Alexander Aguilar

ENC 1102

4/12/13

Joe Cirio

That Moment: The Story Behind My Project

The corner of your eye. That spur of the moment when you catch a glimpse of something

that interests you. This was what I based my entire ideology around. So I decided to, no pun

intended, dive into the history of competitive swimming. However I did not only want to focus

on the history of competitive swimming but I also wanted to stress the fact that swimming is an

underutilized sport in both the competitive and health world and that it can do wonders for those

that wish to get in shape.

When Joe said that we needed to create a multimedia project, there was an influx of ideas

that popped into my head. I thought of creating a website, I thought of making a power point,

and I even thought of going out and creating a petition. After a day or two of debate I decided to

create a power point. I had two frames of thought behind this. First off I thought it would be a

very simple way to present it to a group or class. Secondly power points are stressed so highly in

school that it was something that I felt very comfortable with. So I got started. After creating

about two slides I hit a wall. I could not think what I would make for the next slide. I did hours

of research and study on swimming and everything that I read did not sound to me like

something that needed to be placed into a bland power point.

I was at a stalemate. I could not go any farther with the project. The next day in class, Joe

went even further into detail on what the project was and how he wanted it to be created. The

second he said that the project had to be “circulated”, that was when I finally decided to scrap

my idea for a power point. Thus I decided to wait for my conference with Joe so that I could get

his ideas on the subject matter.

So on the day of my conference, I walked in with my laptop which held a power point

with a measly two slides. So the second I sat down, I stated to Joe my dilemma. He understood

where I was coming from and he was ready with advice. Joe and I spent the rest of the

conference focused on the project. I still had not committed to a specific idea for my project yet

so Joe began to start spit firing ideas at me. And this was when the foundation for my project

flew out of his mouth. One simple word; Flyers. At that moment it was like the stars had aligned

right in front of me. It was so perfect. A flyer is exactly the perfect way that I was going to create

my project. However once I started spit balling ideas on how the flyer would look, it began to

look a bit shaky. My mind was jam packed with knowledge on swimming and I knew that I

could not possibly place all that knowledge on a flyer and expect a passer-by to stop and read it.

So I decided to improvise and the first thing that popped into my mind was Facebook. So I told

Joe “Wait if I tag teamed my project”. I asked what if I decided to think like a fortune 500

advertiser. I gave him my idea to create a simple, easy to read flyer that would go hand in hand

with a Facebook page. He was instantly pleased with the idea. We finally shook hands and ended

the conference but my mind was not done.

On the long walk back to Salley Hall from Williams I was bursting with ideas for how I

wanted the projects to work together. This brings me back to my opening statement. That spur of

the moment. That was what I wanted to focus on. Being a student at The Florida State

University, I have seen my fair share of flyers. I have seen bulletin boards literally overflowing

with flyers for intramural athletics and 5k runs and even some for rushing specific fraternities

and sororities. So I wanted to go look at these flyers. I wanted to see what worked and what

didn’t and the main thing that I saw was that there were too many words. These flyers were

created as if someone just took all of the knowledge in their heads and threw it up onto a sheet of

paper and stapled it to a bulletin board. This was something that I did not want. I wanted my

flyer to be better than all of its mediocre counterparts. I wanted mine to be effective.

This was when it all fell into place. The one thing that all of these flyers lacked was

simplicity. In a world filled with flashing neon signs and advertisements, everyone though that

they needed to bombard the public with information but this was not true. A flyer needs to be

simple because there is a finite amount of time that you have the passer-by’s attention. So that

was where I wanted to start.

When I sat down to create my flyer, I set myself a word limit. I only wanted 4 to 5 main

words to be placed on this flyer. I wanted these words to be the center piece that I built the entire

flyer around. So I decided to go with the phrase “Get In The Water!”. This was because I wanted

to be assertive. I wanted this flyer to grab people attention and hold it so that they could read the

entire flyer. So I felt that an assertive phrase would be the perfect thing to accomplish that. Once

I wrote the phrase, I knew that I needed to pick a specific font because I were to just write it

down in Times New Roman then it would not pop out to anyone. I searched and search and

eventually I landed on Goudy Stout. This font looked to me like the font use in a movie poster.

For me personally, I always stop and look at movie posters. I love find out what new movies are

coming out and they are always very engaging and exciting. So I chose it to hopefully trick a

viewer’s mind into thinking that this was a flyer for a movie, that way they would stop and take a

further look so that they could actually read what my flyer was trying to say.

After that I wanted to only include a maximum of 2 more things on the flyer to make it

extra effective. This was when I created the QR code. What a QR code is is a small white box

that contains a bunch of little pixels. This image created a virtual link that can be captured with a

camera. There is a plethora of apps on the app store that allow phones to read these codes so I

decided to place it on my flyer. This way if someone was walking and they wanted to see my

project right away, all they would have to do is scan the code and their mobile device would

direct them straight to my project.

Now this was just half of my tag team. The second part of this project was the ever so

important Facebook page. I specifically chose Facebook for two reasons. First off I chose it

because Facebook is already the most popular social media site on the Internet. Millions and

millions of people have Facebook accounts, including myself, and we all spend hours on it every

day looking and discovering new things so there was already a large audience. Secondly I chose

Facebook because of one specific part of its interface that I wanted to utilize. Whenever you are

on Facebook there are two types of pages, a personal page and a work page. A personal page is

where you have all your friends and you post status about what you are doing and your activities

but a work page is a page that can only receive “Likes” and it is used mainly to inform. So when

you are searching through Facebook and you see a page that you like, you can simply “Like” the

page and whenever that page posts something new, it will show up on your newsfeed. But the

main thing that I wanted to exploit was the fact that when you personally like a page, everyone

that follows you receives a notification on their news feed saying that you liked a specific page.

Therefore I found that I could use this method to really publicize my page so that many people

could see it.

So the Facebook page was something that I thought would be the knowledge of my

project. I would fill this page with quotes, facts, and video on swimming and how the sport can

impact a person’s life. Thus the Facebook page would be the backbone to my project. The flyer

would act as the lure but the Facebook page would be the hook that kept the viewers interested.

So again I sat down and created my Facebook page and I wanted it to follow in the footsteps of

my flyer. I wanted it to be simple. So I started off with the attention grabber aka the profile

pictures. On Facebook, your profile picture means everything. I have seen girls spend literally

hours trying to perfect their profile pictures. This is because online, your profile picture is your

first impression. It says a lot about who you are and what a person should expect on your page.

For example, if I saw a profile picture of a frat guy passed out on the floor with a beer in his

hand, I will for sure not be going on his profile in search for quotes by Aristotle. Once I

narrowed down my profile picture, I needed to pick a cover picture. This is a huge picture at the

top of your Facebook page that will most likely show your interests. So I decided to pick an

Olympic swimming pool because that was basically what my project was built around. After all

the aesthetics were finished, I went into the meat of the page. I started to post quotes from

famous Olympians such as Michaels Phelps along with different facts about swimming as a

sports and a form of exercise. I wanted these to all be forms of motivation that would help

support my main argument which was to make swimming YOUR new favorite mode of cardio

exercise.

Once I finished this project, I can say that I am very pleased with the outcome. I feel that

the flyers are simple enough yet eye catching enough to really draw in potential customers. I also

think that the Facebook page is supportive enough to really seal the deal on my argument. So the

next time you are walking through this beautiful Florida State campus and you see one of my

flyers, I want you to stop, read it and really “live in the moment”.

Check out www.facebook.com/try2swim to be inspired to “Get In The Water”!