i feel that the presentation was far too informal and did not give the opportunity for the group to properly present their findings and also for them to plot their progress. but the other thing is that the presentation was not marked so we can use it as simple guidance to inform the end of project report.
Saturday, 11 June 2011
thoughts on the presentation
soo we had a talk with Linnea over how the project hhas manifested itself so far. she highlighted the fact that the protfolio website/social network idea is good and it is something that the college is in the market for. this was reassuring although she did note that with the scale of the group she was expecting to see much more. it was clear that she thought the T-shirt mini business was much better as it was actually making money, but i think it all comes down to us estimating our company, the third nexus, making way more than it actually will. so the outcome was to keep rolling out the T-shirts and to continue working on the website but mainly as a consultancy position. so we would do all the groundwork in research, design and what not then we sell the layout and model to the college when they have funding. this way we make a quick earn and the project is released from our hands and will not tie us up when looking for jobs. the other suggestion was to create a small tight wespace of invite only so as to stay in contact with close professional friends, but the space can be used aswell for promotion.
fahrans poster
i thought i would include this, THIS IS NOT MY WORK, this poster was produced by fahran and i think it sums up our project quite nicely. it shows the design for the T-shirt and also includes the link back to our company the third nexus. (although the price on the shirts is going up to £10 to make the business venture a bit more viable)
onwards
so designs were chosen and Jill loved it. just to make clear it was Chris Caldows design that was chosen and he did a great job of using the penrose to make a great t-shirt.
pricing and printing is being looked into by finance, ben and hayley. all is coming on great but we do need to hurry up as there is not long now until the presentation.
presentation prep
so carlos wanted each member to collect all of their findings into 1 written document so that it would be easier for him to collate the information and produce a well informed presentation that encompasses everyone's contributions.
so after collecting all of my information it came to around 6 pages of A4, so to make things easier for Carlos i managed to condense my most important findings, then he could reference back to the other long winded document to obtain more detail.
Domain name and Copyright
we were aware of domain name copyright and as such was the deciding factor over our companies name. Company name and Domain name needed to be similar if not the same in order to avoid customer confusion.
We must be aware of copyright infringement and ensure that all work shown on the website is the property of the respective user.
Trademark infringement-
must ensure that our domain name, company name, logo and colour scheme is not too similar to other companies as this will again cause confusion to the consumer. In short customers may confuse our company as being part of another company. This is trademark infringement and can result in devastating legal battles, in which companies can face removal of their online presence and forced closure. Although it can go the other way if the defendant proves that they are not in breech of the law.
Possible disclaimers
Website Free Stuff - Website Disclaimer
The materials contained on this website are provided for general information only and do not constitute any form of advice. UK Internet Sites Ltd assumes no responsibility for the accuracy of any particular statement and accepts no liability for any loss or damage which may arise from reliance on the information contained on this site. Links to other websites from these pages are for information only and UK Internet Sites Ltd accepts no responsibility or liability for access to or the material on any website which is linked from or to this website. By providing links to other websites, UK Internet Sites Ltd does not guarantee, approve or endorse the information or products available at these websites, nor does a link indicate any association with or endorsement by the linked site to Website Free Stuff or UK Internet Sites Ltd.
Website Free Stuff - Website Copyright
© UK Internet Sites Ltd 2002. Save to the extent expressly permitted below, the context of these pages may not be reproduced or transmitted or made available on a network in whole or in part without the prior consent of UK Internet Sites Ltd. These pages may be downloaded or printed for your personal and private use provided that you make no alteration to any of these pages and you do not use any part of the pages in any work or publication in whatever medium stored.
Becoming a sole trader
Set-up
You need to register as self-employed with HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).
Management and raising finance
You make all the decisions on how to manage your business.
You raise money for the business out of your own assets and/or with loans from banks or other lenders.
Records and accounts
You must:
make an annual Self Assessment tax return to HMRC
keep records showing your business income and expenses
Profits
Any profits go to you.
Tax and National Insurance
As you are self-employed:
your profits are taxed as income
you pay fixed-rate Class 2 National Insurance contributions (NICs) regardless of any profits you make
you pay Class 4 NICs on any profits
Liability
As a sole trader, you are personally responsible for any debts run up by your business. This means your home or other assets may be at risk if your business runs into trouble.
Why should we be a sole trader?
Being a sole trader is the simplest way to run a business - it does not involve paying any registration fees, keeping records and accounts is straightforward, and you get to keep all the profits. However, you are personally liable for any debts that your business runs up, which make this a risky option for businesses that need a lot of investment.
It will provide an easy exit strategy as no fees are paid to the government for registering as a company, the only issue would be dependant upon your next employment and then notifying the government of the income that you receive and how it should be taxed.
Tax and National insurance
we should not have any problems unless our income is better than expected.
design
so here is my shirt, it is not at all what i wanted to do but with the restriction of time i thought it was better to have something rather than nothing.
penrose
so i did a little bit of light reading into the penrose pattern and what it actually is in the hope of informing my design. so its extremely complex and mathematical and thats about as far as i went after discovering how complex the algorithms are for creating the pattern i decided to hunt for reference photos of ravensbourne and work with that. in doing so i found a design by the company that created the mosaic and worked with that. i tried cutting and rotating the shapes but ended up at a loss as the source image is low resolution so it pixelates with ease. so all the cutting and cropping of the pattern endede up extremely messy.
so my next step was to take the logo into maya and build a 3D logo based on the designs. this all went relatively well apart from a slight innacuracy with the model but i was able to produce an interesting piece. the problem was that the 3D image just didnt work on a T-shirt and i was back to square one.
meeting with Jill Hogan
so so so we met and once again the whole group was not present but with the number we did have we were able to compare designs and prepare for the meeting which was much later at 4:30.
i did mention that it would be helpful if we showed the designs to students to see whether the designs we were producing were actually liked. but this did not happen as we all cracked on with doing work for our final major project until the meeting.
the meeting was quick but very good in terms of information. we spoke about the website, and were pointed in the direction of Lizzie Jackson who was in the process of looking into such a tool for website and would be interested in hearing what the students wanted.
in terms of the t-shirt designs none of our designs were usable as we were hit with a brick wall of conditions surrounding the ravensbourne brand and logo. but Jill was very helpful and made sure that we understood all of the terms.
so we were unable to touch the ravensbourne logo and any text had to be in a specific font. there are rules surrounding any text near to the logo. so basically we were advised to ignore the logo and keep it on the t-shirt but to think of how we could use the penrose pattern in an imaginative way. so we went away and looked up the college terms on how to use the brand and began work.
with the intention of having more refined and usable designs by the end of the week
shirts
so after the decision to make money by selling rave shirts, we needed that official stamp so a few of us went ahead and made some quick designs to see if the college liked them.
i personally like the bottom right one that has the vertical rave text. i like the idea of the graphic fire but i havnt been able to get the result that i wanted.
as we are intending to do official rave t-shirts i began by thinking of using the current ravensbourne logo but found it too restricting.
college
so its been very very difficult this week to get the whole group together, on 2 occasions part of the group met and decisions were not made as the group leader, Carlos, was reluctant to make decisions without the entire group being there, i can understand his point of view 100% but at the same time actions such as this are slowing down the projects production.
the plan to make t-shirts was generally agreed upon when i discovered a part of the brief which states and I quote: "There has to be actual trade- money switching hands or procurement agreement (/contract) signed- before summative assessment"
It took some discussions via facebook to get a general agreement by all and then the plan was set in motion.
i have personally been urging individuals to push their work forward and feel that if i hadn't intervened with the T-shirt plan then the group would not have reached that stage.
so i have been reminding carlos every week to get in contact with Jill Hogan to discuss the prospect of having a college portfolio/social network site. time is pressing on but he must be involved in this process.
this conversation was overheard by Tara and Hayley and they arranged a meeting with jill hogan. this meeting will double up as an opportunity to discuss the ravensbourne t-shirt aswell.
Friday, 27 May 2011
Income tax banding
so i dont 100% understand all of this hence why i cited the entire thing but it is clear that with the current state of our project that we need not worry.
we would undoubtedly fall into the first band which is un-taxable.
"How much Income Tax you pay
After your allowable expenses and any tax-free allowances have been taken into account, the amount of tax you pay is calculated using different tax rates and a series of tax bands.
| Income Tax band | Income Tax rate on non savings income | Income Tax rate on savings | Income Tax rate on dividends |
|---|---|---|---|
| £0 to £2,560 Starting rate for savings | Not available | 10% | Not applicable - see basic rate band |
| £0 to £35,000 Basic rate | 20% | 20% | 10% |
| £35,001 to £150,000 Higher rate | 40% | 40% | 32.5% |
| Over £150,000 Additional rate | 50% | 50% | 42.5% |
Because the rate of Income Tax you pay on savings is worked out after any non-savings income has been taken into account, if your non-savings income is less than the starting rate for savings limit (£2,560) - or if savings and investments are your only source of income - your savings income will be taxed at the 10 per cent starting rate up to the limit. But if you already have non-savings income which takes you above the starting rate limit, all of your savings will be taxable at the 20 per cent basic rate, the 40 per cent higher rate or the 50% additional rate, depending on your total income.
Remember, the tax band applies to your income after your tax allowances and any reliefs have been taken into account - you're not taxed on all of your income.
'Non savings income' includes income from employment or self-employment, most pension income and rental income.
'Dividends' means income from shares in UK companies.
Savings and dividend income is added to your other taxable income and taxed last. This means you pay tax on these sorts of income based on your highest Income Tax band."
registering as self employed
so registering as self employed is a case of do it as soon as possible, in terms of working, and if you dont do it then you could face a penalty fare. it is apparent that you must register as self employed even if your business venture does not turn over enough profit to be taxed.
NI- national insurance
again you must register to pay national insurance, at £2.50 a week(band 2) unless your earnings are below £5,315 for the year then you must apply to ensure that you are exempt from paying the national insurance.
in terms of our business venture, as we would be setting up as a sole trader then we would all have to register as self employed and also for national insurance band 2 then at the end of the year we would have to fill in a tax return in order to equate accurately the amount we should be taxed. with the type of company we have it would be very very difficult to estimate our income and growth, hence saving a portion of each months wages to pay for the tax.
becoming a sole trader
so i begun research into what legal structure our business should have and how we manage it.
http://www.businesslink.gov.uk on this website information is provided to help starter businesses with the setup process. a list and description is given for the different types of legal structures for companies.
they include:
Sole traders
Partnerships - ordinary partnerships, limited partnerships, LLP
private companies - private limited, private unlimited
public limited companies - PLC
specific types of limited companies - CIC, RTM, SE
European economic interest groupings - EEIG
uk establishments of overseas companies
Franchises
which one suits us?
i would personally say that for now the sole trader legal structure would suit us as we are a start up company with very little knowledge in business, by choosing this option we are not tied in to any long term agreements and do not have to pay any fees.
although we do have to manage all of our own income as self employed individuals and the companies profits have to be carefully managed.
here is the breakdown for a sole trader:
Sole trader
Being a sole trader is the simplest way to run a business - it does not involve paying any registration fees, keeping records and accounts is straightforward, and you get to keep all the profits. However, you are personally liable for any debts that your business runs up, which make this a risky option for businesses that need a lot of investment.
Set-up
You need to register as self-employed with HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).
Management and raising finance
You make all the decisions on how to manage your business.
You raise money for the business out of your own assets and/or with loans from banks or other lenders.
Records and accounts
You must:
- make an annual Self Assessment tax return to HMRC
- keep records showing your business income and expenses
Profits
Any profits go to you.
Tax and National Insurance
As you are self-employed:
- your profits are taxed as income
- you pay fixed-rate Class 2 National Insurance contributions (NICs) regardless of any profits you make
- you pay Class 4 NICs on any profits
Liability
As a sole trader, you are personally responsible for any debts run up by your business. This means your home or other assets may be at risk if your business runs into trouble.
Wednesday, 25 May 2011
proposed tees/hoody designs for 2011
so here is a mock up of a design for this years ravensbourne t-shirt/hoody
reason for both is the time of year, i.e. its too hot for a hoody but people still like them because it is a jumper they will keep for ever even if they dont wear it right away and the t-shirt is there for the quick sell factor, almost looks like a crew shirt for like rave live stuff.
Wed the 25th
so at college today a small group of us began to discuss the merchandise situation, i.e. whether or not to make the merchandise to support and promote the business, that probably wont sell or make merchandise that is quick money and will sell.
so personally from an entrepreneurial perspective i would start by producing merchandise that makes money, to quickly fund the research and creation of the website. as the website becomes more of a solid idea and is nearing completion i would introduce the merchandise as an advertising campaign to support the release of the website. as it stands at present the website has no clear cut mission statement and is not in a commercial state. i do not see students spending money on apparel and merchandise that supports a non existent company.
my proposal:
1.we sell custom t-shirt designs along with badges and anything else that students are willing to buy.
2.the point was raised that there was no attempt to create a ravensbourne hoody this year. apparently students have been asking for it but the service has not been available. with some research the hoodies from previous years were bought and made for £10 a piece and easily sold at £20 each.
possible outcome we make more money than we could have, but this takes time away from designing the business model for the website. i will present this to the group tomorrow.
Sunday, 22 May 2011
domain name and trademark copyright part deux
source material:
trademark infringement occurs "when one party utilizes the mark of another in such a way as to create a likelihood of confusion, mistake and/or deception with the consuming public. The confusion created can be that the defendant's products or services are the same as that of the trademark owner, or that the defendant is somehow associated, affiliated, connected, approved, authorized or sponsored by trademark owner. Since most web sites will contain discussions of products or services, web site developers should be aware of the potential trademark issues."
for example with our name the first thing that comes to my mind is 3 mobile
seeing as this is such a big company i would advise a name change in order avoid legal confusion.
- the third network - network is another name/phrase for phone networks.
- third - 3
- on the other hand network can stand for connections between people
personally i would avoid this title/brand after reading about how easy it is for confusion to occur. perhaps in our market research we could see if the public would link us to any other company. as the main clause with trademark infringement is that of confusing the public into making links between companies.
domain name and trademark copyright
so our group has a little dilemma over the choice of our brand name. The Third Network.
at first it seems like a great name, until our market research discovered a small company in america that sold mobile phones. they do not currently own a website and are in the process of building one. even though we offer completely different services this still counts as infringing upon copyright.
here is the number 1 hit on google for "the third network" http://www.thethirdnetwork.co.za/
it is a blog page and as such is unimportant, but it is the reference to the mycell company, http://www.google.co.uk/search?rlz=1C1SKPC_enGB362GB365&aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=the+third+network, a couple of hits down that worries me. although the link does not go anywhere, page 404 not found- error, it still shows that this company is out there and we must consider legal repercussions.
the majority of the group is unfased by this as the domain name "thethirdnetwork" is available.
options:
-change our name to something that does not exist
-stick with our name as legal action is highly unlikely.
- alter the "third" to "3rd"
legal stuff
right so after a little bit of research i came across a disclaimer and copyright that are up ona website called http://www.websitefreestuff.com/disclaimer-legal.html this webssite helps to people to set up legitimate websites and also helps with the understanding of legal issues. so these two documents were up there for people to use.
Website Free Stuff - Website Disclaimer Website Free Stuff - Website Copyright
The materials contained on this website are provided for general information only and do not constitute any form of advice. UK Internet Sites Ltd assumes no responsibility for the accuracy of any particular statement and accepts no liability for any loss or damage which may arise from reliance on the information contained on this site. Links to other websites from these pages are for information only and UK Internet Sites Ltd accepts no responsibility or liability for access to or the material on any website which is linked from or to this website. By providing links to other websites, UK Internet Sites Ltd does not guarantee, approve or endorse the information or products available at these websites, nor does a link indicate any association with or endorsement by the linked site to Website Free Stuff or UK Internet Sites Ltd.
© UK Internet Sites Ltd 2002. Save to the extent expressly permitted below, the context of these pages may not be reproduced or transmitted or made available on a network in whole or in part without the prior consent of UK Internet Sites Ltd. These pages may be downloaded or printed for your personal and private use provided that you make no alteration to any of these pages and you do not use any part of the pages in any work or publication in whatever medium stored.
i believe that with an addition that includes some of the jargon associated with our service this could be a very reliable and foolproof bit of information.
Saturday, 21 May 2011
after the formative assessment
after the meet we sat down as a group and discussed our next step Carlos, group leader, stated that he was sorry but he needed to go. sensing that this would result in no work getting done i asked him to let people go for a quick lunch while he wrote down a job list and a mission statement. he was concerned about the fact that our group is soo large, around 11 people, and that it was hard to allocate jobs. so seeing the potential in the group i reminded Carlos that the creation of a physically working website was not really achievable with our skills and the time frame so my suggestion was this.
i asked Kofi, the web designer, if he could make the website. he replied no i dont know how to do all you want and there isnt enough time. so i asked if he would be able to make an offline prototype website displaying the bare bones of how the website would work with a couple of profiles. he was much happier with this and said that that would definatley be possible.
stage 2 was to suggest increasing our merchandise team and use that as a quick earner to generate income to support the long term website project, at the same time as creating merchandise that would promote our films and the we would in turn be able to create merchandise that would promote our website as a brand.
by making the merchandise team bigger i also suggested making a deputy team leader who would manage the merchandise half of the project, so in effect we have 2 teams that our working towards different short term goals but the same long term goal.
with this business model we will be able to devote more time to the merchandise and increase sales whilst working closer on the website and refining the idea, with the intention of selling the website model to the college at the end of the project.
Carlos thought the idea was a good one and that it made sense with our strict deadlines. so boom thats the current plan. and i opted that Hayleigh be promoted to leader of merchandise as she had put all the effort in previously.
the formative.
formative assessment time....
our group was in for 12 so we met before and discussed the project and its current position, we gave feedback upon the work that people had done and again my logo got mixed reviews "it looks like a space ship?"
so the meeting met with a tutor and began to discuss the project he was initially shocked by the large number of participants and then progressed to quiz carlos on the project. i found it particularly shocking that the tutor had evidently not read our project plan that we had submitted 3 weeks ago now as all the questions asked had been addressed in that document. but oh well that was how it was. i asked a couple of questions around the legal side of things such as tax and the possibility of having to set ourselves up as a private company. i was assured that the money that we would be making would not quantify as having to register as a company or to register as self employed.
i also asked if we as students had any legal protection from the college in terms of lawsuits surrounding copyright. i feel it is very possible that our website could encroach on services already available. once again the tutor was relatively vague and basically said that i shouldnt worry as that wont happen.
at the end of the meeting i asked the tutor to judge the level of idea that our project has to which we got around a mid level C+ stating that its good but its been done before and needs an edge to make it slightly more entrapaneuriable.
meeting with linnea
so we had a very long day of lectures from an external speaker who knew a great deal about making businesses. it was very insightful but as i am not interested in setting up my own company i found my attention span waining.
all of the group apart from Alex C, Chris C and myself left college early, resulting in us arranging a meeting with linnea to discuss the project.
this is now 2 weeks after submitting our project plan and the tutors had only just received them, bad management if you ask me as this project is so short. we briefed her on the project so far and apologized for the rest of the group not being there and that we would be speaking on behalf of the team leader.
she believed that the project was indeed very interesting but in order to make it successful we would have to decide whether or not to link ourselves to the college. if so then Carlos must arrange a meeting with Jill Hogan, head of marketing at Ravensbourne, this would be to ensure support from the college as we would be using the colleges name to promote the web space.
we should also arrange a meeting with the head of the degree show in order to find out whether or not they had already planned to make such a website. then we were advised to have a discussion with Jared Taylor, animation tutor, to progress the idea and see if he had any thoughts on the project.
we also voiced our concerns over other team members commitments to the project and we were reassured that people would be marked individually and that all marking would be based on effort.
so i made a note of all of these points and messaged the rest of the group with the outcome of the meeting
more logos
after some mixed feedback from the group.i.e. they were not really impressed with unfinished designs so i went away and spent some more time progressing my favourite designs instead of producing a multitude of mediocre ones.by far the best ones here are the white on black ones and i feel that the left one is great but too vague whereas the far right design is near perfect as it represents the name but in a very graphic fashion.
initial designs
this initial design page reflects some of the ideas that i have sketched in my sketch book. my scanner iss currently unavailable so i will upload that at a later date.the designs are in no ways finalized but are representative of shape and form. i have been thinking of a logo that incorporates the roman numerals for 3 and use of light. i have also been thinking of how the students who are graduating from college will be the ones present on the website, so its all about new fresh ideas so pushing the logos a bit more futuristic.
i also came up with a slogan " we are 3" simple but creates a sense of brotherhood/collective.
i particularly like the two bottom left designs the orange and the white one.
legal stuff attached to websites
here in my initial research i was able to highlight areas that i need to research further but also areas that i can instantly refer to in the coming weeks.
Copyright – dont steal from other peoples websites.
Create original material to avoid copyright
fair use policy
if you use someones work then you must ask to use that work and then it must be credited within the website to avoid copyright
domain names- have to make sure there is not a registered website that already has the name that you wish. It is also advisable to make sure there is not a company that already exists with the chosen domain name, as this would infringe upon copyright laws.
Defamation – creating false statements about people or companies that damage their companies, slander.
Disclaimers produced along with terms and conditions to secure the individuals work but also states that the company cannot be held accountable for an individual plagiarizing work as they are responsible for the legitimacy of their work.
We cannot be held responsible for any injuries obtained through use of this website.
We will need a formal contract that outlines payment methods and what people will receive from the service that we provide. The contract will also include the disclaimers and terms and conditions which prevent us as a company being sued for anything.
Thursday, 28 April 2011
tuesday
so tuesday we discussed ideas and then carlos came up with the idea of HAVING A PROFESSIONAL NETWORKING HUB FOR rAVENSBOURNE aLUMNI.
there will be a premium attached to purchasing a page on the website the premium will go towards profits and will also go towards paying for the webspace.
this idea is great as it will promote the individual the films being made and the college. it can also be used to stay in contact almost like a virtual yearbook and could in theory have a long life span.
Tuesday cancelled :O
so after not being told what to do the next opportunity to find out what we are actually doing was cancelled, i contacted linnea and let her know of my disappointment. she replied stating that she will be available to discuss any ideas on the topic.
soooo......
weekend
so after some thought i have decided to try and run an animation shop to sell all of the products that the animation students make in their individual groups. the idea is to sell merchandise that promotes the films being made. it is in its early stages but seems to have the approval of a majority of students. this could make money and whatever doesn't sell can be kept for the degree show and given as memorabilia to the delegates.
E+E session 1
so session 1 was like returning to primary school. the presentation taught me how to use my bank account which funnily enough i have been using for most of my life, it also taught me the meaning of the words buy, sell, barter and trade. the session consisted of a mad hatters tea party which just irritated me as i was trying to generate an idea to fit with the brief.
the brief was not properly explained by the tutor and left everyone bitter and mis-informed. it was only by pressing answers out of the tutor that i learnt that we have a hand in in just a weeks time, how ridiculous to not even tell the students doing the project.
so after this i have no group and my ideas are limited to selling tat.
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