Final Evaluation.
Creative Industries Project Management Evaluation
āThe Little Biscuit Tinā
Project description
Sharron Jennings is someone who has always been a passionate baker, cake decorator and general creative person. She has always spoken about her desire to start up her own business in something based around baking, but has struggled to get anything started. After meeting with my client, she explained that she wanted to start off a business initially selling a variety of biscuits. My client possessed the skills to create the products; however it was clear that her multimedia experience would prevent her from showcasing and advertising her business effectively. This made my client easy to work with as she was extremely happy to receive professional input and advice. Together we scoped the project and these were the agreed artefacts to be produced;
1.Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā A logo, designed by client and adapted by designer
2.Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā A website with personal domain name
3.Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā A Facebook page
4.Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Business cards and stickers
5.Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā An email account
At a later date it was also decided that I would create an Instagram account for my client.
Explain and justify the rationale for the work
The logo is the first section of this project that I wanted to tackle. My client provided me with a design idea, and my initial thoughts of it were that it was far too complex and busy. I did some research on other companies; The Biscuiteers and The Biscuit Box, to back up my point to my client, and we met again and came up with some new ideas. The final design is one that I suggested; it took part of my clientās original design but just cleaned it up and made it simpler. The font for this came from DaFont and it is one my client selected herself, due to the roundness of the letters and the highlights making it look tin-like, which linked to the name of the business.
Colour schemes were next to be selected. My client and I had already confirmed that the two main colours would be dark brown and an off-white colour, the third we debated over two shades of blue/turquoise and two shades of pink. In the end we decided to go with the pale pink as we felt a bright pink with a dark brown would be too intense. With the colour scheme selected I could go ahead with creating the rest of the content and colouring of the logo.
The website was to be eye-catching and easy to navigate. I chose the template site Wix to do this on and my client selected the āCity Bakerā template for me to work on. The reason for this being was that she liked the wood background, and felt that it would complement the colour scheme selected. The structure and layout of the website was finalised by the research I had done on The Biscuiteers. Most the decisions made regarding layout were my own decisions, but when it came to the layout of the font, I referred to my research and found that smaller font, in columns and left aligned, looked the most professional. Also I found that keeping pages appearing in a grid formation were far more complimentary to the eye. The font used on the main text sections was different to the logo. A simpler font āHelveticaā was used to make reading easier for future clients. The galleries were kept simple, just an image, with a short description, without prices on each section. My client sells personalised biscuits, so the cost all depends on what an individual client requires.
The same font, āHelveticaā was used on the business cards. The layout was kept simple, and my client requested an image of her products on one side of the card. We went for a pale pink background to maintain continuity through all areas, and my client decided on rounded corners as she felt they would be less likely to be damaged and become tacky in clientās wallets etc.
The photography for this project was initially planned to be all done by myself with my Canon eos 700d, however circumstances meant that my client had to take most the photography and consequently the quality became extremely varied.
Group organisation and participation
My project ran between just my client and myself. Originally I had considered collaborating with someone advanced in coding as I was going to make the website with Dreamweaver however I decided I wanted to be completely in control of the project to fully display my project management skills, as a result I decided to use Wix instead.
My client was easy to work with and easy to get hold of either through email or phone calls, although preferred phone calls. This made decision making easier because I planned to keep in constant communication with my client in order to keep them as involved as possible. It meant I could keep my client up to date with my progress within the project and inform her of any changes I had made. For example, I decided to make an Instagram account, as another social networking platform to display her products.
Merits and problems of the final artefact
The logo is something that I am very proud of. My first attempt did not work as well as planned as I tried to trace my scanned sketch on Adobe Illustrator and it looked messy because each side was not even. However once I made the decision to only draw half and to copy, paste and reflect it (on the gingerbread man) the outcome was far more successful. The colours used were really effective and maintained consistency with the other created items.
I also felt the website met all requirements from my client and functions smoothly. The layout and photography used were changed around a fair bit until I felt satisfied, however I feel the standard of the photography does let it down slightly.
The business cards, coming from Moo had a very professional finish. Again the layout, with the text being too close and quality of the photograph used lets it down slightly.
The biggest problem I had was with the photography. With my client being unprepared to start her business as planned, and due to the distance between her and I, it meant she had to take the role of photographer. This meant that the quality of the photographs was not up to the standard required, however, due to my clientās personal reasons, I did not feel it fit to criticise her or pressure her into creating more products for me to come and do a big photoshoot. I did my best with what I had, using Adobe Photoshop to edit the images. At this stage I went back to my risk assessment and looked at the actions implemented, it reminded me that I already had a signed contract set out so did not have to worry, and that I should re-do my Gantt chart to ensure continued efficient time management.
What are the possible future developments?
Due to my client not being prepared for the end of the project, we have discussed the idea of her starting off smaller, without the website and online resources. So after this project I plan to take the resources offline and support my client through her intentions to start off solely with things like farmers markets etc. I have also informed my client that when she is ready I will be more than willing to take on the role on managing her online resources again and re-shooting her products in a professional set-up to ensure consistency and professionalism.
Evaluation of artefact
I found that all the software I used worked effectively and my time working with them ran smoothly. Wix was such a simple piece of software to use and had endless tutorials available. All other software that I used was familiar to me, and anything I did struggle with I turned to the tutorials for these or sought advice from tutors.
What would I do differently if I had more time?
If I had more time I would have ideally dedicated a lot more time researching into other similar companies in order to get a better grasp on aesthetics across a wider range of sources. Also I would have liked to master the art of photographing food to a higher standard.
I would have preferably planned more trips to visit my client in order to take the photoshoots myself as this would have saved me editing time, and given my overall finished artefacts a better aesthetic.
I also would have preferably got my client to sample their business in some way so that I could have added customer review comments on the website to encourage new customers.
To conclude
This project has been a real eye opener to working professionally with a client to contracts and planned time scales. It has been enjoyable to gain the experience in time management and overcoming certain problems faced along the way. The skills I have gained along the way will only benefit me in the future.
The opportunity to use new software or just expand my knowledge on ones that I already am familiar with was really fulfilling and I hope to continue to expand my familiarisation with these.
I plan to continue working with my client as I feel optimistic about her project and would be proud to be the person to aid her success and support her along the way regarding all advertising and online resources.








