Pitch &
Reading List
Pitch
For my Fully Realized Project, I decided not to pursue any of my experiments, but instead to explore creating an online marketplace to showcase my fictional product. My experiments all served specific roles within the context of my product and brand, and I am proud to say that they effectively helped me decide my tone for the project. However, none of them could stand alone without a grounding destination to help explain the origins of my company. Given the nature of the fictional product that I created, an online store offered the most variety in terms of presentation. I could be detailed in describing various aspects of the company, including its foundation and evolution, leadership, purpose, and customer relationship. I knew that I wanted to include many aspects that would make my website similar to that of a real company, so almost all my ideas were based in reality, and I decided to develop most of them. The website also allowed me to fully explore the ways in which I exercise the tone refined by my experiments. For example, including the Lorax as a team member is pretty explicitly satirical, but it serves to reground the website as a commentary about the state of late-stage capitalist culture. Additionally, with the assignment requiring an eportfolio, nesting information specific to the assignment requirements within the website allowed me to more fully commit to my project, but also fully present myself as a writer in designated spaces to discuss my process (only navigable by buttons included throughout the project). Since I spent so much time refining my website’s features, aesthetic, and navigation, I hope that my website will be viewed by my peers and friends because I am proud of my work and my attention to the little things. I want people to get a kick out of it and I think that the website gives the best chance of this because it assumes that the audience is in on the joke, which people appreciate. In an ideal world, this would be a standalone website, complete with its own URL, which would allow me to have a permanent destination for viewers of the Instagram that I would continue to post on. Fully explored over the course of a year or two, I could foresee developing a following of real, fake customers and fans. To fully realize my online store, I think it would be amazing to sell environmental zines about conservation and awareness. These wouldn’t be advertised, and I wouldn’t profit, but if someone bought a ficus tree from my website, or any number of fake products, their credit card would only be charged the cost of printing and postage for one of four or five environmental sustainability zines, which they would receive in the mail with FabNature branding. This would require that I learn how to make professional zines and would require a lot of external data processing software, which I am completely unfamiliar with. Still, it would be pretty amazing to see through!
Reading List & Annotated Bibliography
Genre Research:
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• “50 Brilliant Billboard Ads That Will Stop You in Your Tracks ... - CANVA.” 50 Brilliant Billboard Ads That Will Stop You in Your Tracks (and What You Can Learn from Them), Canva, www.canva.com/learn/billboard-advertising/. Accessed 20 Dec. 2023.
This website served as direct inspiration for the billboards that I created earlier in the semester. It taught me that I needed to keep my images simple and my message obvious. This source was especially useful because each example billboard is accompanied by a brief description, which points out the most effective elements of each advertisement.
• Coke_Studio on Instagram, Accessed December 19th, 2023. https://www.instagram.com/coke_studio/.
This Instagram page embodies the corporate aesthetic that I tried to emulate with my Instagram page. This aesthetic is defined by heavy branding throughout, posts done in series, varied posting, and posts about people working with the company. An Instagram like this prioritizes viewer engagement, which is ultimately the goal for mine as well.
• Mr. Clean Radio Commercial (2023), Procter & Gamble, Aug 11, 2023, Accessed December 19th, 2023. https://youtu.be/CpcAVV-k4Kk?si=54ue-YH9K8ziadWP.
This radio is the perfect example of the pleasant, airy atmosphere and monologue that I was aiming for in my radio ad. A simple ad with two people talking, it models a call to action within the context of a superior product. This ad serves as an effective example of an appeal to the common person, painted by a smiley, friendly voice. While much of my genre research in this area pointed me toward a radio ad that left the audience with questions because of its vagueness, I wanted something like this ad that was simple, direct, and easy on the ears.
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Content Research:
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• Baia, Alex. “How to Write Satire.” Alex Baia, Alex Baia, 12 Apr. 2023, www.alexbaia.com/blog/how-to-write-satire.
When I began working on this project, I was completely in the dark when it came to writing satire, and I found this simple blog an accessible guide to help me get my foot in the door. Some things I left up to my gut, but this blog taught me that my project lends itself to satire and I just needed to have the confidence to go for it and harness it properly. Specifically, it calls for being clear in premise, taking a strong point of view, and committing. I implemented these principles throughout my project.
• Dublino, Jennifer. “12 Tips to Build an Effective Business Website.” Business News Daily, businessnewsdaily.com, Oct. 2023, www.businessnewsdaily.com/9811-effective-business-website-tips.html.
In many ways, I built my website from the ground up with intuition as the main architect, but it was nice to have a few guiding principles to direct my decision making in some areas. In terms of foundational choices like page organization and personalization, this website offered specific advice, which I found reassuring and helpful.
• Jason W. Moore (2017) The Capitalocene, Part I: on the nature and origins of our ecological crisis, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 44:3, 594-630, DOI: 10.1080/03066150.2016.1235036
This is the article that I cite in my narrative introduction. It is an interesting analysis of capitalism on the whole as the source of environmental degradation and asserts that capitalism itself is a part of nature.
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• Magic Media AI, personal communication, December, 2023.
Magic Media was the artificial intelligence (AI) engine I used throughout this project. Apart from pictures that frame website elements, all images throughout the FabNature website and Instagram page are original content generated by Magic Media AI in response to brief written prompts.
Thank you!
If you have made to the end of my website, thank you so much taking this journey with me! It has been such a pleasure having you and I hope you have had a positive experience. :)