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1. B Y C H R I S B A I L E Y
CLIENT PROJECT
EVALUATION

2. LEXMOTO PROJECT
• I contacted Lexmoto with success regarding my project. I was quickly met
with a brief to follow via Email. My client asked for 2 specific products to be
made, 1 postcard and 1 poster. The products were to be used in Lexmotos
attempt to boost sales by targeting people from the moment they begin their
CBT. This would be done by donating Lexmoto motorcycles to training
schools who would then in trade give each student a Lexmoto postcard
advertising a free gift if they purchase a Lexmoto.

3. COPYRIGHT, ASA & FINANCIAL
CONSTRAINTS
• As with all commercial projects there are a broad series of constraints that you must
understand and work to. It is important to cover these constraints in order to avoid
any issues regarding the legality of the process or product, the financial boundaries
you must adhere to and the rules and regulations of the Advertising Standards
Agency.
• My work involved advertising a promotion regarding a free gift. This meant that I had
to follow the ASA rules carefully to avoid any issues. Something that advertises a
product must not be misleading to the consumer, there for I avoided inputting my own
text and instead stuck to exactly what the client asked for in order to avoid having any
issues linked directly to myself.
• Luckily I did not have to face any financial responsibilities during my project as I used
images and fonts provided by Lexmoto, nor did I have to stick to a paid timescale due
to working for free.
• As previously mentioned, I was provided with images and fonts by Lexmoto and there
for I did not use any content that could have been infringing Copyright laws.

4. TIME MANAGEMENT
• Altogether I was given 2 weeks to pre-produce my work, and 3 weeks of real production time. In order to
use this time wisely I created a schedule which would also make sure I didn’t spend to long on any single
product. Very quickly I realised that I was not going to be able to keep accurate to my schedule as the
very first piece of production (postcard rear) took much longer to complete than I had anticipated. The
reason for this is because it was a very technical page which had multiple elements which had to
balanced and perfected for the final piece. I had to think about how to make the customers writing
clearest with a decent amount of room whilst having to fit a lot of information onto a very small page. I
went through multiple drafts until I had finally reached something I was happy with, and even then my
client had other ideas which I had to cater to. This prolonged initial design meant that I was well out of
sync with my schedule and there for I didn’t use it much after that. Luckily my client had not set me many
tasks to complete and there for I had expected to fill the gaps making some extras such as a business
card, but once I realised time was tight I was able to give the business card the cut as it wasn’t a priority.
• The lack of content that my client had asked for meant that I had set myself a few personal tasks in order
to thicken my portfolio. My client was very picky with my work and obviously had a strict mock up in this
mind of how he wanted the work to look, there for every piece I sent, no matter how perfect it seemed
there was usually something that had to be checked or moved ever so slightly. Whilst I was waiting on
my client to decide his criticisms I would wisely spend my time creating the extra products including a
retro style poster related to the Lexmoto Valiant and a T-shirt design related to the Lexmoto Venom. This
meant that I didn’t waste time doing nothing whilst waiting for my clients response.

5. COMMUNICATION MANAGEMENT
• Throughout this project I had to keep in contact with my client through a means of communication which wasn’t face to face,
as my client is based in Exeter. I initially contacted my client via email and thought I would continue doing so as it would be
less formal and easier to record information that he gives me. I am glad I chose to use email over a telephone call as the
amount of communication we had over email would have been very hassling over the phone. It also made sense to use
email as that would be the means of sending my work to the client for his opinion. Most of the communication was very clear
through email but there were a couple occasions where the client wasn’t very clear, such as saying “If you get the Red or the
text to be the same as the background then I think we’ve got a winner!. This wasn’t very clear as it was impossible to
understand which red he was talking about and which background he meant. The entire background? The background
behind the text? It was transparent so they can’t be the same colour as the background will alter the shade. Responding to
this with confusion felt a little bit awkward because it looked simple enough but what he actually meant was not very clear.
Once again my client responded with a confusing reply but eventually clarified what he wanted, which was to actually keep it
the same and not to make anymore changes. Unfortunately using a text based form of communication runs the risk of
misreading or misunderstanding the client or vice versa depending purely on how you interpret the message.
• One major downfall of using email was the untidiness of my personal Gmail inbox, I had initially categorised my client emails
by putting them in the ‘starred folder’ but eventually stopped doing that so the emails ended up divided in different sections of
my Gmail inbox. Due to having different emails in different sections and a very busy inbox I began to simply search using the
search bar for any email from my client in order to hit ‘reply’ to form and email. This meant that there wasn’t a clean chain of
emails back and forth, instead I was replying with for example a finished piece to an email regarding something totally
different. This meant that my replies (on my side) didn’t line up properly. I then had to go through all the messy reply chains
to find the emails I had sent and order them chronologically into my communication record. This made it hard to go back to
find out details he had previously mentioned or for example re-downloading the brief he had sent me which had got lost
amongst the masses of emails.
• In the end I managed to order all of my emails but certainly next time I would try to keep them categorised and neat in order
to stop them from disappearing.

6. MEETING BRIEF REQUIREMENTS
• My client had set out a very strict brief to follow and there for I had a very set
idea of what I would have to create. My client had included the logos he wanted
to use, the fonts, colour schemes and images without much room for individual
styling. The pros of this brief were being able to know exactly what was wanted
and there for I didn’t have to shoot back and forth my ideas until the client was
happy with one. On the other hand it meant that my client had a very focused
image in his mind of what the final products would look like, and there for
anything which wasn’t exactly what he was looking for were not right. There
were certainly designs which I would have recommended over the ones he
chose, but the project was to create what the client wanted, not what I thought
the consumer would prefer. Initially I had thought that meeting the brief
requirements would be simple, and in theory they were. I created the work to
exactly what the brief had asked for in most cases, but the client would then
change his mind or decide something should be moved, enlarged or shrunk etc.
I found it quite tedious trying to match what the client wanted as it began to stray
from what they had initially asked for, but luckily they hadn’t asked for many
products so I had time to cater their criticisms.

7. DEVELOPMENT
• Throughout my production I went through a lot of development. I had quickly met the brief criteria but my client wanted updated versions constantly as he
seemed to have a set image in his mind of how the products should look. This meant that I had to go through many different design styles. The most complex
development was that of the rear postcard page. Before even sending the first piece off to the client I had spent a lot of time on this part as it was a lot more
complicated than I had expected. I had had to integrate a whole range of factors into the rear page. It had to be clear to the consumer, the consumers info had to
be clear to Lexmoto, it had to look neat and attractive whilst squeezing a lot of information into a very small amount of room. Once I had completed something
which I thought was correct I shot it across to my client to be met with a couple simple changes he wanted, once I’d met those he asked for a couple more and
so on. I eventually completed having made 4 large changes, but many very small changes – including my client changing his mind regarding which text should
be included.
• Whilst waiting between his responses I began to put together the front of the postcard, I experimented with creating the look of movement in some Lexmoto
stock static images of motorcycles and tried a few eye catching effects such as the motorcycle fading into it’s own tire burnout. This was all looking a little too
complex for the simplistic Lexmoto styling so I ended up going for something a little less drastic. After chucking the complex ideas and deciding to go for
something more basic I quickly found a design I liked, and luckily my client felt the same way and accepted the first one I sent to him. Even after accepting the
front cover he still had a few ideas to change on the rear side but eventually the entire postcard was complete and he ordered 5000 to print.
• The next piece of production my client asked for was a poster to advertise the free gift promotion. AT first I started making some posters which followed a theme
which was quite close to the postcard but they all looked very unprofessional and messy so I quickly disregarded that idea before showing my client and went on
to try something totally different. I tried a very image based poster which looked quite low budget like the motorcycle posters I used to laugh at when checking
out the ‘Yamaha YBR 125G’ sales posters from Pakistan, I sent this across to my client anyway but he asked if I could instead use an image from their online
gallery of bikes which I wasn’t even aware of. I then created 3 different posters which all followed a slightly different style, I felt like I had a lot more room for
experimentation with the posters as the brief was less precise than it was regarding the postcard, and with the large selection of images he suggested I use
meant there were plenty of styles available to try. One of my posters followed a very subtle and sleek style, it felt very premium and didn’t suggest much of a
‘rebranded Chinese motorcycle’ feeling. Although this was good in some ways it clearly didn’t look like a Lexmoto product. The other 2 posters were followed the
Lexmoto styling more closely although still looked more interesting than what the client probably had in mind. One appeared to messy with streaks of light in the
background image from what appears to be a long exposure photograph so I had no hope in that one. The other shows a Lexmoto in the woods and looks very
nice in my opinion, luckily the client agreed and only asked if the colours all matched correctly as they looked unbalanced on his monitor. I created 3 posters in
order to find out which direction my client would like to head in the poster designs but I didn’t expect him to be happy with one so quickly.
• Once he was happy with the poster and postcard I moved onto making a poster which was a little more creative. I decided to make one which was suited to one
certain vehicle that Lexmoto sells and that is the Lexmoto Valiant. This bike is a 1960’s style café racer so certainly holds the most character out of the Lexmoto
range. I decided to put together a retro style poster for the Valiant motorcycle to express the old fashioned theme of the bike. I created this poster only to add to
my portfolio rather than something I expected my client to be interested in. I then decided to use the last of my time to create a t-shirt and sticker for the
Lexmoto Venom, one of Lexmotos most popular motorcycles. I made this and uploaded it to Redbubble for a few pieces of merchandise but prefer the sticker
and t-shirt designs.

8. FINAL OUTCOME
• Altogether I believe my project went very well. Throughout my production I came into only a small
amount of issues but they had no overall effect on the project outcome. I was fortunate not to have many
products to make, as had I had more I would have certainly struggled to meet the needs and wants of my
client. The 2 main issues I had, which were very petty, the communication side of the project where I
mismanaged my emails and ended up with a very messy string of contact. Secondly I had a few
occasions where I struggled to understand what it was exactly that my client was asking of me. Luckily
he would clarify eventually but it was quite confusing at times.
• I developed a lot of different pieces for the 2 products my client asked for, meaning I spent a lot of time
trying to fix something that was never going to work, such as the burnout motorcycle postcard front or the
initial poster I had created. I am happy with how well I discarded ideas which weren’t going to work to
then move onto something better.
• I am very happy with my final products, my favorite piece is certainly the rear page of the postcard.
Although it isn’t visually appealing nor does it look very complex, the amount of time and effort that went
into that page far surpassed anything else during the project. I am impressed that my client ordered 5000
prints of the postcard too, as it shows that the work was of real industrial standard. How the client will use
the poster is still up in the air as contact has been staggered over half term.
• The project as a whole has been very successful, I have proved a lot of development to reach a
professional standard, and even had real world prints created by Lexmoto for CBT schools across the
UK.