Huy Tran
R/GA is a design agency that was found in 1977 as a production company. The company considered it is “agency for the digital age”.
The company model is an original model, with is built from the ground up to meet the business need. The model of the company is also the one that make R/GA different from other agency.
R/GA model is consisting of 7 discipline, which then divided into 3 group. The first group is strategic discipline, which is included planning, analytics and media. The second group consist of 3 creative discipline, which is included interaction design, copy writing and visual design. The final group is actual consist of technology discipline.
Second reason that make R/GA unique is that account management work side by side with the production. The reason for this is that R/GA produce almost anything that they able to execute from their plan, which can be a complex software some time.
Third reason that makes the company different from other agency is the company production. The company have there own in house digital studio. This is a really good idea because with the in house studio, they are able to provide to their client with high quality with low cost product.
When I research about there work, I find it interesting to learn more about how they come up with their design. According to the company, a “story is hollow without a behavior, and a behavior is dry without a story”. I interpret this quote as a good story inspires people to behave a certain way, and a behavior is not god one if there is no story behind it, and I can see they apply it to their work. One of the works that they talk about is the Nike+. Runner around the world fuels the Nike+. The app collects the data for the runner, and shares it with other runner around the world. Another work that is an example for design that fueled by campaign R/GA talk about is their website Thatsnotcool.com. The purpose of the website is to combat the digital harassment. Since we cannot preach to the audience, the company decided to help them understand the issue first, and then let them drawn there own conclusion. In order to do this, the system that they design included interactive video, callout card, forum, social network content, and mobile app. However, nobody know about this, so R/GA decided to create a campaign, which is include the awareness session on TV, banner Ad, poster on in the public, and Google search optimization.
Love Has No Labels is another R/GA work that I really like. There work is truly a piece of performance art, with combine between technology and human. I feel like the making of the LED screen is not to hard for them to make, I was more impress at the idea, of how can they can have such a good plan.
Here is the video to the Love Has No Labels campaign: https://vimeo.com/121388342
Personas is a new vocabulary for me. according to dictionary, persona is a made up character. persona can be associated with personality. According to Wikipedia, persona in user experience design mean a fictional character that was created as a sample to show the client which type of product or service that the type of user will likely to use.
I have been always interested in coding. I believe coding is a very important skill set that every designer should have. Every time I think about coding, I feel like I’m missing an arm or a leg, because right know I know nothing about coding. After reading the first chapter, I admitted that I feel intimidated, not because of the coding, but because I was thinking about about the aesthetic of the website. I feel like everyone can learn to create a website, but not everyone can create a good website. But that why I’m in this class, so I’m excited to see what I’m capable of.