Console research

Alienware

Alienware is an american computer company that works for Dell. It mainly assembles third party components into desktops and laptops with custom enclosures. They also sell rebadged computer peripheralss, such as headsets, computer mice, monitors and keyboards. Their hardware has a distinctive sci-fi style, typically including decorative neon lights inside and outside the computers. Alienware was founded in 1996 by Nelson Gonzalez and Alex Aguila.

Starting in 2002, Dell considered buying alienware, but did not take any action until March 22, 2006, when it agreed to purchase the company. The new subsidiary maintained its autonomy in terms of design and marketing. However, Alienware's access to Dells supply chain, purchasing power, and economies of scale would lower its operating costs.

Alienware sells the very best gaming pc's to date, you can ither buy one set up for you, or you can customise what in your machine. Alienwares have a very nice design with some very cool features and lighting.

 


I tried applying the same bevel idea onto my text which alienware has used on the logo (image above) but I found it didnt look right on are text. Maybe because it was the wrong font, maybe colour, or it just didnt look right for the name.

Name Idea's

Phenom
Phoenix
Game Core

Logo research

This is the kind of style I chose in the end for are logo and poster. Although it is really simple I think it looks really cool and gives a good effect.


This is another logo I liked, I really love the text because I think it looks really cool and stands out well, also with the black background which I've put into my poster design.



Sketches

After doing a few basic sketches I came up with a logo that I liked the most, the bottom left image. I thought of joining the two letters GC together because I thought the 'gamercore' would be too long and I wanted the logo to look similar to the name. I also tried to adapt the core part of the name into the logo by making the inside of the logo glow blue making it look it has some kind of core and power behind it.

 After I had a logo planned out I decided to come up with some poster ideas, as I made the logo glow I thought it would look cool if I adapted that into the text.

 After making this poster I started looking back at my logo and just kept thinking that it didnt look right. So I took a look at some other game company's logos like 'Playstation'.

 After looking at some other logos and companies I decided to go a more basic look since it is just a logo. But I think it looks a lot better this way because the gradient gives a good effect along with the sharp edges, I also think it looks a lot more professional and its easier to see what the letters are compared to before.

So once I made up the new logo I made a new poster. I just simply put the name of the brand in the centre followed by 'powering the future'. I think the text below gives a good effect because it makes it sound like a really big and powerful machine if its going to be powering the future of games, it puts it at the top of everything. I didnt want the poster to have a lot on it because I wanted everything to be focused on the name and logo. So I gave it a black background to make the text stand out, also the text below is going to make people wonder what this new machine is and want to go check it out.

comparing advertising in the 1960's to present

If you compare how coca cola was advertised in the 1960's to now, things would be a lot different. Back in the 1960's they would probably have a really pretty girl holding a bottle of coca cola, or have a huge group of people each holding a bottle all looking happy. They would still advertise on the tv, but back then not everyone would have one, also the colour tv was only just being launched. Nowadays I would say most advertising is done through the internet and tv. There has been loads of campaigns online, and they have made adverts which you can take part in, this is good because it gets your involved with the advert and makes you remember it better.

Also coca cola brought out the famous christmas advert selling there product, which shows the coca cola lorry and father christmas, the lorry has now become an icon which everyone recognises. Also the colour of father christmas (red) was founded by this advert, he used to be green, this just shows how powerful and massive coca cola has become. The tv adverts these days are still going with  the happy theme and how coca cola makes you happy if you drink it.

So compared to the 1960's not much has changed in the way adverts are being shown to people apart from things like campaigns, but I think technology and the internet are playing huge roles on todays advertising.

People these days dont look the same way towards advertising as well as they did in the 1960's.I think this is because, before the 1960's people didnt really have money to spend, and the money they did have was spent on things the needed, like food. But during the 1960's people started getting more and more money and advertising companies noticed this and started to act. Now that people have money to spend, there starting to buy things they want, instead of need. This kind of makes people think there living in a dream world, and nowadays people have just gotten used to fact they can buy things they need, and whenever and advert pops up on the tv, people kind of think 'ugh! great' and switch the channel. I think thiss might be because people have just gotten used to the fact that if they have enough money, they can get it. Also, you can now borrow money from banks, to buy stuff you want, and pay it back, or just slap it on your credit card.

Men and women are used differently in advertising since the 1960's aswell, these days they tend to wear less and less cloths in most adverts and they try to give it a kind of sexual feel to the advert. These days special effects is getting used more and more in adverts, i guess because advertising companies are getting more and more money, so obviously people still pay attension to adverts.

Selling the sixties

America in the 1960's started off with the election of the new president, John Kennedy. For many Americans he represented a spirit of hope for the nation. It was the first time when people actually had spare money to spend, instead of buying stuff they needed they could buy stuff they wanted. Therefore advertising had a big role in the 1960's. Because as people was able to spend there money on different things people started advertising things people would want.

Televisions and colour televisions become more and more popular in the 1960's. This is because more people was able to afford one, and the colour television was launched which attracted the attention of a lot of people.  Advertising companies saw this and started releasing adverts on the TV's so that they could show there products over a wider range. Also sears catalogue came out, this was a catalogue that advertised hundreds of items of a ll sorts.

Products sold -

Products were advertised in magazines, sears catalogue was the main book that sells products. It was like todays argos book, and ranged from hundreds of products. It would have 60 different types of the same product, making people feel like there in some sort of dream world, by giving them a huge variety. The 1960's

what is a brand?

Apple shop


I think the apple shop does really well in drawing people in to the shop because, as the shop is basically one big glass window so that you can see into, it makes people look at it and see what is inside. Also everything you see inside the shop you can use and try out, this makes people want to go in and play on everything. Everything is hands on.

Also you see a big apple logo outside shop indicating that it is an apple shop, although I dont think they really need that because you can tell its an apple shop just by looking at it. By the way everything is white and light shades of grey, all of their products are layed out on some sort of prop to hold them up like a piece of art work. Hinting that there unique and special compared to anything else. This makes people buy them because they want to stand out from everyone else, and be able to say 'look at me, I've got an ipod'.

Apple have made copies of other products, such as computers they made a mac, which is basically a computer but with different buttons and other pointless little things. They made an ipod, which is basically an MP3 player, and they've made an Iphone, which is a phone, but as its got the 'I' before suddenly makes it much more than a phone (to some people). They've done all of this because they want to be different and have there version of something that already exists, but try to make it slightly better so people will buy it and be able to say 'hey look at me i got an I-phone' When really that is just the same as any smart phone out there.


Hmv


Hmv is one of those shops where if you want to buy a dvd, someone will say look in hmv, or I want to buy a game, look in hmv. Hmv sells rather quite a lot, from cd's to games to books and laptops. In a way it's a shop for teenagers who are into games and dvd's or music. Also recently they have started putting latest release games  out on show so that you can play them, this is a good way to draw people into there shop. Also they put all there deals in the window which makes people come into the shop.





Analysing Brands 


Mc Donalds
Mc Donalds was first founded and built in 1940 by the mcdonald brothers Dick and Mac. Ray Kroc became the first franchise appointed by Mac and Dick in San Bernardino, California. In 1955 Ray Kroc opened his first restaurant in Des Plaines, Illnios and the McDonalds corporation was created. By 1959 the 100th Mcdonalds opened in chicago. In 1961 Ray Kroc bought all rights to the McDonalds concept from the McDonald brothers for $2.7 million. In the next four years McDonald restaurants had grown five times more than 1959. In 1964 the filet-o-fish sandwich was introduced, and by 1970 they had a restaurant in every US state, one year later the egg McMuffin sandwich was test marketed in the US as Mcdonalds first breakfast menu item, and McDonalds opened up in Japan, Holland, Australia, Germany, Panama and Guam.

In 1974 the 3000th McDonalds restaurant was opened in woolwich (south east london) in october, the first in the UK. Then one year later the first ever drive through opened. In 1983 the chicken nugget  got released. In 1984 the founder Ray Kroc dies, In 1984 McDonalds is serving 17 million customers a day which at the time is equivalent to serving the entire population of Australia and New Zealand. If McDonalds lined up all the hamburgers sold since 1955, they would circle the equator 103.75 times and reach the moon and back five times.

In 1991 McDonalds were responsible for a serious food poisoning outbreak in preston, when several customers were hospitalised as a result of eating undercooked burgers contaminated by potentially deadly E.coli 0157H bacteria.

Different media is used to communicate with the customer by using things like a website where you can see what they sell, offers, and other things that you might need to know. They could do adverts on the tv, and magazines, or make posters.

I think the meaning of the brand is trying make people happy whoever eats there products, I also think that there target audience is mostly children. Because they have things like happy meals, which are for kids, and they have a lot of meals which are for kids, also you can tell children love eating there because they always get excited about it. Maybe because of the fact that they get a free toy with a happy meal?

Playstation
In 1994 electronics giant sony, enters the highly competitive games console market. Self explanatory name playstation, this 32-bit, cd-based system hit japan in december and faced tough competition from 'the big two' in the from of sega's fundamentall similar saturn, and nintendo's upcoming ultra 64. However, its relatively sleek grey frame, ergonomic controller - not to mention an arcade perfect port of namco's popular arcade driver ridge racer attracted avid games players and started sony computer entertainment on the path to becoming a serious rival to the veterans.

1997 with playstation now firmly established as europes number one console, SCEE started to get really serious. The new year was kicked off with the introduction of the platinum range of budget priced best sellers. April of 1998 saw the launch of the next evolution of the playstation controller: the analog controller, or duelshock as its known by most. This provided scope for superior control in future titles, while the built in vibration function meant that you could now effectively feel the effects of the action on screen. This was later announced the standard controller for the console.

In the year 2000, everyone new that playstation 2 was well on the way and in 2001 - 2002 it got launched selling over 1.68 million units in europe alone. The conbined sales of both machines were now so huge that it was estimated that one out of every five housholds in europe owned a playstation of playstation 2.
 One year later, with people happily playing the playstation 2, sony wanted people to play eachother without having a large scale sleepover. The network adapter, releashed across europe between june and october, offered slightly more practical solution, allowing gamers to connect their PS2 to a broadband connection and play a host of compatible titles against players across the rest of the continent.

After playstations first successful decade, the arrival of the playstation 3 was being brought out in 2006, it promises to herald a new revolution in home entertainment bringing with it the most powerful technologies we've ever ever seen in a computer entertainment system.

I think the audience for the playstation would be from children to adults. Because people who are interested in games would obviously use this. But they have now got the playstation move, which is basically sony's version of the WII so that extends its audience quite a lot because it would encourage other people to play the playstation.