Live Project 2011

Creative Stock photography library 24th January 2011 - 18th March 2011 Leather Lane, London

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Blog Editing About

Overall Retouching + iPhone App

Inspiration

Finding Photographers

Online Magazine

The Start

Email Blasts

Photoshoot

General tasks Previous / Home / Next

Social Networking

About Previous / Home / Next

Moodboard is a creative stock photography library, who work with over 185 agents in over 50 countries. They represent photographers both on a Rights Managed and Royalty Free platform. Moodboard represent a real variety of imagery, including lifestyle, travel, wildlife, education, industry, health and beauty.

Working across all levels of photography and social media, they ensure that the photographers images are seen by a vast number of clients from all around the world.

Photographer: Jonah Kessel

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They have their own website: moodboard. com, where you can see all of their wholly owned and represented work but they also work through other sites, such as Alamy.

Moodboard have over 1000 photographers, who are mainly in the UK and the US but others who are from an array of countries.

Customers include such companies as Ogilvy and Saatchi & Saatchi, as well as major magazines and publishing houses including the Daily mail, the Times and the BBC.

Even though moodboard.com houses both premium and microstock photography, they are focusing now on their high-end, premium collection. All photography material has to pass through several edits before making it to the moodboard website and some will also need to be retouched by the photographers themselves or by Jason Cox, who provides a retouching service. While I was at moodboard, some of the other interns that were there for a while also assisted with the retouching.

“We need to start learning on the job; we need to gain experience.

We need to start learning how to be a graphic designer.�

AudirainShaughnessy

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For the duration of my internship I worked in moodboards office in Leather Lane, apart from the two days where we were based in Streatham completing a photoshoot.

Moodboard used to be a much larger company, based in two London offices but unfortunately when the recession hit they had to release nearly 40 members of staff.

Now they are situated in the smaller of the offices (even though it is still pretty large), with only a few members of staff working for the company.

“We rely on using the coolest most creative photographers, shooting on the best cameras and lenses. At moodboard we don't house millions of images, just the right ones.� moodboard.com

Kate was the director of Moodboard, before leaving after my first week or so.

Therefore Craig was now the sole director of operations. Mike Watson is best known as the founder of the royalty free agency, Digital Vision, which sold in 2005 to Getty Images for $165million. Unfortunately I never got to meet him. There were also a number of freelance workers who would occasionally come in to the office but the main people that I worked with were Craig Robinson, Alex Jimenez and Simon Tucker who is a freelancer.

Mike Watson: Founder of Moodboard.

Craig Robinson: Director of Operations Alex Jimenez: International Accounts Executive Simon Tucker: Technical manager Kate: Manager/Director James: Accountant

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Interns

A number of interns joined and left along the way: • We shared our skills with one another • If we were working on a project, it was great to see how others do it, as they may no a more effective way • We swapped resources • It was great to hear about other peoples backgrounds • It all helped with my experience of working in a team

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My Internship Aims -To complete an internship over a longer period of time than previously undertaken, so that I can really get the best experience.

-To diversify from the work experience that I have already completed.

-To become further experienced in working in an actual company.

-To personally find out whether my whole working attitude is effective enough for a real working environment.

"The designer given an internship must firstly use this as an opportunity to learn - but also as an unrivalled opportunity to impress."

Adrain Shaughnessy

-To show that I am hard working, dedicated and reliable at all times and in all tasks.

-To get involved with as many tasks and variety of jobs as I can during the two months.

-To always stay longer than given hours to show my dedication and willingness to work hard.

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The

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On Friday the 17th of December it was my induction day at moodboard. Even on this induction day I got stuck into different tasks, such as creating various image galleries to showcase a selection of the photographers work. It felt great that they were already trusting me with this responsibility and when checking the galleries through with Craig, he only made a one or two alterations. These were then uploaded and featured on the moodboard website. This was a great way to start as it was allowing me to get used to moodboards content.

I was also given some design work to get on with, which involved designing several visuals to feature in different email blasts that they would use to send out to thousands of existing and potential clients. So basically I would be creating a design using their photos to appear in an email, which may accompany a promotion or a gallery showcasing a new selection of moodboard photography. I was using specific ideas and inspiration that they had already collected from magazines, postcards and newspapers.

I started to work on the two particular ideas that I was given in my own time.

1. For one of the concepts Alex wanted me to create a business design, with a three colour filter, just like a design that he had given me from a magazine.

2. For the second concept he wanted me to combine two similar images to create a themed postcard, expressing different aspects of life.

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Initial prototype

So after my induction day I began working on the designs at home, as my actual internship wasn’t starting for another month. I definitely enjoyed using Photoshop for all of these designs, as it allowed me to discover alot more tools and ways to successfully produce work. I firstly started by creating a list of themes for the postcard concept including such things as summer, young love, new life, christmas and action.Then I started sourcing all of the needed photos from the moodboard website, which definitely took a long time, as I wanted ones that really showcased the themes successfully, while also finding

images that actually managed to compliment one another while being placed side by side.

Therefore I was looking through hundreds of images trying to find the right ones.

All I was doing was saving the images from the website and then working with them, as I hadn’t been told any different. Also I was just using any images from the website, as I thought this would be fine as they are all part of the moodboard collection. I was also given their brands typeface which is Cuca OT, which I actually really wasn’t a fan of but this was all part of working within brand guidelines.

Initial experiments

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After I had created many initial prototypes and had started to play around with the layout of the text and the wording I new that I now needed some feedback to make sure that I was moving in the right direction and that it was the right kind of thing that moodboard were looking for. After emailing Alex all of the initial ideas and asking for specific pointers I didn’t hear back from him. I tried again to email, as there was no point in moving on with all the designs and completing them to be told that it wasn’t

what they were looking for but yet again I didn’t hear back.

It was at this stage that I was actually a little doubtful on whether my internship would actually go ahead, as I wasn’t receiving any updates, or basically any contact from moodboard. I know how busy professionals are but it was extremely frustrating that Alex couldn’t even send one email. Luckily contact resumed nearer to the starting date of my internship and I was told that they had been busy preparing the new internship program.

Initial experiments

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I eventually received feedback for the work that I had been completing in my own time on the first day of my internship. I had thought that any moodboard photo that I used from the website was fine but Alex told me that I actually needed to search the higher quality images, which he showed me how to do. However he was still happy with the large majority of the photos that I had chosen to use and there were only a few in which he thought I would be able to find better ones for.

I then once again, began working on and developing a number of different ideas for both concepts. For the business man I needed to find a higher quality photo and Alex suggested to try other concepts than the original filter idea, which I had already began doing.

Over various times of day in the office and at home, I completed both original concepts, with a final result of 10 postcards and one final business man concept. These would all eventually be used for marketing purposes.

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Developed Ideas

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The final business concept as selected by Craig

A selection of the final postcards

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A selection of the final postcards

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Reflection -I had been annoyed at the absense of feedback while I was working from home, as it felt like a lack of care and time on moodboards behalf. However this completely changed while actually on my internship, as Alex and Craig were always willing to look other the work and give you any feedback.

-It was great working on all of these designs in Photoshop as I was finding out a number of new tools and putting them to real use. This was helping to improve my Photoshop skills which may be vital for the future.

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-I realised from my induction day that I wasn’ t actually going to be working with creatives, rather aiding a company in improving their marketing.

-Alex had missed a vital point by not telling me at the beginning that I should only use images from their premium and plus collections, while I was producing all the work at home. However atleast this was resumed at the beginning of my internship.

-The tasks that I would be working on all sounded extremely interesting and beneficial and I had already enjoyed completing these email blasts at the beginning of my internship.

Inspiration Previous / Home / Next

For some of my beginning time at moodboard I worked my way through their large collection of magazines, finding inspiration for their marketing campaigns, their blog and a possible magazine.

Plus I was also finding any photos, along with the photographers name, to contact them in the future to possibly represent their work or for them to become a moodboard photographer.

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To start with I did feel that perhaps they were putting me onto any old task and that it didn’t really reflect on any of the interesting tasks they had been spoken about on my induction day. However my perception of this task soon changed, as I felt it was really helping me to see what sort of photography moodboard were looking for and it was helpful in getting me to change my mindset into thinking about what may appeal to moodboard instead of myself. This was vital as it was know longer about what inspires me but instead what ideas could benefit

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moodboard. For the marketing inspiration I was looking for ideas on ways that moodboard could creatively use their photos to produce designs for the email blasts.

On all of the inspiring work that I found from the magazines, I grouped ideas together and made notes and drawings on how I thought moodboard could potentially use these pieces of inspiration to form their own creations.

This also made it clear to myself and others why I had actually torn out each piece particular piece.

I then fed back all of this information to Craig, which part of me felt was a little daunting, as in terms of designs and ideas, I didn’t actually know exactly what he was looking for and secondly because I hoped that he felt the photos and photographers that I picked out were suitable and good enough. I wanted him to feel that I did have a good eye for picking out worthy photography as this was a vital skill needed for the internship. It was a bit unusual at first, as I had to always remember that I was looking for stock photography, or creative photography that would be suitable enough for their stock library. Not photography for

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example, that had any filters, was too fashion based or too arty. Fortunately Craig liked the ideas that I had for the various design aspects of moodboard and he enjoyed listening to how we could change and apply them to suit the company. Plus he said that I had done a great job on picking out various photographers.

So together we went through all of these ideas and sorted them out into further categories and more solid sections; on ones that I would work on straight away, which were the ideas for the email blasts and ones that we would use for the upcoming weeks for such things as a potential magazine.

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The moodboard website

Things to keep in mind when selecting the photos: • We don’t want all the models in the photos to look similar • A mixture of ethnicities • A range of ages

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Craig and I had decided on particular concepts to fit each idea. For example; senior, youth and portraits and now the next stage was to find suitable images from the moodboard website for all of the marketing ideas that we had found. As before, I was creating designs to be sent out by email to all of their existing and potential clients. There were around 12 different concept ideas that we created through inspiration from the magazine cuttings, so it then took me a while to look through hundreds of images galleries to find the best and most appropriate images for all of these different marketing ideas.

This is such a long process, as there are so many possible keywords to search with and hundreds of pages to look through.

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Creating the various email blasts

inspiration

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A final marketing design

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A selection of the final designs

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I completed all of the designs for the email blasts in a couple of days. Soon after the completion, one of them got sent out to 2,500 clients email addresses. We started by sending this design, that incorporates two high quality portraits, as moodboard wanted to attract the customers that wish to pay higher prices for their photos. They don’t want to market themselves as a cheap An email blast

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company, instead they wanted to show off their premium priced images. However to balance this out, a money related design that I created would be sent out soon after accompanying a discount code. This should help to pull in the other half of the clients who wish to pay lower prices for the images that they require. You have to speak to the different groups of clients in different ways.

Reflection -It was great to kick off my internship by designing a number of visuals using moodboards collection of photos.

-It got me used to the variety of images in the different sections of the galleries.

-Even if the people at moodboard aren't solely creatives, they know what direction they want moodboard to move in and they are clear in knowing what they wish the design outcomes to look like.

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-This is one of the first times that I have actually held meetings with and shown my work to professionals. It was great to feel confident in showing and receiving feedback for the work that I was producing.

-I made sure that I explained my ideas and reasoning behind the developments, so that I clearly justified my choices.

-I was using Photoshop regularly and becoming even more comfortable in its use.

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At the beginning of my internship I took it upon myself to create a blog to potentially inspire moodboard. I felt that not alot was happening on their own blog and due to the new ventures that we would be completing, such as an online magazine, I thought it would be a great place to pool anything interesting that I find.

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Inspiration Tumblr

Reflection -I was showing that I was prepared to think of new ideas and to produce work outside of office hours.

-They liked the blog that I created and enjoyed finding out about Tumblr.

-Other the next few weeks they referred back to the blog, remembering videos and images that they had seen and liked.

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-It was a great way for me to pool a variety of resources together into one place. I constantly used pieces from this blog for the online magazine that I created.

-It was another way of showing to the public what moodboard is all about and another small way in getting the companies name out their.

-It ended up influencing the direction of the online magazine through the theme that I had chosen

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I started by thinking of lots of ideas of things that I could include in the magazine.

We then discussed these in a small idea generation session before I then refined them down to what I thought would be best and what could realisitically be completed in the time.

Disadvantages of the previous online magazine: • Very slow to load • Too many pages • Quite old fashioned • Traditional • Predictable

Ideas for the magazine

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I researched into different formats that we could possibly use for the magazine, however it’s pretty limited in the amount of ways you can produce an online magazine. I did though suggest the idea of creating a magazine on tumblr, as it would be a fresh take on their previous magazine. The next stage I took was to use the PMI method to try to help me decide on which format would be best, between an online magazine that we could upload to issuu or a blog styled magazine.

In the end I decided on using the blog as it was a fresh stance on their past magazine, it would help us to interact with the tumblr community, it linked in with other social media and I thought it would be easy to maintain for whoever was going to continue with the magazine when I finished the internship.

There is no point just producing a couple of magazines, you want the series to continue week after week, so I thought the best chance of this happening was through tumblr.

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Advantages of using tumblr: • Extremley easy to use • Hundreds of different themes to choose from • Cost effective • It’s popular • Time efficient • It would fit in with all of the other social networking that we were working on imporiving Left: PMI on the two formats Right: Sketching ideas and possible content of the first magazine

After looking through all of the tumblr themes and making a list of potential ones that I thought would be suitable for the magazine, it was decided that actually they wished to use the theme that I had already chosen to use for my inspiration blog.

The magazine

Third magazine edition: Portraiture

Categories to appear in each magazine: • A podcast with one of our photographers • Our photographer of the week • Photographer of the week image gallery • An overall theme • Our iPhone app of the week • 1 or 2 creative videos • A couple of reblogged images from other peoples blogs • A book that has been inspiring us that week • A link to a great photographers website or a beautiful collection of images

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Magazine covers to be sent as email blasts

For each magazine edition I created a front cover design to be sent out as an email blast, with a link through to the magazine.

Even though I thought it would be good to do a weekly magazine, Craig decided on it being a fornightly one. In the long run this should hopefully make it easier to maintain and to keep up to date with, due to the constant changes with interns coming and going. At times I wanted to be a little more experimental with some of the designs but I had to keep with what moodboard wanted.

I did however incorporate some different typefaces, which they were happy with.

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Statistics on the 04.03.11

Statistics on the 02.03.11

Throughout the internship I watched the statistics of all of the social media websites through google analytics, so I could see how all of these various websites, such as the online magazine, were effecting moodboard.com’s traffic. Just a few weeks after the first magazine, it had resulted in 163 choosing to visit the actual moodboard website. This was great as it wasn’t an automatic link to the website, they had to make the decision to go to the website through the links page.

I also used my own initiative by finding other ways to promote moodboard. For example I contacted Which Stock Agency who wrote about moodboard on their website.

Which Stock Agency promoting moodboard

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These are the ideas that I left behind for potential themes for the online magazine

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Reflection -It was hard at first because Craig didn't really understand how the blog works and the fact that I couldn't actually design exactly where every post and piece of information was laid out. I put forward that I thought reposting other tumblr users posts was a good idea, as blogs are all about sharing and he was actually about to say no until Simon said that it was definitely a good idea, as thats what blogging is all about.

Even though we were using it as a magazine, there should still be some interaction there with the blogging community.

-The magazine seemed to interest people, as many of our posts were reblogged and many people visited it through Facebook.

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-At the start the magazine seemed as though it was going to be a big project but I think at times it was overlooked by the many other general day to day jobs that always have to be done. So I am glad that I chose to use tumblr as the format, in the hope that the magazine will be carried on by other future interns, through ease of usability.

-I think they thought that the tumblr magazine would have constant traffic but if they have decided to use it as a fornightly magazine, not a regularly updated blog, then of course it won't.

Reflection -For the second edition of the magazine, Craig had the idea to use 'cool language' for the front cover email blast and thought that I should know some words because I am younger. The only 'language' that I know, involved words that a professional company definitely wouldn't want to use. I was cringing at some of the words he was suggesting and I don't think he had really thought through his idea, as why would you want to use 'young' words to appeal to professional adults. I told him that we would be laughed at if we used such words.

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-If we are only using tumblr for a fornightly magazine, then of course our traffic isn't going to be continuously high, as there are not regular updates. Even though there have been many inbetween days where our traffic has still been high. At times the point seems to be missed that actually now the magazine is the fourth highest traffic source for moodboard.com. Any ways of bringing in extra traffic to moodboard.com is beneficial, as it may end with a sale.

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There were many different tasks that I had to complete at moodboard and they didn’t all involve designing something. Some of the general tasks included such things as: • Keywording moodboard images on their own website and on Alamy • Captioning moodboard images on their own website and on Alamy • Downloading a bikini list which consisted of hundreds of potential clients email addresses and uploading all of them into MailChimp • Working with model releases • Creating Light boxes; different galleries of moodboard images for different themes and photographers • Research; iPhone app, Appsense...

• Meetings • Creating several website banners

Keywording images

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Task notes

Reflection -I new from the start that I was going to put in 100% effort whatever the task may be and I was expecting to have to complete many office based tasks that weren't all to do with designing.

-All jobs involve general office tasks, you never just get to do the 'dream' roles all of the time. So I didn't feel annoyed at being also given a number of less glamourous jobs to complete.

-I wanted to be a part of a real working company for the two months and this is what I got. My role during the internship did entail all of the jobs that I would be completing if I worked there permanently.

-You never know what your future job is going to end up being, so it is always best to show hard work and dedication to all tasks.

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Retouching and iphone app Previous / Home / Next

I was able to have a go at retouching a few of moodboards images. I loved having the chance to do this, as it was another way in helping me to put Photoshop into good practice. In the process of retouching the original image, below you can see that I had already illiminated the logos on the wheels and the tyres and I had started to work on the white cloud, as I needed to bring the RGB down to below 253, as the whites can’t be above 253 and the blacks can’t be below 3.

The original image

In the process of retouching

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Researching Apps: • How to create an iphone app • The best photography apps • The best apps • What makes a succesasful app?

• Does your app solve a unique problem?

• Does the app serve a specific niche?

• Does it make people laugh?

• Are you building a better wheel?

• Will the app be highly interactive?

Using various methods to generate ideas

When asked to think of an idea for an app, I was a little taken back. So much has been done already, so I new it would be a massive job to think of something unique and successful. I felt like they didn’t realise the time, testing, development and money that would be needed for a project of this scale.

There would be know point creating an app that didn’t work at all in there favour. I think they mainly wanted me to complete some research and see what ideas I came up with.

Most of the ideas that I were generating had been done already or there were similar existing ones. When showing my ideas to Previous / Home / Next

craig he liked the idea of a greetings card and postcard app, where the user would be able to use their own images or moodboard images. However yet again, there were too many similar existing apps. After this the idea seemed to drift away. There were too many other more important ideas to work on first.

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I started off my internship by working through a collection of beautiful images, accompanied by the photographers name, that moodboard had been gathering. I researched each photographers name, to find their contact details to add to a database that I started in Excel.

I started this at the beginning of my internship and then didn’t get to work on it again, until I took it upon myself to add to it in my own time. I was constantly looking through newspapers, websites, blogs and magazines for potential photographers that could join the moodboard collection.

Photographers from magazines

Around halfway through my internship, I realised that I was gathering a number of photography resources but not actually following the find through, so I asked Craig if it would be ok to contact the photographers, expressing to them the opportunity of moodboard potentially representing their work.

After he outlined some of the key things to ask, such as what camera they shoot with, I started to contact all of the photographers whose websites I had bookmarked. I tailored each email to suit the different individuals, so that it would sound more personal and sincere.

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Database of Photographers

Another one of my favourite ways to find photographers was through Flickr, as there are so many undiscovered photographers on there. I never heard back from a number of the photographers, others were interested but were currently too busy or caught in another contract. However in the couple of weeks that I spent contacting photographers, a few of them sent samples of their photograhy through to me, which I then reviewed with Craig. Unfortunately for some of the photographers that were interested, the

camera that they use wasn’t good enough.

The quality needs to be 12 mega pixels upwards but ideally 16 mega pixels+ is best.

By the end of my internship it was great that two of the photographers that I had found were now going to work for moodboard. A number of their existing images were going to be represented by moodboard and they were also going to work with us in producing new content. So after a number of emails, the contracts were now in the process of being signed by the two photographers.

Contacting a photographer

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The Two New Moodboard Photographers Daniela Dawson Found on Flickr Daniela had great lifestyle shots and portraiture. She is based in Orlando, Florida and shoots with a Canon DSRL Rebel XT

Marina Dyakonova Found through Facebook She also had beautiful portraiture and lifestyle shots.

Marina lives in Moscow, Russia and uses a Canon 5D mark II

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Reflection -Finding photographers was one of my favourite tasks. I enjoyed the whole researching process and then the communication between one another.

-It felt really rewarding to find the two photographers above, who will now have their images represented by moodboard.

-It is definitely hard finding new photographers, as contact stops from some of them and many you don't hear back from.

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-I wish I had taken it upon myself to get involved with contacting potential photographers alot earlier on.

-From a opportunity post that I put up on my own facebook I ended up finding a student fashion photographer who is now going to do an internship with moodboard in the Summer. It definitely was rewarding helping others.

-By contacting photographers, it gave me the opportunity to develop my experience in dealing with professionals both on the phone and through email.

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One of the stages of editing that I was involved in was going through several different photo shoots, all with hundreds of images and either flagging or unflagging the photo. Flagging the photo would mean that we would want to keep that particular image.

I completed this task with Yi-Han, which was great as it meant that there were two sets of eyes and opinions. Craig was happy with our selection and only unflagged a couple of the images that we had chosen.

Editing: • Its hard because everyone has their own opinion and take on what type of image they like • I enjoyed training myself in the image selection process and I was happy that overall Craig was always pleased with my selections • It was hard picking out an image from so many that would look so similar • I realised how intensely strict you have to be when editing and it doesn’t matter if you only pick one image from 30 photos.

• I am glad that I developed my confidence in speaking out about what images I liked or didn’t like and why

Editing notes

Flagging photos

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All the photos that are sent in by photographers go through several edits.

They send in the different shoots on contact sheets and moodboard firstly pick out the best ones, before whittling them down even further in a second edit. In the edits they will look out for logos that would need to be retouched, where the focus is in the images, how interesting the subject is, what the concept is and how sharp the models eyes are. I was involved with many different edits at the various stages of editing. A couple

of the edits I did on my own before going through them with Craig and others I did with Craig. I was trying to be very strict in the image selection but it was clear when going through them with Craig really how strict you have to be even on a first edit.

Another part of the process, if photographers wish to, is for them to send in a picture of a model they wish to use. Then we would provide them with suggestions for what type of shots and concepts they could use their model in.

Photographers contact sheets

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Reflection -It felt great that I was always being asked to come and help with an edit or to do one by myself, as it must have meant that I was doing a decent job being given this important responsibility.

-To start with I was a little nervous about voicing my opinion infront of Craig, incase he thought that I had selected a bad photo. Yet I soon felt at ease and realised that it is much better to have an opinion, than none at all.

Plus at times it is much easier having two peoples opinions when working on an edit.

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• -It was great finding out some of the key things to look for in the photos .

• • -I realised how intensely strict you have to be when editing, even if it is only a first edit.

• • -The editing allowed me to put some of the key things that we had learnt about while on this University course, such as cropping.

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We had a meeting with Simon about starting to work on our Twitter presence once again.

A while ago they had started working with Twitter and after about 6 months they had only around 300 followers. We wanted to attract image buyers and photographers, as well as appeal to many other creatives by tweeting about photography, technology, design and also some personal tweets, to show that moodboard does have personality.

This started off as a group task but actually ended up that I became in charge of Twitter, as well as all of moodboards social networking. Simon wanted me to kick start the Twitter project by creating a database of any creative, interesting and relevant websites for us to use to find things to tweet about.

Twitter Database

Twitter: • Find people who we consider relevant • Don’t just post about photography • Super relevant tweets • Retweet interesting tweets • We want a near even balance between followers and people we are following • Interact with other twitterers • Use TweetDeck to organise and schedule tweets • Don’t go on all the time about your own brand

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Basically everyday I tweeted around 10-15 tweets. Most mornings I would take some time to organise a number of tweets for during the day and then I would do this again after lunch. I always put some time a side for Twitter, as it would take a while to search through different websites for interesting posts to tweet about. By the end of my internship I had organised a folder with the websites that I found best for finding interesting things to tweet about, so that this would also help the next person who would be in charge of Twitter.

Twitter Followers

TweetDeck

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I started maintaining Twitter after two weeks of my internship. Another two weeks later, I had already increased moodboards followers by around 150 people. Clearly some people must have been enjoying my tweets. By the end of my internship followers were up to 521 people, which was a great result, seeing as I had never previously used Twitter. So the lady that had previously been maintaining Twitter had got just other 320 followers in around 6 months, where I had raised our amount of followers, in 6 weeks, by 200.

Followers after 2 weeks of managing Twitter

Followers at the end of my internship

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I also suggested working on the other social networking sites that they were already on, which was Flickr and Facebook. On Facebook I set up the feed from the tumblr magazine and also from Twitter, so that we had constant items being posted onto our profile page. On Facebook I really wanted to let users get a glimpse behind the scenes and to let people see who moodboard really are. It was all about sharing our personality with others. So by completing simple tasks, such as posting images of the team, it was allowing our Facebook friends to finally put a face to the brand. By improving our presence on Facebook, I had created a valuable traffic source to moodboard.com.

I uploaded a number of new photos to flickr, which received great attention from others. In the space of a few days, many of the images had 100+ views, comments from other users, had been favourited and had been added to different groups. This was all great in aiding us to get the moodboard name out there and seen.

Interacting with the Facebook community

Lots of interest for our photos on Flickr

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Its great that I was given the responsibility of managing and developing all of the social networking and so it really paid off when I could see the improvements in statistics.

Where Facebook and Twitter had previously been completely out of the top ten traffic sources for moodboard.com, they were now valuable sources for contributing to the moodboard website.

Google Analytics for moodboard.com

I decided to contact Kellie Bryson to see if she could post an opportunity to student and graduate photographers about interning with moodboard. After the opportunity was sent out, moodboard received alot of interest straight away that same day.

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I also played a part in building moodboards own social networking site on Ning. This was to create a community space for our photographers and potential photographers.

Ning was mainly pretty simple to use, there were only a few things that I wasn’t sure exactly how to do.

The social network

Moodboards social network

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Reflection -I was regularly told how good a job I was doing with all of the social networking.

-I hope that my efforts on all of the social networks are continued after the end of my internship, so that all of these developments are not wasted.

-I realised how great Twitter is for finding inspirational resources.

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-It was good to see the results in first hand through having Google Analytics. Plus it was rewarding to see how my work with the social networking, was benefiting the traffic to moodboard.com.

- We also got some great followers from my time spent managing Twitter, such as the Science Museum.

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The first shoot that I was involved with, was based outside, with an intern Alec as the photographer and other interns and employees as the models. The aim of the shoot was mainly all part of Alecs development as a photographer but it ended up that there were some photos good enough to make it to the moodboard website. My role here was as art director, so I took out some props with us, found several locations around the office, gave the models ideas on what to do and to help them feel comfortable and aided Alec in positioning and ideas. This was a great practice for the lead up to the important photoshoot that we were all going to be taking part in.

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While on my internship, moodboard arranged a photoshoot to take place at one of their photographers, Caroline Arbers, house.

She has a very luxurious house, with a beautiful interior, which is often used for many different photo shoots by other companies, such as Marks and Spencers.

The crunch line is that there is no money in stock photography now. Where previously companies would spend thousands on various glamorous shoots, now they have to work with a little budget. So an agreement was made that moodboard would be able to use the house for two days for free but in return we would supply all of the models and

art direction. So Caroline would own the images as she is the photographer but we would represent them. Alec and I went on a test shoot, so that we could see the interior in advance and so that we could plan ideas and concepts for each of the rooms before the actual photoshoot.

Afterwards I spotted a man and his two dogs on the common and thought that they would make great models to photograph. The gentleman was fine with being photographed and a couple of the images taken were actually used on moodboard.com. In return I sent Wynand the photos that Alec had taken of him and his dogs.

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Streatham Common

While at Carolines house I started planning ideas for concepts in each of the rooms.

This was just the beginning of the planning and preparation that was going to take place. Other planning that I took it upon my self to do was to think of potential props and clothes that all the models may need, Planning notes

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I developed the ideas generation from Carolines house into a PDF, with a number of pages with written and visual ideas for each room. We held a meeting with Caroline and she expressed how she liked all of the concept ideas. These plans acted as the guide for everyone during the shoot.

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My role during the photo shoot: • I gave suggestions and ideas on what we should focus on and make sure that we get done in each of the rooms • I helped everyone keep on track with our guide for the shoot • I would prepare everyone for the next shoot by showing them the visuals that I had prepared and talking them through the ideas behind the concepts • I arranged the models by getting them ready and waiting in the appropriate clothes for the next shoot • I arranged all of the props for each shoot, to make sure that they were all prepared, instead of having to waste time finding them all • I helped the models to feel comfortable while being photographed • I gave the models direction for their poses and ideas for what they could be doing in the shoot • Behind the scenes filming and documentation

My role during the shoot that took place on the 14th and 15th of March was as art directors assistance. This allowed me to put the skills that I had learnt so far into a live shoot. All of the interns and moodboard employees did some modelling, so that we could save on the budget. Some of us also asked friends or family to come along to help out. This was perfect though as we therefore had a mixture of ethnicitys and ages. Plus the shoot was all about everyday peoples daily routine and lifestyle.

We were extremley busy during the two days of the photo shoot, as we had so much to fit in. It was surprising at times to see how long it took to shoot each room and each different concept. Unfortunately we didn’t manage to make our way around all of the different rooms but we got a large number of different concepts shot in the rooms we did use. I think the end total number of images was 2,500 shots. Now all of these photos will need to go through several edits, any retouching that needs to be done, uploaded, keyworded and then captioned.

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The Photo Shoot day 1

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The Photo Shoot day 2

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Reflection -I thought it was such a shame that we didn't make our way around all of the rooms that were available for use. I think we could have spent less time on certain concepts, to unable us to have used all of the rooms.

-Alex said how I had done a very good job and that I was doing well with assisting the art directing.

Craig said how composed I was in the office and how much louder and bossier I was while on shoot organising everyone.

-I would have liked to have completed even more planning before the shoot, to map out exactly which models will be used in which shoots. However a photoshoot can be very spontaneous at times and I wouldn't put this down to being a bad thing.

-The photoshoot was an amazing experience to be a part of. I was able to work with different professionals, work in a large team and put new skills that I had acquired into real life practice.

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overall Previous / Home / Next

I chose to complete my internship at moodboard because the experiences that they offered sounded extremely interesting and beneficial to my development as a design student. It sounded as though instead of making teas all of the time, I would be getting involved with a range of important tasks and this was exactly how it was.

Due to the fact that I don’t know exactly what area of design I wish to go into when finishing University, I wish to keep my options a little broad.er. Therefore when I read the moodboard opportunity I thought that this would be a different yet beneficial area of experience to complete and this certainly was the case. Through my two months at moodboard, I was able to get involved with all of the different tasks that I could. I was trusted with many responsibilities, became a valuable member of the team and received a wealth of experience, from art directing to managing their social media.

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At several points during my internship I was given feedback on how well I was doing, which made me feel great to know that I must be on the right track and that my hard work was clearly being recognised.

In my penultimate week Simon held a meeting with me as I was soon to be leaving. He told me how it was such a shame that I was leaving and how well a job I had done. He expressed how little maintenance I was and that often himself and Craig had said how they wish there were an office full of Emmas. Simon told me that if things were different with moodboard I wouldn’t be leaving, which was extremely rewarding to here, as I new I had clearly shown my true potential.

Craig also held a meeting with me on my last day to say thankyou for all my hard work and both him and Simon told me to make sure that I stay in touch.

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