24TH OCTOBER 2019

LOCATION: ARKWRIGHT STUDIO, ARK111, CITY CAMPUS, NTU

MINUTES OF FITH MEETING FOR PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE COURSEWORK HELD AT 14:00 [2.5HRS]

Members Present: Anthony Dalby. Nayeem Shaik . Vikas Parekh. Isaac Moody. Seline Natour. Eyob Mulat.

5TH Meeting

Minute:

Task 1: Business plan discussion and development.

Action to task: After discussing with Simon, we were advised to think carefully about our process in the business plan and question and test our proposal. Isaac pointed out that we will be heavily involved with health and safety procedures as the business plan involved working with old buildings. Also, the importance of building regulations and the process of re-using old building grids is something we need to develop further. Eyob discussed that even though we have an office in a specific location, our projects are not limited to one place or city but can be anywhere because we are not restricted by location as the old grids we use can be anywhere. Nayeem proposed that we get staff or consultants to deal with the planning and regulations side of the business as we should focus more on the designs.

Task 2: Finances discussion.

Action to task: Nayeem reported to the group that our office is based in Cowlick and that for the process in our business plan, we will outsource the machinery and drones to start with. The finances for the three years of the plan is in progress, but we need to think about our target market in these three years. Nayeem suggested, and we all agreed that in our first year the income bracket of our market will be upper middle class and that moving on to the second and third year it will be upper and middle class.

Task 3: Market Research ideas.

Action to task: After having a discussion with Anthony about our target market, we had ideas about researching how to attract people to our business. Vikas was given the task to research precedents of other companies that have showpieces and competition entries that they do for free as long as they get as much publicity. We agreed to implement this for our business plan and have small community-based projects/pavilions for free that can attract a broader market.

Task 4: Website theme change and decision.

Action to task: The website theme we all chose at the beginning of the project was good at the time because the business plan, image, and ethos of the firm had not fully developed. However, when we looked back to the design and illustration of the website at this meeting, we all decided that it doesn’t represent us sufficiently as a form. This leads us to have a look and choose from various themes and layouts of the website which is shown below.

1. This theme looked too dated and did not represent our image.

2. This theme has quite a boring layout and still doesn't represent our image, but we all liked the layering effect that the website had.

3. This website was too basic; it looked like a social media feed and not a website, we all agreed this was not what we needed.

4. This theme looked again too dull and quite outdated. We agreed that it seemed like a very basic layout and highly reliant on pictures; however, we all liked the numbered approach on the website.

5. The composition of this theme was the main problem; the large text in the middle cutting through the whole site was not attractive and did not reflect us as a firm.

6. This theme had a beautiful animation and flow to the design. We all like the flow and movement through the site as it represents our image. However, this theme was also highly reliant on pictures and not really for a professional company website.

7. We all loved this theme due to the simplistic but diverse design. The smoothness of the graphical layout and animations through the site represented us as a firm.