Trebel is the world’s first licensed music service to deliver downloadable music for free by combining digital advertising and social payment technologies. Their mission is to enable young people everywhere to enjoy on-demand music and other media in a safe and legal environment while delivering fair compensation to the artist community by capturing billions of dollars lost each year to pirate sites and “safe harbor” apps. Our Ation team was tasked with creating a low budget marketing strategy to help spread the Trebel brand through college campuses.

After much deliberation and ideating, the team decided to host a “silent rave” sponsored by Trebel at the University of Connecticut that would be free to all students so long as they downloaded the free Trebel app. The team tackled every aspect of the event, from planning with the schools event coordinator to researching and ultimately choosing from different headphone companies to utilise for the event. We also created a small collection of flat graphics and short animations to promote the event, as well as a promotional video of the event itself for Trebel to use in future advertising. The “silent rave”, a dance party where attendees hear the DJ through individual headsets instead of speakers, was very successful, leaving all attendees satisfied and introducing the brand to a multitude of new people.

Project Team:

Nicole Harvey acted as one of the two project coordinators of the project and was responsible for all communications between the client and the team, as well as planning with the school’s event coordinator for the event itself.

Skylar Agnello as a one of the two project coordinators aided in event communications as well as completely managing the filming, catering, and music at the event.

Katie Sawosik was responsible for research and development of the events RSVP ticket system, including graphics- she also largely aided in finding the proper companies to rent from for the event.

Nick Donati created most all of the flat and animated graphics and assets used to promote the event and was responsible for acquiring professional lighting, decorations, and transportation for our equipment.

Ariff Jeff created animated content to be displayed at the event itself and aided in managing during the event.

Aaron Kane secured the events DJ and was tasked with advertising the event including but not limited to handing out a large amount of fliers throughout the University.

Spring 2018

At the beginning of the semester we worked to develop an understanding of what the Werth Institute is and what exactly it was that we were going to provide our client with. After deciding that we would create a logo, brand guidelines, social media guide, brand identity and a PowerPoint template for the Werth institute we began working on logo designs. We all collectively worked on various logo ideas and then presented them to the client. Once the logo options were narrowed down we were then able to delegate tasks for each of us to work on. While we each had our own assignments of things to do we collaborated on ideas and offered one another input and feedback.

One specific part of our final deliverable that we all worked on together was creating a tagline. Some difficulties that we faced throughout our work for The Werth Institute was deciphering what exactly it is and what they are offering to students here at UConn. Since this institute is new and we have not personally experienced it yet we looked at what other prestigious universities are doing to market and build a brand for their own entrepreneurship and innovation institutes. After giving our final deliverable we felt that we successfully completed what they had asked us to, however the client did have a few critiques so we needed to make a few final adjustments before sending over our final project.

Our client came to us with the problem of branding and brand identity. They were a new entity and they were starting from scratch in terms of who they were and what they wanted to look like. They wanted us to come up with a vision for the Peter J. Werth Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. This included many things like a logo that fit together well with the UConn logo and different color themes. They wanted a branding style sheet to guide the institute in the future and powerpoint template for them to use when giving presentations about the institute. Social media was also important to them, so they wanted different social media tags and hashtags to use to promote themselves. Lastly, they wanted taglines or a mission statement for the Werth institute to catch people attention. A main concern that they had was students calling it the “Werth Institute” and not shortening the name to anything.

After our first meeting with our client Cathy Rocha on February 1st, we were able to gain a better understanding of the project objectives and from there, we made a structured plan to follow as a team. For our first task (creating the logo) we worked individually and drafted ideas of our own in which we visioned for the logo. We then shared them with each other and collaborated off each other’s ideas. We narrowed down our options, and presented them to our client during a meeting on February 27th. We learned that our client liked the logos made by Anna which included the oak leaves. From here, we were able to better assign roles for the remaining tasks. Anna worked on adjusting the logos based on our feedback, while the rest of the team collaboratively worked on creating a tagline for the Werth Institute, which was narrowed down and concluded by Allison. Once the logo was finalized, Anna put together a style guide. Ming focused on creating a social media plan including proposed hashtags and advise on when to post content. Hailee and Diana focused on creating the brand identity, while Meagan created the powerpoint template. However, throughout the entire project we all worked together and shared our thoughts and ideas on each individual task, ensuring our team had equal input and consisted of collaborative concepts.

After figuring out what exactly our client needed from us, we worked collaboratively to brainstorm rough ideas for logos and other design elements such as color palette and font choices. We each made rough sketches of logos which we then narrowed down and recreated digitally. Once first drafts of a logo were done, we worked individually on other things needed by the client such as taglines, brand identity, social media guide, etc. We communicated with one another about the progress of our specific task throughout the semester to ensure everything was being done properly and efficiently. This made it easier to get everything done by our deadline and ensure everything was consistent.

During this process we encountered a few obstacles. One of the biggest ones was client communication. We would have liked to have met with our client at least one other time during the semester to get feedback but they were unable to do so. There were also multiple occasions that our client did not respond to our emails or took a very long time to do so. We dealt with this by giving them multiple options to choose from for everything we created which minimized the amount of back and forth between ourselves and the client.

Another issue we had in the beginning was confusion on what “The Werth Institute” was. They are a relatively new program with no brand identity which is what they needed our help for. We solved this issue by communicating with the client and researching what The Werth Institute was, what they are trying to accomplish, and what similar institutes at other universities have done. At the end of the semester, our client was satisfied with our final deliverable with only a few minor adjustments needed.

Overall the team did a great job at working together, communicating and making sure that the work was split up in a fair way that allowed each of us to create a critical piece of the project. The project provided us with several learning opportunities when it came to client feedback, logo creating, logo presentation and taglines. Each member brought new ideas to the table during our class sessions and we were able to build off of each others ideas. I think that it took us a little while to fully understand the client and the brand that we were helping create an identity for. Once we had more of a grasp on the goal we were able to work quickly to come up with a final deliverable. If anything could have been done better, it would have been our timing for the final meeting. Perhaps if we had been able to move the final client meeting up a week or two we would have felt less rushed to make the last minute changes that were needed according to the client feedback.

Project Team
Allison Betlej
Diana Francis
Anna Jannott
Ming Montgomery
Hailee Parenteau
Meagan Ryley

Spring 2018

CT Innovations introduced ATION to SeeClickFix, a company that provides the ability for citizens who find public issues in their local communities to connect directly with the city government. This allows issues to be efficiently dealt with, and also creates a medium where the process of the resolution can be well communicated to the citizen. Our task was to create a concise, one minute video for the company that presented the product’s unique benefits on their website, as well as a tool they can use to pitch to city officials. The guideline provided was that they wanted the video to be a mix of live action and animation.

We dove headfirst into this project, as we all went straight into brainstorming the look and feel that we wanted this video to have. We scoured the internet for anything from TV shows or other companies’ marketing videos that met our vision of the project. The team very quickly was able to come to a unified understanding of the tone and feel wanted.

When we pitched our proposals to our clients, we found that we had the luxury of working with youthful invigorated members of the company who were very much on the same page with our plans for video development. They chose their favorite of the three narrative tones that we pitched, and it was time to get to work.

Our narrative focused on the process of how local governments solve issues in their community. Our focus was on two perspectives, “the user” and “the city”. It begins with the user walking down the street and tripping on a pothole. It takes the viewer through the current model of reporting issues in the community, and highlights the inefficiency and lack of communication. The video then introduces the same exact scenario with the user tripping on a pothole, and then introduces what the reporting model would look like with SeeClickFix implemented, highlighting the improvement on efficiency, as well as citizen satisfaction.

When we began preproduction, our clients wanted to have a very active part in our process. We would come up with the script, and they would write the narration. When we storyboarded out the script, the clients also delivered us a storyboard of how they envisioned it. This dynamic continued into production, as about half of the video was filmed with actors and locations chosen by us, while the other half was filmed with actors and locations they had in mind. We actually found this process extremely desirable and effective. We were able to meet the needs of the client, while still providing our creative and design understanding which they were very open to implement.

Project Team
Mike Carlson
Nini Constable
Danial Hamzah
RJ Jones
Daniel Lee
Carly Zaleski

Spring 2018

My Gene Counsel came to us with a problem which we were tasked to solve. The problem given to us was the word of My Gene Counsel not being spread. The client offered some ideas as to how we should approach the project. Some of the ideas given were considered but ultimately decided to be less than desirable for a deliverable product. After talking to the client and negotiating their vision and the most effective way to portray the company, we came to a decision and began animating the video. My Gene Counsel previously had an informational video made, but it was generic and did not portray the company in the best possible light. So we started storyboarding, discussing with our contact at the company Ellen, and designing a video that fit the company brand the best. This process was accompanied by building assets in Adobe Illustrator, creating the script and working on edits with the client, hiring a voice actor, animating in After Effects and putting all the pieces together in Adobe Premiere. This took a lot of coordination and communication from the team. But by the end of the project, we had completed and delivered an exceptional video. Our client was thrilled and even asked our team if we were looking for jobs in the future. Overall the project was a success, the client was happy, and our team learned a lot.

At the beginning of the semester, the client came to us with the task of creating an advertisement / animation. The problem this video would solve would be the lack of people knowing about the company and the benefits of its use. The animation was to utilize the color scheme of the “My Gene Counsel” logo. This animation was meant to attract young and old potential clients. Ellen, the CEO who we spoke with expressed that we take into account every age, gender, and ethnicity. We were given an old animated video made previously for the company and were told to follow it as a guideline.

Taking into consideration the client’s problem, we decided to take a simplistic approach to the issue. After researching the target audience we found that because My Gene Counsel goes after clients who have used products such as “My Ancestry” we decided to look into their target audience. We found, however that the primary buyer and target client to these products were middle aged white men. Our client, on the other hand, wanted to appeal to all genders, ethnicities, and ages. In order to remedy this discrepancy we took a simplistic approach which kept all characters blue. While matching the logo for My Gene Counsel, the blue characters also allowed us to bypass the need to represent every race while still appealing to a vast amount of demographics. Another issue we found was the video given by the client was not only an eye sore, but conveyed a poor message when it came to marketing. For this reason we opted to keep the message as straight forward and deliver a more visually appealing art style.

One of the obstacles that we encountered with this project was the program that we would use for our animation. Our CEO, Ellen, wanted our video to look similar to the company’s existing video, which was made using a website called GoAnimate. This site had a very specific look, and a lot of character animation, both of which would be incredibly time-consuming to implement with After Effects, which is the program we ultimately used to create our animation. To satisfy Ellen’s request, we just told her that we would make it look as similar as possible to the GoAnimate video, which we did. We used colors from the MyGeneCounsel logo so that it would be Additionally, part of the reason why it took us until April to begin animating was because of script disagreements. We spent several weeks working with Ellen to reach a script that we both agreed with. Especially at first, we did not see eye-to-eye with the content of the script – Ellen wanted it a specific way, however, we believed that it wasn’t enticing enough for the customer. Her script lacked something that would make customers want to utilize her service, and the tone was a bit odd. She wanted it to be conversational, but it seemed very unnatural. So, we compromised with her, and our script ended up containing a bit of both of our desired content. Ellen also wanted to target every demographic, but we knew that it would be difficult to include everyone, and all races. To solve this, we made the people’s skin blue, so that it doesn’t represent any specific race, removing race entirely.

Overall we feel that we did a good job on this project and were successful in the assignment that we were tasked with. We started out strong by having a strict schedule of when each piece of the process should be done. For the most part we stuck to this and even got ahead of schedule at some points. Towards the end we struggled a bit staying on schedule because our client had a personal emergency and didn’t get back to us for a while. This set us back for the start of animating but we managed to catch up and get everything done on time which was great. There was some difficulty in the script writing process because our client was unclear about what she wanted to convey. After some back and forth about the script we had to become more aggressive in our approach. Through several calls with her we did convince her to go with a script that we were happy with. We also were pretty successful in convincing the client to let us use our creative license more because she did not quite understand at first. In the end she was very happy with what we delivered to her so we are glad we didn’t try to conform to what she thought she wanted. Looking back this might have happened faster if we had made our storyboards more clear. Additionally, we think that we were successful in finding a voice actor and recording the script. At first this seemed a little daunting but through collaboration with the drama department we ended up with a great voice over. In the end we are very happy with the product that we delivered and we learned a lot in the process.

Project Team
Rachel
Maggie Chernovetz
Thomas Davies
Malik Harris
Cameron Sugrue

Spring 2018

We worked with the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, and their Amistad Center for Art & Culture to help them find a way to display some of their most controversial artifacts. We went about solving this problem by meeting with the museum director to brainstorm ideas, researching and preparing proposals for these ideas, and ultimately presenting them to the museum director. After these steps, we prepared another consolidated and specific proposal that encompassed his notes, and passed that off to him to work on with another group or contractor in the future.

Throughout this process, we worked hard every week to flesh out the proposals with mockups, 3D models of the space, and in-depth breakdowns of the logistics of the project. Given that we were not actually implementing these ideas ourselves, we ended up having plenty of time to complete the work- perhaps even a little too much. All in all, we are proud of the work that we did and enjoyed the class and experience working with Frank immensely.

At the beginning of this semester, the Amistad Center at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford came to us with a unique problem, and an open mind in terms of how they wanted to solve it. Their problem was the unanswered question of how to display racially charged artifacts as part of their ongoing exhibit rotation in their corner of the Wadsworth. The director of the Amistad Center, Frank, was worried that if they just put the items out for display without some sort of curator, they would be misinterpreted and become the source of criticism towards the museum.

Our Student Agency group planned to help Frank begin solving this problem by first getting a clear understanding of the situation at hand, and then preparing a variety of digital solutions to help bridge the gap between the Amistad Center’s intentions and the public’s interpretations. We did not intend to actually implement these solutions, due to the limited length of the semester, however we intended to leave Frank with a detailed plan to either pass on to the next Agency class, or to some sort of independent contractor chosen by the Center themselves.

The first step we took in preparing our battle plan for the Amistad Center, was to visit the facility itself to meet with Frank and size up the problem with our own eyes. We drove to Hartford as a group and met Frank at the Center. He gave us a tour of the items already on display, and then took us into the storage section of the center to show us some of their more controversial pieces. We then sat down at talked about some of his ideas for the projects. With that information, we went back to UConn and began developing our proposals.

Over the course of the rest of the semester, we prepared 3 potential approaches to the problem. One was a database of museum-goer questions and answers, in video format and readily accessible via ipads displayed with the exhibits. Another was a looping series of facts about the items on display, projected on the wall next to the pieces to give them context. The last was an interactive “guided-tour/choose-your-own-adventure” hybrid. After completing mock-ups and presentations for each of these ideas, we met with Frank again to get his thoughts on them. Given his notes, we ultimately decided to combine the first two ideas-the final proposal: project the Q&As and the facts on the wall next to the exhibits.

We spent the last few weeks of the semester preparing our most in-depth proposal yet, which included a 3D modeled mockup of the idea implemented in the space. Finally, we presented this final proposal to Frank and the rest of our peers in Student Agency, and passed the proposal and all of our project materials of too Frank for future implementation at the center.

Overall, with the work that our group had accomplished throughout the duration of the semester, we believe that we did pretty well. The proposals that we prepared were in-depth and well thought out. We also took time to develop various mockups and prototypes for each idea that we proposed, which was helpful both for Frank and ourselves during our meetings with him. We wanted to be able to demonstrate models of how each idea could work, so that when we would discuss our concepts, everyone could be on the same page. Even though our job was to help develop a concept that could be implemented, we reminded ourselves about the logistics and parameters of what the Amistad Center could be able to install. We were allowing our creativity to get the better of us, while still being mindful of costs.

One weak area was created by the amount of time we had to complete the task at hand. In some instances, it felt that we were allotted too much time to work on these concepts. This led to some days where not much work was accomplished, because we felt our ideas were already fleshed out. That being said, we worked hard, traveled, and put lots of thought into our proposals. And in the end, Frank was happy with the work that we had completed for him, which is what we strived to obtain the client’s satisfaction.

Project Team
Alexander Crosett
Estelle MacDonald
Christian Partenio
William Rios
Benjamin Schultz

Spring 2018

We were introduced to the UConn Recovery Center or URC, an organization categorized under Mental Health Services focused on offering a space and support for students on their path of recovery. They came to ATION focused on solving their problem of “brand awareness”. They had a small following on social media and were unable to find a brand that can speak to students who might be potential members who can benefit from their services. Following that meeting, we focused on three major areas: developing a sound brand strategy, expanding their presence on social media, and reorganizing their website. Before we began this process, the URC wanted to make sure their current student body was involved with the creative process and made sure their work was represented properly.

We began work on developing a brand style guide that offered a clear sense of direction for future branding of the URC. This covered proper colors and fonts to use for web content versus print content, examples of social media content, a brand message, a refurbished logo and how to use it in proper content.

After gaining approval for the brand style guide, we then began work on social media content to help diversify the URC content strategy with the main message of “healing” and “the road to recovery” being the focus for the content. We decided to have content ranging from “Ways of Healing” to inspirational quotes to “Famous Faces of Recovery” to “Thoughtful Thursdays” to allow for a multifaceted content strategy, as well as launching an Instagram channel for the URC to increase their presence. Outside of static photo content, we also created a short kinetic typography video that conveys the message and work of the URC in a new light.

Finally, we began work on modifying the website of the URC to be more streamlined and organized. While much of the site’s elements stayed the same, the site is more focused on getting the user the information that they need. While taking in the needs of the students in the URC and the client, we were able to create a product that puts this organization in a great position to spread their message on social media.

Project Team
Matt Barry
Ariff Jeff
Kaity Seman
Sophia Valentin