My Portfolio

If you're interested in checking out some of my work, visit my online portfolio at tinyurl.com/melissabuck!
And I'll probably be updating it soon with more work!

Wait, what?!

Holy Cow!

I can't believe it's already the last week of classes! Seriously, where has the time gone? I'm still so busy that it hasn't even sunk in yet. These four years have gone by so fast and I can't believe I'm about to go out into the real world! Although I don't yet know where I'll be or what I'll be doing after this summer, I'm ready to start the next chapter of my life! (I think).  It's kind of bittersweet, and now I think it's only appropriate to play this song.

*tears up* Classic melancholy.

Kuler is Cooler

Sometimes while designing I've realized that I run out of ideas of innovative and unique color schemes. It's cool how much a design can improve with the right colors.  Anyway, I learned about this awesome free site where you can create an infinite number of awesome color palettes.  You can choose from different color rules, like triad and complementary, and just drag the markers on the color wheel around to adjust the colors in the palette.  You can even view schemes created by other people or create your own account to save your palettes.  Kuler is also owned by Adobe, so it gives you all of the information you'll need to get the exact colors you want in Photoshop and InDesign.  It's great and it can really help to spiff up your designs in a jiffy!  Check it out!

Hey, Jack!

One of my new favorite shows is Duck Dynasty.  It's hilarious.  While pretty much all of the people on the show are funny, none compare to Uncle Si.  He's my favorite.  Hands down.  He's never seen without his iced tea cup, can eat 32 hot donuts in one sitting, and is the official Vietnam "Hell Raisin." I wish I had an uncle like Si!

Check out some of Si's awesome quotes!

14 Items All Design Geeks Must Have!

Check it out!

Well, I think I might consider myself a little bit of a design geek.
And most of this stuff, I seriously want.
Especially the Adobe Suite pillows and the Pantone mugs!

Pandora: Rewarding the Musically Curious

Since 2005, Pandora has been satisfying vistors' musical cravings by playing "only music you'll love."  To get started, users just type in the name of an artist, song, or style of music, and Pandora will scan its massive database of analyzed music to find similar songs that appeal to your tastes.  Users can create up to 100 custom stations, allowing them to access just about every song in existence.  Pandora's database was formed through the Music Genome Project, which started in 2000.  The project is comprised of a team of music analysts who listen to song after song, taking note of every musical detail (no pun intended).  These notes allow Pandora to effectively search for music that matches the information that users input.  Pandora's ultimate goal is to connect users with music that they'll love, from the old to the new and from the mainstream to the obscure, while satisfying their curiosity for new music.

According to Anderson's Taxonomy, it seems that Pandora utilizes the freemium and advertising strategies.  With a freemium strategy, a company offers online software or services with varying tiers of access to content, from free to professional, paid versions.  Typically only 1% of users pay for the upgraded version, but the cost to serve the other 99% of users is negligible.  Also, since the free version offered by the company is the most widely used, in order for this strategy to work, there needs to be compelling benefits to upgrade to the paid version.  With an advertising model, companies offer free content sponsored by advertisers.  Customers never pay for any products or services, but must view ads alongside content or before receiving access to it.

I think that Pandora does effectively utilize both the freemium and advertising strategies in its business model.  Offering its services for free to customers makes sense because although some people would be willing to pay for the service, Pandora is able to gain a much larger customer base by offering it at no charge.  The advertising strategy also works very well for Pandora because it benefits the company as well as the advertisers.  Because Pandora contains so much advertising, it is able to offer its services for free to consumers.  Advertisers are attracted to Pandora because they can tap into already captive audiences and target them based on musical taste.  Also, users cannot skip ads, so exposure to the messages it pretty much guaranteed.

However, the ads do become very annoying for users.  While users understand that being exposed to ads are a normal part of consuming media, they don't enjoy having to sit through commercials while they're trying to listen to music.  Normally there is a commercial every few songs, which isn't so bad, but ads also often come up when a user skips to the next song.  Personally, this gets very frustrating.  I just want to find a song that I like and I don't like getting stuck listening to a commercial.  Although the advertisements can get very annoying, this actually ends up being a benefit to Pandora.  Consumers' dislike of the commercials is the #1 compelling benefit to upgrade to the paid version, Pandora One.  The main selling point of Pandora One is the fact that there's no commercials.  This version also offers a Pandora desktop application, fewer interruptions, higher quality audio, and custom skins.  It costs $3.99 a month or $36 for a year, but that actually ends up being much cheaper than buying a bunch of music on iTunes.  Any way you look at it, Pandora really has a lot of things going for it.

Pandora's strategies are also obviously working because according to blogger Patrick McMullen at Fizziology, Pandora was the #1 music service mentioned in social media in January 2013.  Patrick also says that comparison to other online music services, Pandora users represent the widest array of listeners with different musical tastes.  (See more from Patrick here)

In my opinion, Pandora is the most successful online music service.  I use it all the time and am really happy with it.  I can choose a station that fits my mood at the time and can even shuffle between all of my stations.  If I don't like a song I can give it a thumbs down and skip it rather than having to sit there and endure it.  And Pandora will remember that preference for later so that they can continue to tailor music selections to my taste.  It's pretty great.  I know that there's a lot of other music services out there that are probably also great, but I don't think that I'm going to switch anytime soon because I don't see anything wrong with Pandora.  I'm definitely a fan.

Inspiration

As someone who does quite a bit of graphic designing, I frequent the Google images search bar.  Whenever it's time to start a new design I go looking for inspiration.  Whether it be layouts, fonts, or a certain style, I'm always looking for something to spark an idea.  But now here's a site dedicated to finding inspiration: niice.co.  I haven't actually used this site for a specific project yet, but it seems really awesome.  There's a search bar to look up keywords and there's everything from graphic design, to products, to fashion.  I'm definitely going to go back to this site whenever I'm looking for a little help brainstorming.

Yeah, this is definitely true.  The only thing I don't have is large headphones.

What can't you do with your smartphone?

            You know those busy days when you wake up in the morning stressed about how you’re going to get everything done that day?  How are you going to make it through the day of work and then run all of your errands?  And then you remember that you need to go grocery shopping because you have nothing to eat for dinner when you get home.  And then on top of everything you get stuck waiting for the bus or the subway and feel like you’re wasting time.  Well, what if you could use that waiting time to get some of your errands done?  What if you could use the time you waste waiting for your ride to work to do your grocery shopping?  Well, that’s precisely what Tesco Home Plus made possible for consumers in Korea.

            In 2011, Tesco Home Plus was one of Korea’s top supermarket chains and was looking to increase sales and market share without building new stores.  Tesco realized that consumers are busy people and generally don’t really enjoy grocery shopping.  They also realized that consumers were constantly on the go and used smartphones.  So, they decided to build virtual stores.

            Tesco installed life-size images of their stocked grocery store shelves and aisles onto the walls of subway stations.  Products ranged from packaged goods to produce and meats, and each item was labeled with a QR code.  Shoppers could scan a code of a product they wanted to buy and the product would be placed into their virtual cart.  When they were finished shopping, customers checked out and paid through their phones, and their purchases would be delivered to their homes.

            With this innovative campaign, Tesco sought to reach busy professionals that didn’t have a lot of time to make a trip to the grocery store and spend time shopping.  They also targeted city dwellers that may not have cars to transport their groceries, and thus could benefit from grocery deliveries.

            Although Tesco had already offered grocery delivery services prior to this campaign, their innovative strategy was extremely successful and helped to significantly increase sales.  As a result of the campaign, over 10,000 consumers accessed Tesco’s online store through their smartphones and there was a 76% increase in registered members.  In addition, their online sales increased by 130%.  While Tesco still has yet to beat out their main competitor, E-mart, in traditional sales, they now hold the number one spot in online sales.

            Overall, Tesco’s idea for virtual grocery stores was genius.  I think that it’s such a great idea to try and capitalize on the time that consumers are literally just standing there doing nothing at the metro station.  I’ve personally spent quite a bit of time at bus and subway stops and if I had seen a virtual store like this or any kind of QR code that I could scan, I definitely would’ve done so just because I had nothing better to do.  The innovative placement would’ve captured my attention even if I wasn’t generally interested in the product.  It’s also a great idea because it reaches the consumers where they are.  People in the city are generally busy and don’t have a lot of time to waste, they take the subway, and they carry smartphones.

            Last semester, in one of my classes I created a campaign for a grocery delivery service in the New York City area.  Although our information was based on the U.S., the research that my partner and I did also helps support the validity of Tesco’s campaign idea.  We conducted a survey and found that the majority of respondents had negative views about grocery shopping.  Most of them view grocery shopping as very time consuming and are frustrated with the usual long lines and travel time to and from the store.  We also discovered that the majority of respondents would be willing to try online grocery shopping.  The primary competitors for online grocery services are actually traditional grocery stores, rather than other online services.  By creating virtual grocery stores in metro stations, Tesco was able to provide an easy and fun way for consumers to try online grocery shopping as well as eliminate the complaints that they had about traditional shopping.  Genius.

            As Geek Author Jennifer Bergen points out, really the only negative aspect of this campaign was that it was a virtual experience.  Consumers couldn’t pick up products to read the labels or specifically select their own produce.  This could be a turn-off for some consumers, but I think the issue could be pretty easily resolved with an upgrade to the smartphone program that was being used.  Tesco would just need to provide more information—like nutrition facts—about the products either once they’ve been scanned or on the displays themselves.  They could also add a feature to allow customers to customize their produce selections based on different characteristics that they prefer.

            With this creative campaign, Tesco really made a statement and an advancement in a generally boring industry.  They also demonstrated the power of mobile marketing and how to effectively use it.  It’s crazy to think how far cell phones have come.  Just a few years ago, it was amazing that you could even take a picture on your phone.  Today, you can find a recipe on Pinterest, read reviews and tips on it, purchase all of the ingredients and have them delivered to your home, and then create a Facebook event and invite all of your friends to a dinner party, all on your phone on your way to work.  So crazy.  I can’t wait to see what’s next.

Original article: 

Korea’s Tesco reinvents grocery shopping with QR-code “stores” by Jennifer Bergen

A Pierogi Gets Burned.

After the fifth inning of each Pittsburgh Pirates game, a group of pierogies—yes, pierogies—competes in a 280-yard race around the baseball field.  The delicious mascots, Sauerkraut Saul, Cheese Chester, Jalapeno Hannah, and Oliver Onion, are beloved among the Pirate community and you can even submit an application for them to make an appearance at your event.  While it may be hilarious to watch pierogies chase each other around a baseball field, what’s not hilarious is that one of them got fired.  Former Pirate Pierogie, Andrew Kurtz, was asked to turn in his tights in 2010 for posting unfavorable comments about the baseball team on his Facebook page.

At the time, the Pirates were not having the best season and fans were obviously not jumping for joy.  Kurtz was also a Pirates fan and joined in on the sports team ranting online that other users were surely participating in.  Referring to the team president, general manager, and manager, he posted, “Coonelly extended the contracts of Russell and Huntington through the 2011 season. That means a 19-straight losing streak. Way to go Pirates,” (Daily News).  Kurtz defended his post saying that it was his opinion and even asked for a second chance, but the team and mascot management were upset and had to let him go.

Although it really stinks for Kurtz that he can no longer sport his pierogi outfit on the field, the Pittsburgh Pirates management are legally justified in their choice to fire him.  Although Americans enjoy the right to free speech under the First Amendment, that protection does not apply to private sector companies.  As an employee, you are free to post whatever you’d like online, but your employer is also allowed to come after you for it, as long as they don’t violate anti-discrimination laws, union regulations, or civil rights.  Kurtz was also probably not working under a contract, which means that he was an at will employee.  He held his job at the will of the company and could be fired at their discretion at any time.

Many sports fans use social networking sites as a platform for bragging and rooting for their favorite teams, smack talking other teams, and for venting their frustrations with teams and players.  I’m sure that Kurtz was just acting as a normal Pirates fan would by participating in this online sports talk, but in the end he was an employee of the team.  When you work for an organization, part of your job is to represent that organization positively.  Just as you wouldn’t want your own reputation ruined by people gossiping about you and talking badly about you behind your back, companies and organizations don’t want people speaking negatively of them either.  By choosing to fire Kurtz, the Pirates management was hoping to protect and preserve their reputation.  They probably felt betrayed that one of their own “family members” would post something negative about them for the whole world to see.

While I do understand it, I also think that it’s interesting that the situation was taken so seriously despite the fact that Kurtz was only a Pirate Pierogi.  He was a part of a rotation of workers that only appeared on the field once every game, and even then his identity was concealed by a costume.  It’s not like he was a very recognizable employee of the Pittsburgh Pirates.  Unless he posted content related to his job as a pierogi online, people that saw his Facebook post would not necessarily know that he was associated with the Pirates.  Nevertheless, the Pittsburgh Pirates hope that everyone in their association remains enthusiastic for the team, and I definitely respect that.

Let this case be a lesson that you should be cautious of what you post online.  It’s so easy to type something in the box and hit enter.  Sometimes it seems disconnected from reality and we often don’t think about what could happen as a result of what we might share.  We also don’t realize how many people may come across our posts and how quickly they could possibly spread.  It’s crazy, but it’s the world we live in today.  Before you hit the little harmless looking post button next time, think twice about what you’re about to put out there for the world.

For more examples of how Facebook usage has caused people to get fired or to add your own story, check out this article from the Huffington Post.

More than a Summer Job

Something that's a really important part of my life is Group Workcamps.  I've been involved with Group Mission Trips for 8 years now- 6 years as a camper and 2 years as summer staff- and have attended 12 Workcamps and 1 Week of Hope.  My home church, Horseheads Community Wesleyan, will also be hosting a Workcamp in the Elmira/Horseheads area this summer.  Last spring I wrote an article for the Ithaca College website to share a little bit of my experience.  Click here to check it out!