If I was to undertake this project again I believe a smaller team would have been more efficient as the large number in our group has lead to a lot of confusion, with members taking over job roles they should not have or adding too many ideas where unnecessary.
Personally, I was ill for the first couple of weeks of term, so was not party to the business deciding meetings at the crucial beginning stages of the project. I feel the team ran away with the website idea without considering the practicalities of timescale. I would therefore have set a realistic action plan from day one to make the project more organised and that all of the team were fulfilling their targets and jobs roles throughout the term.
In terms of my job role and creating merchandise, I wish we had concentrated on creating just Ravensbourne items from the start, as we could have arranged the branding meeting with Jill Hogan within the first couple of weeks and had the designs finalised by formative assessment. The Tshirts were almost tagged on as an after thought nearer the end of the project when it was apparent the Nexus site would not make any money or be operational in time. Conversely, we have done well to design, create and sell the shirts within a couple of weeks - alongside the researching of the website - and adhering to the Ravensbourne branding guidelines.
I have learned a lot about people throughout this project, some of which have worked very hard especially in the designing of the logos and tshirts within my subteam, yet we have had to wait for others to carry out their duties due to lack of communication or action. I also initated the meeting with Jill Hogan which propelled the designs greatly and also lead to us finding out about Ravensbourne’s social internet plans and the impact our site could have in the future working alongside an already existing team.
The main thing I have learned from the project, however, is that I do not want to set up a business of my own in the future. I enjoy animating and would rather spend my time doing what I love rather than worrying about the legalities of things such as names or competitors doing the same thing for less etc. I realise I will have to consider brand guidelines when for example creating advertisements for companies but not to this level with my own company identity. This will definitely not be something I wish to do in the future, except for promoting myself possibly as a freelancing animator.
