Wednesday, October 28

What?

Today we spent some time re-evaluating the calendar and planning. It seems like the deadlines are continuously changing and it is somewhat hard to hold people accountable to do things by the specific dates assigned. This then leads to needing to adjust the rest of the dates, as at this point, most of the deadlines are specifically dependent on each other.

Logos were presented to the group and the logo by Zane B. was selected. I think that having a logo for the project is helping motivate the various groups -- it's almost like the project has a face now; like it's more legitimate with a logo, instead of just some class assignment. The logo was distributed to groups so they can start using it.

The Call for Art group met in order to figure out what exactly are the requirements for art submissions. We decided that we would accept pieces of any medium as long as they featured or related to the apple, spinach, or sweet potato. We also began drafting the needs for the call for entries posts and where we can promote it.

So What?

We decided to create a poster/flyer to enlist artists not in the class. We needed to find a way to convince people to not only stop and read the poster, but to actually understand the project quickly and be excited about participating. Getting visibility is the key -- by simple math, the more people aware of the event/call for entries, the theoretically higher percentage of people going to submit work. We have posted about the call for entries on Facebook, Craigslist, Prudence Knows, Ester Knows, VCUarts, as well as making posters for hanging around the art buildings & campus.

We examined other call for entries posters to determine what elements are most effective to incorporate. We designed the poster to have pulltabs with the planned website and contact email so that people would be able to look up more information online, without needing to try to remember the info or finding a pen and something to write it down with. We need to get the website up and running for when the posters go live.

Now What?

Getting information out is very important in this stage of the process -- information to generate interest in the project altogether, as well as getting art donated and finding sponsors, donors, and partners. At this time, it's also very important to look into what options regarding promotions and press releases are available so that we can spread the word about Project Winterfood. Figuring out the best ways to get the word out about the project and the cause are useful skills for future projects and causes.