Brief: Produce a mail shot that distributes, disseminates and reinforces your message to an appropriate list of recipients. (160mm width x 105mm height) There should be 10 editions of the resolution and 1 visually appropriate mailing list. One resolution must be mailed back to college.
Considerations: What do you want to say and how do you want to say it? What will the mail shot achieve? Does it direct you to a website, encourage you to attend an event, is it interactive or is it self contained?
Initial Ideas:
Celebrity gossip magazine
- Ticket to a magazine launch party
- Advertising Celebrity forum
- Mini magazine
- Vouchers for magazine
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2.
Advertising a wedding company
- In the style of Perry & Brand's Wedding invites
- Win a dream destination wedding
1. 
2.
3.
Development
To find inspiration, which was especially important as I had never created a mail shot before, I started by browsing the internet and looking through books at existing mail shots.
I decided to go along with the idea of my mail shot advertising a celebrity gossip magazine. The interesting twist to this would be that the gossip magazine was online, giving readers the chance to join in and give their opinions on the latest celebrity gossip. I decided the layout and style would be similar to my final image and type high impact poster regarding Katy Perry and Russell Brand's Indian wedding. This is the design idea that I chose to develop further.
I decided to go along with the idea of my mail shot advertising a celebrity gossip magazine. The interesting twist to this would be that the gossip magazine was online, giving readers the chance to join in and give their opinions on the latest celebrity gossip. I decided the layout and style would be similar to my final image and type high impact poster regarding Katy Perry and Russell Brand's Indian wedding. This is the design idea that I chose to develop further.
I tried to re-arrange my image and type poster so that it would work horizontally for inside the poster, but I don't think this is as easy to read as it is vertically, so I decided to re position the mail shot so that the text was inside.
This question, which contains opinions in the hope of provoking thought from the reader, was placed in the middle of the mail shot instead of the image and type poster.
This is an initial layout plan for the mail shots, but the folds are not accurate, so I redesigned this.
Development After Progress Crit
After my progress crit I made some changes to my designs based on the feedback from tutors and peers.
I created this lowercase typeface in the same style of the uppercase typeface I had already created for the posters, because I thought readability may be an issue if uppercase was used for all text. I created it in Illustrator by messily tracing around Myraid Pro, and filling in the counters.
This is the re arrangement of type after feedback.
The images below show a mock up mail shot I made to give me an idea of how the real thing would look. After creating this mail shot, I realised there were a few things which needed neatening up and perfecting before I would be ready to print in high quality in the digital print workshop.
Front of Mail Shot Back of Mail Shot
Inside Opened Completely
Final Mail Shot Design
Outside
Mailing List
In the brief it is stated that a visually appropriate mailing list is required to accompany the mail shots, so having already considered the audience to be young woman (15-25) with opinions on celebrity gossip, I began to think about where these mail shots could be posted.
- They could be distributed to places where the target audience would be likely to spend time, so they could read them and then take them home to remind them to visit the website. These places include coffee shops, hairdressers and shopping centres.
- The mail shot could be sent out to student accommodation, where the target audience will be living. These students probably won't have much money, so they may be more inclined to visit an online celebrity gossip website rather than buying a magazine. Also, they may have a lot of spare time, so this is suggesting something they could do when they are bored.
- The mail shot could be sent to people who already are signed up to celebrity fan clubs, mailing lists, email newsletters etc, who may be interested in finding about more about their favourite celebrities.
- The mail shot could be sent to people who subscribe to similar gossip magazines, such as OK! A possible partnership could be formed.
- The fictional company "Oh!So Celebrity" could form a partnership with an already successful company with the same target audience and similar qualities, and so the mail shot could be sent out to their existing customers. For example, the existing fashion company ASOS (as seen on celebrity) would be a perfect partnership.
- Influential people known for their interest in celebrity gossip could receive the mail shot.
- The mail shot could be sent to internet cafes, meaning that the website can be visited there and then.
