New Brief - YCN Award

YCN is a design agency which describes itself as 'Producing work across all media and representing the finest creative people for commissions and collaborations'.
YCN Student Awards shine a light on new creative talent, and centre on a collection of live creative briefs.
For this assignment we will choose from a list of YCN Award briefs.
The briefs we get to choose from are:

• Glayva Liqueur
• Tuborg
• The Big Issue
• Ted Baker London
• M & S
• Fedrigoni UK
• Direct Line
• Boost
• Warp
• The Open University
• Thames Clippers
• P&O Ferries
• Green & Black's Organic
• British Music Experience
• Sega
• Fairtrade
• 20th Century Fox

The Brief:
FdA Digital Media Design Year Two
AF205: Specialist Digital Media Design Practice
Assignment 1: 50% Weighting
Assignment title: YCN Award Briefs

YCN is a design agency which describes itself as ‘Producing work across all media and representing the finest creative people for commissions and collaborations’. They say of themselves that ‘YCN today produces advertising, design and other creative communications in all media; both for its own projects and ventures, and on behalf its various clients’. They are a ‘group of designers, art directors, developers, writers, illustrators and project managers work together at 72 Rivington Street in London’. (http://agency.ycnonline.com/) They also run an annual competition which offers students the chance to fulfill creative briefs from a range of high profile clients and enter that work in a competition. ‘The YCN Student Awards shine a light on new creative talent, and centre on a collection of live creative briefs’. (http://awards.ycnonline.com/)
Winning a competition such as this one often results the work being commissioned commercially is a good career starter.
For this assignment you will choose from a list of YCN Award briefs. The internal deadline for your degree assessment is in advance of the YCN submission deadline. It is recommended, but not compulsory, that you enter your work into the competition.
Deadline and Key Dates
On Monday 10th January, you will put forward proposals for two of the briefs for discussion and evaluation. This must include research, sketchbook and blog work for idea development and a concept you can pursue for two of the YCN briefs.
We will be visiting YCN to discuss the briefs and the competition on Thursday 13th January. This trip to London is a required part of this assignment, so make plans to be available and able to travel that day.
The crit is on Monday 7th February and the final deadline for submission is Thursday 10th February.
What you will produce
Your research, design and planning needs to be shown in a combination of sketchbook and blog. You will submit your finished digital products in suitable formats on a disc and on the submissions server.
To Pass you need to have research and idea development work in your blog and sketchbook (e.g. links to or embedded media for sources of inspiration, initial sketches, analysis of existing media that relate to the brief, information on the client etc) for at least two of the clients, then full design development for your chosen brief (e.g. further sketches, storyboards, animatics, mock-ups, flow diagrams etc). Your blog also needs to reflect your software techniques and problem solving, and a critique of your finished work.
To achieve a higher grade, you need to show thoughtful and useful research, inventive idea development, careful attention to detail in the refining of your ideas, appreciation of the needs and requirements of the client in developing your idea and product, the product you make in response to this brief is a creative solution, aesthetically pleasing and technically well executed and the work is exported in relevant formats.