Rob Morgan Poster Assignment

I am not much of an artist and I don't consider myself to have a great eye for things like this so I decided to start by doing as much research as I could manage for a 2pt assignment :0) I looked up current children's educational software posters and boxes on google and amazon. I read a few blogs and articles on how to market to the early ed demographic. I looked at top kid's brands to see what they were doing and then I got to work.

I decided on a program called canva.com based solely on the fact that we mention it in a class I teach on Cascade at JMU. In that class I usually discuss pixlr.com but recently the SME I work with told me he prefers canva.com so I thought I would take a look. The site was simple enough although very fee based for anything but the most basic tools.

I read Chapter 3 in WSINYE and, since this is not my area of expertise, I decided to grab a blank sheet of paper and draw along with the suggestions while reading.

Here is what I came up with as a template/rough guide.

I added the margins, and then split the paper into two columns as was suggested. I decided I wanted my title at the top and I wanted to fill the center with an image. Originally I was thinking I would go with some cartoon characters and maybe warriors. Many of the software boxes I saw online had excited action characters as the focal point and I liked that idea. I also thought I would like to have a slogan at the end as their eyes are drifting off the paper, something that would stick with them. Since the audience is 5-9 years old I wanted a lot of eye-catching color.

My final poster is not exactly what I started with but it is close. Here is the poster I created.

I started with the product name at the top since that is the most important thing. I wanted the kids saying "Teacher can we play with XXXX again!" I played with a lot of warrior and cartoon characters like these:

 But none of them felt quite right. The only one that I thought worked well on my poster wast the girl with the spear but since I had no idea what the fraction software would be I couldn't tell if she would make sense on the poster or not. I also felt like she needed a male counterpart and I could not find one I liked.I found the cow on pixabay.com and it was a CC0 image meaning that the author has given up all rights and it is in the public domain now.

I chose red for the color at the top of the poster since I thought it caught the eye. I chose yellow in the bottom since I wanted the poster to have a fun colorful feel. I'm sure there is research around it, but I didn't look it up, but I am always drawn to something that has won an award. Not only does that help ease any teacher, parent, administration fear about a child playing a game but I feel like even as a kid I liked winning stuff and the fact that the game is associated with an award would make me think it was better even if I had no clue what that award was for.

I'm not sure if the new software has won anything but the original software was a Dr. Toy 100 best in 1998. The image that I ended up with, of the cow, was the closest I could find to the original cow. I thought that even if the software was new or redone it should carry something from the original so I brought the cow along to connect the new product with the original product.

The catchphrase on the bottom was adjusted a few times throughout the process. I started with "Are you in?" then switched to "are you game?" which I really liked but I questioned the grammatical correctness of it. So I finished with "Are you ready?" putting the emphasis on YOU. I played with a few different fonts but I wanted something looked handwritten and fun. I had read an article that said when marketing to children you should hook their curiosity and challenge them. I think the oversize cow makes you curious but it doesn't give much away about what the game is. And the catchphrase at the bottom is a direct challenge. Are YOU ready, can you handle this, are you up for this game?

And that is how I got my poster.