Task 4

As a freelance creative team (House of Roi), we have a lot to consider.

Strengths

• Combined skills in several areas - Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Final Cut Pro, Quark, Dreamweaver, HTML, photography, screen-printing, book-binding, copperplate printing.
• As a student in an art college, we have a unique background. There are only four art colleges left in the country, so this give us a background that not many people can offer. We have connections with other students in the fields of photography, animation, film production, graphic design and visual communications.
• As advertising students, we are able to create concepts for marketing and promotion ourselves - once we have the idea, we only need to consider production costs.

All of these strengths ultimately will save us hundreds if not thousands of pounds. We already have a portfolio website being created (I have created websites in the past) and the only thing that we have to pay for is the hosting of the website. (£25 per year via 1and1 Hosting)

Weaknesses

• We have a lack of experience within an industry setting. The only way we can change this is by getting into placements in agencies and we will use the next year and a half in our course securing as many placements as we can, so that we are as prepared as possible once we finished the third year of our course in 2011.
• Video editing - though we have a basic understanding of editing video within Final Cut Pro, we do not have enough skill to fully edit a video from start to finish. We have recognised this weakness as being severe. To combat this, Claire & I have arranged a Final Cut Pro tutorial session with the IT department for the coming weeks. In the past it was said that there was not a high enough demand for a Final Cut Pro tutorial, but after placing signs around our studio we had more than 30 people sign up for a tutorial class. Once we have finished the tutorial, this will become one of our strengths. We have also arranged an advanced Photoshop tutorial and further InDesign tutorials for people who have no knowledge within that area.

Opportunities

• Leeds has many small and independent businesses, and being a popular student city, many of these businesses have strong links to the student population and are proud to support them. There is the opportunity to approach these small businesses and offer our advertising services to create promotions for them.

Threats

• Though also an opportunity, the fact we live in such a densely populated student city means there are hundreds of other students who are also keen to work with the independent businesses in the city. Places such as Opposite work closely with illustrators to create promotional displays for the store, and visual communications can often overlap what we do within advertising.

This is the SWOT analysis for my own creative partnership, as I don't feel it's appropriate to do a SWOT analysis for advertising agencies.