Ok so this may be a bit text heavy but thought that it would be worthwhile getting our refined brief up here too. What follows are the specifications we have created in order to make an achievable brief for the next 6 weeks with a broad picture of future plans in mind as well.
A brief background about our organisation:
Artstation is a community arts centre which provides a wide range of visual arts classes and programmes for adults and children. Artstation was formed 35 years ago and is in an historic building on Ponsonby Road, formerly the Grey Lynn Police Barracks. Artstation is the home of leading art organisation including The Artists Alliance, The Auckland Writers Festival and Tou Tai Trust for Pacific Artisits. There is the opportunity to hire studios for personal work at Artstation -including dark rooms (which are in the old prison cells..!), print studios and glass art workshops. Artstation is a great facility however they are really needing to engage with the youth, as this is a demographic that they are missing out on. There is a good connection between children and adults with artstation but this youth sector (14-24 years old ) has little to no involvement with the classes. They are wanting to establish participation and involvment with school and uni students as well as the youth demographic in general.
Three top priorities of what we WILL achieve during the YMedia Challenge:
1)Marketing strategy aimed at the youth demographic - establishing a platform by which they can look at the long term goals for achieving a stronger youth involvment and set in motion the initial foundation stages of making this happen.
2) To better utilise existing communication systems and look into ways of improving them to up awareness and promotion of Artstation to the youth.
3) Appoint a sustainable youth committee group who can be involved with long term goals involving this youth participation scheme and be the younger voice for Arstation and their social media network.
The most important message for our organisation to communicate:
Artstation exists as a core Auckland Arts facility to foster the community in their artistic endeavours. For this particular brief it is important for us to communicate this is a way that is directed at the youth. Therefore we have restructured this statement to say : Artstation exists as a core Auckland Arts facility to foster, harbour and excite the youth in their artistic endeavours and promote participation in the Arts.
Important Dates for us:
Weekly Artstation manager’s meeting - every Tuesday 1.30pm. Sunday the 27th of June - Advisory Group Meeting. The three weekly exhibitions that are held at Artstation. Semi Permanent Design Forum 20-21st August and Ponsonby Road Market day TBC (potential dates to be utilised). University graduation exhibition dates (late November). Quarterly brochure drop. Re-Orientation Week at start of semester 2 at Universities. School holiday dates for term 3 (3rd -18th July) and term 4 (25 September - 10 October). Y Media submission dates for videos (9th July, 23rd July) and of course the final deadline 6pm 9th August and presentation panel 10th August!
Things to be taken into consideration:
Because Artstation is part of Auckland City Council there are a lot of restrictions and processes to go through for identity related promotion, for example, they do not have a stand alone website, it is a branch of the Auckland City Council page. Therefore, they have to adhere to the current formal form of the website - there is no personalisation or spirit of Artstation conveyed. As a lead on from this there is a rigorous process to attain permission for anything, such as a stand alone website, funding, bandwidth at Artstation. Another thing to consider is the recent brand of Artstation and the ideas associated with it, therefore there is a new visual that we must be aware of so our work is cohesive with whatever we do to maintain consistency. Artstation already has it’s own marketing and design team (part of Auckland City Council) working for them so this is another parameter to be aware of. There is no budget for advertising available - unless it is applied for. The skill level of staff for maintenence of digital media. Very little bandwidth at Artstation, so there is not much room for updating online digital content. Artstation is in an historic building so there are very few things we can do to the actual building space. We also need to be aware of the timeline of exhibitions for the next 4-6 months that are already in place.
