Lateral Thinking

These puzzles are designed to help you to think 'outside the box'.
For the top puzzle you have to remove 8 sticks to leave two squares remaining.
For the middle puzzle you have to change the position of three sticks to point the arrow down.
For the bottom puzzle you have to go through all the dots using one continuous line.

From this exercise you can understand how there can be more than one approach to a problem.

Idea Development as a class using mind maps

We created mind maps in groups that we then passed around the room and the other groups expanded the ideas. We created 5 mind maps that were broken into the age groups, 5-10, 11-18, 19-30, 31-45. This method of idea development is a great way of expanding your ideas as many more people can contribute and therefore areas that may have not been thought out by the first group will be picked up by the subsequent groups.

Brief for logo design

business name

The Alumni Bank

description of business

We help students and alumni of universities obtain loans from their fellow alumni.

preferred logo types

values to communicate

color preferences   No

to be used on

• Online (Website, online advertising, banner ads etc)
• Merchandise (Mugs, T-shirts etc)

further requirements

I am targetting both current college students and alumni. I want a smart, young, modern look, but also one that is playful and accessible. Also, I would like to be able to customize the logo for a given school. So if the logo has the name in it, there should be an easy way to add an element with the given school's name or logo. That way when one goes to a school specific section of the site, we won't lose the brand/identity of the entire project, but will connect it more closely to that community. Also, I might be looking for a designer to redo my entire look of the site, I am just starting with a logo to see how this works. the site is at www.thealumnibank.com. Thanks!

payment methods

This contest has been pre-paid with 99designs. The winner will be paid directly by 99designs for the full prize amount, excluding any third party transfer fees.

• Paypal (free, 2-3 day payment turnaround)
• Moneybookers (charges apply, 5-10 day payment turnaround)
• AlertPay (charges apply, 5-10 day payment turnaround)
• Western Union (charges apply, 10 day payment turnaround)

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The Big Egg Drop.

Our task was to design a enclosure/device that would protect an egg from being dropped from three floors up, using only 1 roll of masking tape and 6 straws.

To come up with our final idea we had an open discussion about the kind of method we would chose. We quickly eliminated the idea of using a parachute as the materials we had where not sufficient enough to build one, that left us with the option of wrapping the egg with the masking tape and straws. After having a detailed discussion about the features of our enclosure we did a simple diagram to outline these.


In the end our egg broke on the third floor although compared to the other groups designs I feel ours worked well.

WORD ASSOCIATION

When you are really stuck for an idea, one method of inspiring creativity is to use word association.

The following word lists were created through class discussion, with lists of adjectives and nouns being created.

TASK: Choose two matching pairs from the word list to create two game characters. Produce a front and side visual for each character, along with a “character bio”

Disgusting

Desperate

Deformed

Dysfunctional

Dire

Delightful

Desolate

Demonic

Destructive

Dreary

Desk

Diamond

Demon

Deer

Donkey

Dolphin

Dustbin

Dictionary

Door

Dictaphone

Hilarious

Hysterical

Hateful

Hairy

Hopeful

Hideous

Hypercritical

Heavy

Hearty

Huge

Hillbilly

Hog

Hut

Hole

Horse

Helicopter

Hose

House

Hedge

Hanger

Pessimistic

Pedantic

Persistent

Positive

Protagonist

Prickly

Perfect

Prissy

Precious

Potato

Pizza

Pea

Pigeon

Pajamas

Pineapple

Pound

Phone

Photo

Pillar

From the list of words I chose Hairy Demon and Disgusting Deer. From these words I created the characters above. I did a full colour drawing and silhouette of the characters so that I would know that they could be reproduced in detail and also recognised with a strong outline, which is important when there is less detail. 

Idea Development and presentation of our new sci-fi game, Naeveh

Above is the presentation that we made to illustrate our ideas of what we would like our new game to look like. Rather than drawing our own images we decided to use concepts that had already been produced that fitted our ideas. The reason that we developed our concept this way is that by using this method we can create a more visually understandable concept.

Influences: Mass effect. Tron. GTA. Hitman. Assassin's creed

Genre: Sci-fi

Type of game: A possible free roam/sandbox style game, based in a futuristic megacity in the year 2157, the game follows a assassin through missions where he is set out to kill a target(s). Since it being set in either free roam or a sandbox style game, the player gets to choose how he goes about to kill these targets, with there being many different ways to kill the target, whether it's a stealthy approach or all in guns blazing or somewhere inbetween. If the game is to be free roam in the city, then vechiles will be introduced to help travel the large city. The player will be able to choose how their character dresses, whether they choose leight clothing, or armoured wear. While the armour clothing will give better protection, the leight clothing allows faster and less restricted movement. The character will have contacts, which can sell him weapons, equipment, armour or clothing, and upgrades. With this being set in the future, you can expect high tech equipment, armour/clothing and weapons. With such equipment as stealth camouflage. The game will have a day and night cycle, with city life changing between the throughtout it. When you are given contracts for targets, that target could be in different places, depending on the time of day, either at work or at home. With the some targets not under a time limit to deal with, this can allow the player to plan how they are going to deal with their target.

Story plot: I think the story shall follow the character throughout his missions, at first knowing very little about the character, trying to give the character a sort of mysterious badass impression, something players can like about him, and as the story goes on, we learn a little about the character and his past. Trying to keep the character very intresting and pondering his past life. Players will feel more immersed in the game if they are playing as character that is very likeable and fun to play as. The targets he is set to kill or as such, will mostly be corrupt officials, people considered important to the city but with corrupt and bad intentions or doings. And depending on player choices, there may be contracts they set you out to good people, with a possible twist of the player not knowing they are killing good people, leaving the player to pick up on hints, and making the final decision whether to kill their target or not. With there being decision and consequences to them, this could lead to more than one ending outcome.

How this game will challenge players is with how they decide to go about getting to their target, and what weapons and equipment they decide to use for a certain assignment. The player can scout around the area of the target to find possible areas to get closer, take for example a target in a skyscraper building, the player could try to get to the roof, and go from there, possibly finding air vents, which the player can move through unseen.

X BOX GAME QUESTIONS

Having established who your target audience is, and their characteristics as well as developing some areas of interest to this target audience, some “focus” questions can be asked to help refine ideas.

Is there going to be a story? Yes,

Is it RPG? Yes

1^st person shooter? Yes, can change between 1^st and 3^rd person.

How will the game provide challenge? Story line missions, sub-missions, collectables  

How will the player know what progress they’re making? Stats menu (percentage completion), unlocked items.

Will there be a scoring system? Yes

Is there a main character? No, can choose character.

If so, what style? Sci-fi

Customization? Character look, weapons, vehicles

Does the game need a timer? No

Does the game need an introduction? Intro in the sci-fi world

Does the game need instructions? Basic controller instructions.

What genre? Sci-fi

What time period? Future (around 3011)

What environment is the game set in?  Future city

Is this part of a series? Open for expansion

DLC? – add ones? Downloadable; maps, weapons, character looks, missions, vehicles.

What Difficulty? Start off with standard difficulty but increases as you progress.  

Easter Eggs? Cultural references, reference other games, Sounds, weapons, objects.

Are there multiple endings?

Un-lockable? (pick-ups, etc)

Sound effects? Guns, synths, futuristic sounds.

Cut-scenes? Before start of mission.

Influences? Tron, gta, crysis, 

After presentation summary.

A element that was carried across all of the adverts I looked at was high quality photography. The photos were used to create contrast or to sell a lifestyle.
Many of the ads had contemporary  themes which wakes them more appealing to the market. Part of the contemporary theme could be well know music which was featured in many of the ads.
Ads that carried a comical theme appealed more to the class, and in turn made the product more memorable.

Guerrilla Advertisement.

Guerrilla advertising an unconventional form of advertising that usually requires a smaller budget than usual. The aim of these ads is to be shocking, creative and memorable rather than the traditional "in you face every where you go" advert. What guerrilla ads lak in numbers they make up in creativity, for example the photo above shows a hand grip on public transport. When you are on the bus or train you are just waiting for the time that you get off, and this watch brand has utilised this making their ad interactive allowing the commuter to "try on" there watch while they wait.

The advert above shows the scale and creativity level that guerrilla ads go to. This advert is for an all you can eat rest stop which with the photo and tunnel is perfect for that.

TV Advertisements.

My favorite and I think most effective adverts lately have come from apple. I think the reason that they are so effective is that, in the majority, of there ads they do not show the faces of the user. By doing this the viewer can put themselves in the position of the person on the screen, and imagen using the device. The iPad ad is a good example of this. Through the whole ad you see the same as the demonstrator, also in the background there is often a loung or coffee show scene which everyone can relate to.

The advertisers use a hook by playing amazing shots of the product, while you watch you listen to some up-to-date music and fall more and more into the products "lifestyle" and "can't live without features".
At the end for a very short time they show the companies name or logo this says, in the case of Apple "If you ever this about getting a mobile touch device, an iPad is the only one that will for fill your needs and you can only buy this from Apple!"

Magazine Advertisements.

I think that an effective magazine avert is one that conveys an idea or lifestyle, that is associated with the brand, and aslo contains information about the brand at a glace with clear instructions of where to find more details. For example a cloths brand would have a model dressed in there cloths and in a situation that the reader would like to see them selves in.

The advert above is a prime example of the brand selling a lifestyle. If this was a photo of the same model in the same cloths but in a clinical white studio, as a reader you would not feel the same way towards the brand. By having the model in this situation the advert is telling you "if you buy this brand, you too can be part of this situation and have the same lifestyle as the picture shows". The reason this works is that the lifestyle that are shown to promote brands don't actually exist so people constantly buy into the brands "lifestyle", trying to be part of it.

This is an advert that coneys both an idea and a lifestyle. This advert says "with this phone you can get a girl like this" or "with this phone you can feel like this". The other element of the advert is that the photo was taken with the phone they are promoting, re-enforcing the main selling point of the product.

An example of a web banner that I consider to be a really good.

Static Website Banners.

This is an example of a static website advertising banner that works really well. This banner is featured on many creative websites. The way that the advertising agency has formatted it, is so that it will not look out of place on a blog. The other advantage to this website banner is that incorporates many ads into one banner which give the company that is advertising it's products, more choices into the size of their ad.

Flash and Interactive Website Banners.


There are many advantages to using a flash based interactive website banner, such as the user can experience rich and free flowing graphics. However there is a major floor that has arisen with the growth in mobile devices especially those that use touch as the input. With a touch device the user cannot use such features as roll-overs and many mobile devices now do not even support the flash platform, which from a website owner/online advertising point of view means there is little point in producing an advert that is not going to be seen by every user that come to the site.

Despite these downfalls I have found a flash advert that I think is effective.

Screen shot of the flash advert.

Above is a screen shot (still) of the advert. For the interactive version click here.

I think this advert works well because from a data collection point of view there is only two possible answers, and the website user is far more lightly to click a "Yes" No" than to click on an ad that tells them they come win a holiday.

Also the choice of the background image is very good, they have chosen a photo that is relevant to the question and not used some crazy animated character.

This advert grabs the attention of the user by its opening sequence, and if the ad was to be off the page (at the bottom of the webpage so not view when the page loads) the faces are animated with a small amount of movement witch keeps the ad noticeable. I also think that the small movement of the faces is far more effective that if there was a big animation taking up the whole ad. I think this because as a user you automatically ignore the big animations, but if there is a consistent movement in the corrner of your eye then it intestates you and you are far more lightly to do anything to get rid of it.

Animated .GIF Images.

For the reasons I stated above more adverts are becoming animated .GIF images. The advantage to this is that they will run on any web browsing device, they convey a clear message and are easily produced.