BA (Hons) Digital Art and Technology

When I was first told that I would have to do two individual pitches, I wasn’t expecting either of them to turn out well. It was the 2 minute pitch which I was least confident with as I knew I wouldn’t have any visual material to fall back on it went wrong.

To prepare for this first pitch, I wrote my whole presentation out word for word and learnt it off by heart. Although when I went into the pitch, I almost immediately started reading from my notes. This was partly down to nerves, but also because I wanted to avoid leaving big gaps in my speech while thinking about what I was going to say next. Reading from my notes like this did me no favours when it came to selling my idea. I was constantly looking down at my notes rather than out towards the people I was pitching to. This meant I didn’t connect with the audience very well as I was only able to look up once or twice during sentences. Reading from a set script made me sound like I lacked enthusiasm for my idea as well. This pitch also ended quite badly as I started to ramble when I thought I finished too early. This resulted in me running 20 seconds over the 2 minute mark.

After watching this pitch back, I actually didn’t go as badly as I first thought. I got some good feedback which made me more confident about my 5 minute pitch. I prepared for this pitch in exactly the same way, but as I now had a PowerPoint to turn to if I lost my place, I decided not to use any notes. Despite this, I again found it difficult to remember exactly what I had planned to say. This caused me to say ‘um’ quite a lot and made me miss out some important points throughout the pitch. This also meant that it wasn’t long before I had to keep checking the slides of my PowerPoint to remind me. By doing this it made my whole pitch run quite slowly and meant I didn’t sell my idea as well as I could have done. It also resulted in me running nearly a minute over. This is definitely an area I still need to improve on to ensure I have a good connection with the audience.

Another area that I need to improve on is my body language when pitching. I tended to keep doing a lot of fidgety movements with my arms and hands such as folding them and scratching. This was evident in both of my pitches and is something I can really improve on as it makes me look uncomfortable and has the same effect on my audience. After watching my second pitch back, it was clear that I also need to improve on my positioning during the pitch. As I was heavily dependent on the slides of my PowerPoint, I tended to stand more towards the presentation while regularly looking up at it for support. Having to move over and change the slides also meant I was never in one position. This was another factor that contributed to a poor connection with my audience as my eyes were often fixed on the presentation or the computer instead.

I do think there are areas of my pitching that are quite good. One area which I feel has improved over the two pitches is my confidence. I have never been good at presenting or speaking in public as I tend to get very nervous which consequently makes me forget what I should be saying. In my first pitch it was this lack of confidence which made me almost immediately start reading from my notes. I also started to sweat near the end of the pitch which made me feel even more uncomfortable. In contrast, I felt a lot more confident about my second pitch. This was partly because my idea had developed a lot further and I had a lot more confidence in my idea. I think this showed as I expressed myself in a more effective way than I did previously. I also started and finished the pitch quite confidently. This was a big improvement from my first pitch which finished really badly when I ran out of things to say.

Another area I was quite happy with was how I answered the questions at the end of the pitches. In my second pitch especially, I felt that I dealt with my questions well. There were no gaps in my speech and I communicated in a way that gave people a better understanding about certain aspects of my idea. I found this quite annoying as it confirmed to me that my pitch would have gone a lot better if I hadn’t scripted the whole presentation. This would have allowed me to talk more freely about my idea alongside the presentation rather than constantly thinking through a checklist of points in my head.

Overall these two pitches have definitely improved my confidence when presenting and I feel that I could do a much better job in the future. From watching myself back, I can clearly see the areas which I need to improve on to ensure I sell my idea as well as I can. In general, I should practice more without the need for any notes or guidance. This would relate better with my audience and also transfer the confidence I have in my idea.

Here is the final logo design for Box Clever with my company slogan:

With the Box Clever brand now in place, I began to work on other types of branding for my company and look at how the brand sits with other media forms. With the letterheads I have created, I thought it would also be a good idea to use the logo in black and white. This is because school tend to use black and white photocopies when sending out letters to parents. They did when I was at school anyway.