to acquire official email addresses which could be used to send out invites from a central list which would be made after asking everyone to think of invitees
- Once the website team had addresses ready, it was necessary to wait for the exact time and dates of the exhibition before sending invites, as well as deciding whether there would be an actual "invitee" night
- By the time we received the dates and times, and an invitee night was confirmed, a central list hadn't been made or given to the website team to email as it got missed out somewhere due to the mountain of other tasks and coursework which had to be done at the time...

Nobody's fault, just one of those things really that fell by the wayside...

This is about the "potential employer" invites, the media invites for TV and press etc were sent out as mentioned earlier in the blog :)

Tying it all up

So, to conclude this blog I'll look back at some of the tasks I performed and explain the outcome:

Electronics (DVD players, PAT testing):
Although I looked into getting our electronics PAT tested and received a quote, it turned out the university offered Teresa free testing for her projector and my DVD players weren't required as the uni also donated a free DVD player and we required less electronics than expected.

Food:
A complete success, I bought £24 of snacks and drinks to keep us going at the exhibition. It did run out quickly though...

Media coverage:
After emailing all the recommended media contacts and receiving nothing back, I was reassured by the manager at High Chelmer that they tend not to email back and just turn up if it's a slow news day and need something to cover. I'm hoping they do! In terms of advertising on the High Chelmer website, Flying Saucer agreed to put the expo on the website and they did - even though it was a very small part of a "What's on" list and the start date was wrong...

Display boards:
As can be seen earlier in this blog and my sketchbook, I themed a lot of display boards but it was decided just before the exhibition to use "clean" unthemed versions of the images, which I was suprised by but I trust whoever made the decision that it was the right choice.

That's about all I think, the outcome of the other tasks should be covered below! I'll end by saying thanks Mariana for your help throughout the module and thanks to everybody I've worked with on the exhibition :)

The Exhibition

Due to work commitments, I could only be at the exhibition on the opening Saturday (8:30am - 5pm ish, was early to help Mike and Sav finish some construction) and Sunday (9am - 4:15pm ish, early start again to help Mike and Adam tidy up before opening). When I walked in, I was impressed at what the people who were present on Friday had produced.

During the day Saturday, there were still some tasks to do which I was able to contribute to:

- Display posters on window
- Re-hang display boards more securely
- Laminate and hang the explanation boards
-We also hung some glitter curtains which were swiftly removed the next day!
- Setting up the projector which then refused to play the recorded DVD
- I also went out to buy an additional sheet to cover the video room door; paper to cover the walls and of course breakfast on Sunday
- Covering the walls with additional paper on Sunday
- Distributing leaflets in High Chelmer on Sunday
- Keeping the exhibition floor and backroom tidy. Didn't dare to empty the old fridge upstairs though, I draw the line at month-old sandwiches!


Team members also redecorated the right hand side wall, replacing a car painting with sketches of characters, and moved the paint splattered sheet to create a divider between the exhibition floor and our area at the back.



Above: Our area and some of the food which the Tesco voucher bought.

And of course, there were the visitors. Over the weekend, we received some good feedback from interested shoppers who commented on how well we had done without funding and left comments in the guestbook complimenting our work. I was also able to show friends and family around over the weekend, who were complimentary :)

The best part for me was the popularity of our drawing wall - people of all ages (most under 20 though!) took part in drawing everything from scribbles to love hearts to genuinely impressive pieces of spontaneous art... and of course their phone numbers!



I believe the exhibition has been a success as we've built something which not only showcases our work but also enables people to gain an insight into the course we did and take part in creating some designs themselves.



I took part in creating some art/vandalism myself by decorating a Vision Express poster left by the previous occupants...

What have I learned? It takes a lot of work to both create an exhibition and keep it running. The most enjoyable part was showing the visitors round and listening to their views - some people even took prospectuses for ARU as they have family who are interested in design, and one lady offered to buy a piece of Rob's work.

Fantastic job by all, I thoroughly enjoyed it and I hope this week goes just as well as the weekend. And I have no idea why some of this text is underlined either!

High Chelmer website advertising

Jason Vickers from Flying Saucer has confirmed he will advertise our exhibition on the High Chelmer website and recommended the website team link to High Chelmer on the DSE site, so I've forwarded Mike this request.

Food

I've bought the food/drink for exhibition using the voucher I received from Tesco:





It's pretty much fizzy drink, water, juice, sweets and enough crisps to last a lifetime. I would guess most of it will be devoured by ourselves to keep us going during the exhibition, but if the visitors have a craving for Haribo and Coke, we'll be able to accomodate it.

My tasks since end of classes...

Since the end of term, I've been performing two main tasks:

- Handing out leaflets featuring exhibition details



- Contacting media contacts

After Sav's email to me:
"Tom: as we spoke find attached mediacontacts.doc. Try and contact as many as you can from the list. Also for extra advertising please contact Jason Vickers at Flying Saucer Marketing on 01603 776444 and mention our exhibition being in high chelmer and see what they can do. "

Sav sent me a list of recommended media contacts to email who may be able to promote or offer coverage of the exhibition. I sent them the following:

"Between the 22nd and 27th of May at High Chelmer Shopping Centre,
Chelmsford, there will be an exhibition to showcase the work of design
students from Anglia Ruskin University. The work displayed will be a
mixture of 3D images and animation; 2D art and animation; and amateur
films. The exhibition will be open to the public all day between these
dates. If you are interested in providing coverage or "spreading the
word", please contact me if you require any further information or
media. There is also a website dedicated to the exhibition at
www.designstudioexhibition.co.uk."

I also have to contact Flying Saucer Media to arrange webspace on the High Chelmer website. This should done by Tuesday.

Also, I now have the Tesco giftcard and am getting ideas from people about what to buy:



I plan to get the food this week, so let me know what you think would work.

- I also emailed the display boards I had collected as well as my own to Sav so he could print them today. I couldn't be there to help out as I have an ongoing Mon-Fri job but I heard they came out well. :)