OUGD203 Evaluation

I would without a doubt class this module as two completely separate halves. At the beginning of the module when we where told we would be taking part in a collaborative brief I was initially hesitant, as I have never considered myself to be the sort of person who functions well within a team. However when I found out that it was a partnership and would only be working with one person I thought that it could be more fun than first imagined. I was partnered up with Chris Anderson and I could not have been luckier. We found that out creative styles worked very well together and our ideas were very similar. Obviously there were times within the brief when I became frustrated, not because of anything Chris said or did, but plainly because I didn't like having to run all my ideas by someone else. The one thing that I have taken away from our YCN project is that I am a very independent person. I am not afraid to ask another persons advice on my own work, and will take on any feedback that is offered to me, whether I asked for it or not. I also like to work around people and be in a creative environment, I just don't like not being able to make all the decisions I want, when I want.

I was proud of our final resolution to the brief and don't think I could have found a more suitable creative partner to compliment my skills. However in the future I think I will avoid briefs that involve partnerships. I understand the importance and can appreciate how two minds are better than one, it's just not for me. I am obviously more of an independent person than I first thought.

After the YCN brief came the final project of the year; Product, Range & Distribution. I was initially very excited by the prospect of creating my own brief and designing for my speciality; packaging. However when faced with the challenge of narrowing down options that are incredibly far reaching it becomes more difficult. With every previous brief I have been told what to do and where to go, with this it was almost as if I was jumping into the deep end. Once the initial hesitance wore off and I began to develop ideas I did start to enjoy the experience. I am glad I chose to experiment further with packaging, it has only confirmed to me more that this is the area I want to specialise in, in the third year. I am also happy with the subject matter that I chose to work with, and have realised that light hearted and humourous is the direction I want to go in. 

I think that the final resolution to my Product, Range & Distribution brief shows my skill set off perfectly. The product that I created is exactly what I would ideally love to create for the rest of my career. It's fun and light hearted, has a purpose but it not driven by it, combines typography with composition and colour consideration and most of all was enjoyable to create. I have often wondered what it is I would be driven by in the future; money, status, location etc. But it's become obvious to me that I just want to enjoy the work that I do. I have become adept at identifying briefs that both appeal to me and alternatively do absolutely nothing for me. Also within this brief I have increased my time management skills and learnt to prioritise.

I am now confident going into the third year. With a clearly identified area of interest and what I consider to be a developing visual approach, if I continue to put it as much effort as I possibly can then I think I can do well. I know that it will be even more intense in the third year, but with a renewed outlook of the design world and increased confidence in myself I'm sure I can create work that I am proud of.

Final Web Pages

When I was initially faced with the prospect of designing a website I was worried. It was an area of design that I had never considered or experimented with previously. Dreamweaver was a completely new programme to me and I can admit that I found it incredibly confusing. However html coding is something that you can only really grasp by doing more of, so that's exactly what I did. I started with such simple layouts and expanded on the basic design until I had something that I was happy with. I knew that I wanted my web layout to be minimal, predominantly because I didn't have the skills to get fancy, but also because I had been influenced by very simple web layouts such as Olly Moss' personal site. I wanted a lot of negative space, but also some splashes of colour. Because our proposed agency entitled 'Studio 202' was print based design I decided to use simple CMYK colours to communicate our ethos in a subtle, buy stylish, manner.

Once I actually got started with designing I found myself enjoying the process. At times there were things that really frustrated me, and I felt as though I would never overcome some of the coding problems I was having. However with a little perseverance I came through the other side and ended up fixing the problems that bothered me so much. I was on such a roll that I actually designed more pages than what was required. I wasn't sure if this was technically sticking to the brief, but I just assumed that this was all about learning a new skill and if I wanted to learn more by doing more then I should.

Web design is an essential skill and I am incredibly glad that I have been introduced to yet another area of design that I can expand my skills in. I have the feeling that I will continue to develop my coding skills and would love to earn some free lance work by designing basic websites for friends/associates/establishing businesses etc. This brief was definitely a challenging one, and there are some things that I didn't manage to wrap my head around. I will make it my responsibility to learn more about the things I struggled with.

Final Packaging Mock Ups

In order for me to fully communicate the range of packaging I have created I struggled for a brief period trying to think of an appropriate method. I considered printing out and assembling each individual pieces, but when I realistically began to think about that, it meant constructing 22 pieces, and I did not have the time nor the resources to pull this off. So what I decided to do was take the cropped section of each individual 'quote composition' and then layer on top of this the character specific quotes. I hope from the slideshow below this is obvious. Even thought the images show below the basic outline of my ideas, they do not fully communicate the finished concepts. For example it is impossible to gage the texture of the items as they are digital and therefore not printed onto the stock of my choice. Also when constructed in real life the labels would ideally be printed onto sticker paper and then stuck in the desired position. Nevertheless I hope the slideshow displays how important typography composition has been within this brief and how the slight alteration of colour helps define differentiation within a range.

The Snack Pack Exterior

The slideshow below shows a range of images that I have captured of my finished snack pack. I am very pleased with the way it has turned out, and think that my choice of stock adds depth to the whole creation and finishes it off nicely. I am also very pleased with the choice of tracing paper in place as the 'window'. I originally considered printing onto acetate and placing that over the intentionally cut out hole, however after trying this I felt it looked a little out of place. Even though the whole point of the window was originally to be able to see the contents inside I felt as though the box appeared unfinished with acetate. It just looked like a gaping hole in the front, and thats when I considered tracing paper. Rather than being completely see through, it has more of a translucency, allowing you yo see the contents but in a lot more subtle way. Also the motif printed onto the 'screen' is a lot more visible with tracing paper, it disappeared into the background when printed onto acetate.

The Whole Meal

In order for me to fully comprehend the complete range of products I had created it was necessary for me to try and capture some images that included all my packaging items, thats what the slideshow below displays. I think bringing all the different components together really makes it feel like a well rounded brief with several different outcomes. Seeing the choices of stock all next to each other helps me understand how important it was for them all not be the same. If I had used the same stock as the main wrapping for all four food items the meal would look pretty flat and two dimensional. I think the choice of tracing paper for the chocolate bar and darker brown sugar paper for the sandwich really adds flare to the pieces. I also like how you can see the range of different nets and dimensions I have been working with. For example the snack pack itself was constructed using a fully designed 3D net that took time to work out the dimensions and assemble, whereas the majority of the food packaging was mainly flat and assembled to make it appear 3D. I am proud of my final creations and think that given more time I would have printed off and assembled the entire rage I have proposed. However I realise this was not possible and am therefore resigned to capturing good quality images of just a small selection of finished pieces.

Final Beverage Images

This post deals with images of my final drink packaging. This is probably the component of the meal that I had most difficulty with. What with having to base my designs around a pre existing plastic bottle, I had design limitations, unlike the previous three components where I could pretty much create what I wanted. It also seems the most flat piece of packaging what with my designs only wrapping around another item, not being assembled to create something 3D. Nevertheless I am pleased with the results and think that the labels work very well at breaking up the text composition. Without the interjection of the label the bottle might seem a bit overwhelming. I played with the idea of printing the wrap around onto tracing paper, that way the colour of the juice drink inside would affect the colour of the label, but then I considered the practicality and realised it might make reading the label more difficult.

FInal Crisp Images

My 'chips' packaging were the one component of the meal that I really enjoyed creating. What with such a large flat surface area to work with it meant the quotes where clearly visible and easier to read than say the ones on the chocolate bar, and it also meant the labels stuck on top could be slightly bigger and have a more considered composition. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that Parks & Recreation is my personal favourite sitcom out of the four and therefore I considered the flavour choices I made to be spot on. But it wasn't just that, this is the piece of packaging where I felt it came together. In the early stages I had focused all my efforts on the chocolate bar and the sandwich, therefore it was nice when I came to work with something different. I toyed around with many ideas for the label but consider the one I settled on to be the most comprehensive design. I think they fact that I also managed to turn a flat piece of paper into the 3D form below shows how I am gaining more and more of an understanding into how all different types of packaging function.

Final Sandwich Images

The sandwich resolution was one that I was particularly pleased with. With it being considered the main component of the meal it was important that I got the design just right and it communicated my message effectively. There where times at the beginning of the brief when hundreds of different methods of how to wrap a sandwich where running through my mind. I think my chosen method may perhaps be the simplest of all those ideas, but it is also one of the most effective. By keeping it simple, the construction itself does not detract away from the quote composition printed onto the paper wrapping. Also by doing this, it allows minimal damage when opening the sandwich and therefore not ruining the composition. I also like how I used a sleeve rather than a sticker label like the rest of my range. The sleeve itself has a function and holds the sandwich together, as well as being a decorative item. I also like how the colour variation takes so much precedence with the sleeve design. With my other labels the colour is usually minimal, with only a small amount visible and most of the design taken up by either black or negative space. But with the sandwich the colour use is important and I believe it breaks up the type on display, almost acting as something that tones down the whole feel of the creation.

Final Chocolate Bar Images

My chocolate bar wrapping was always the part of the meal that I was most concerned about, that's why I focused on it so much in the early stages of the brief. My main concern was working with such a small template, how would the quotes look when compressed so much and most importantly how could I fit all the necessary information onto such a small label? Another cause for concern was the strict aesthetics of pre existing chocolate bars. I mean when you look at a shelf of chocolate bars, perhaps one or two will be packaged differently, but the majority are simply wrapped up in one piece of stock with the motifs printed directly onto this. Therefore I was stuck with the dilemma of recreating this typical chocolate bar look with only a limited choice of materials. However I think I pulled it off and am proud of the way my final construction looks. It took a lot of precision and patience to assemble the final thing, making sure I glued the back up just right and stuck the ends together correctly without crushing the bar inside or creasing the paper unnecessarily. I am also proud of the labels themselves. I could have chosen to use something that wrapped around the whole thing, giving me more room and an easier construction job. However, the main emphasis of my packaging are the quote compositions printed onto the basic wrapping and I did not want to detract from these. So designing a smaller label seemed more appropriate, and with the interesting shape that I went for, seemed to fit incredibly well within the snack pack set.

Final Web Pages

Below are the final pages of my six page website. I found this a pretty difficult aspect of the brief. I have never attempted website design before and found myself at a loss as where to start. I had to think about composition seriously and also legibility, but most importantly the functionality of the site itself. The purpose behind the design is to act as the 'distribution' part of the brief, so therefore it had to be done right. Individual page descriptions can be found below.

Home Page:

This is perhaps the most important page of all the others. It is the first thing visitors will see when on the site. It needed to be eye catching and display just the right amount of information. I opted for a large picture so as not to overwhelm with the amount of text and also intrigue the possible customer. I think the aesthetics of my final package speak for themselves, and therefore could attract an audience without the need for type at all. However I knew that some was necessary so I used a large point size and in terms of the content of text I made it engaging and humorous. I asked rhetorical questions and used a geometric shape as a tab. Hopefully it is a page that works well and does a engage the audience in the way I intended.

About Page:

The second page I designed is the one with perhaps the most amount of text. I knew that one of these pages would have to be created but I still didn't feel good about actually creating it. To counter the large amount of information I also placed a large image on the page. I propose that the smaller thumbnails along the left hand side of the large image are clickable and whichever one you do choose to look at becomes the larger image on the right. I also like the idea of having a 'magnifier' on the right hand side image. That way when you move your mouse over it you can see the fine detail of the package. This helps reinforce the idea that stock choice and type composition are the main emphasis of my designs.

Range Page:

This page almost acts as a little bit of a filler. I knew I needed a page that outlined the objects on offer without going straight into ordering. Therefore with this page, by clicking any of the four images to the left of the screen you are shown a range of images, most probably using a gadget such as lightbox which allows you to scroll through a selection, and can therefore make your decisions on what you might want to put in your snack pack before navigating to the order page. For the aid of the consumer I also placed a typed up list of the full range along the right hand side of the screen. Therefore if you do not wish to look at the images you do not have to waste time doing so.

Order Page:

The order page is the page that has to work better than all previous attempts. It is the page that defines if people will actually use the service. If it is too confusing people will most likely be put off and navigate away from the site. Therefore I kept the design nice and simple with neat lines and as little info as possible. Obviously the complete list of items have to be shown, which do take up quite a bit of room, but they are completely necessary. In order to tackle the question that many people raised in my crits which was 'what about ingredients, nutritional facts, allergy information etc?', I propose this to be the solution to that. I never intended to place this load of information on my packaging, it would be too overwhelming and in most cases there just isn't enough room. So on this web page by hovering over the item a small pop up box would appear with all the necessary info inside. This tackles that problem with little harm to the packaging aesthetics themselves.

Show Info Page:

This page was an after thought really. I has always considered my solution to this brief to be targeted at pre existing fans of the show, and not something to attract new ones. However I did realise this was a possibility and by word of mouth possible new fans may come across the website. So to act as a method of promotion as well I included links to all four sitcoms home pages on NBC.com and a little background information on each one. The page itself is pretty self explanatory and I hope the message is effectively communicated.

Login Page:

The last page I designed is the most minimal. It is simply a login page allowing existing members to return to the site and order their personalised snack pack whenever they want. Ideally the system would store information on previous orders and gain an understanding of the customers preferences and could perhaps even recommend items for the person to order. This page also has options to sign up as a new member and enter promotional codes to get a discount on first orders.

Website Development

I realised I would need to develop my website idea much more before I could progress any further with the brief so I decided to experiment with some visual styles and approaches. This post deals with simple colour and composition experimentation whilst at the same time gaining an understanding of web layout and trying and testing which things work better than others.

The first thing I did was try and design the navigation bar which will sit at the top of every page on the site. I see this as the place to inject colour, so that's where I came up with the idea of using the six colours from the peacock logo as tab colours. The progression works really nicely and has almost a rainbow effect. Considering the information shown on the main part of the pages will be black and white and predominantly text I thought the brighter I make the top bare the more of an effect it will have.

Below are a few examples of what I am considering.

However as well as the navigation bar at the top of the screen there is also the need for a more discrete one at the bottom of the page. Here you will also find the more official aspects of the design with links to pages such as FAQ and nutritional information. Anyway this design need to be a lot more subtle than the one at the top. In fact it is something that most people don't even take in on their visits to web pages, but it is necessary. Below are a few discretionary designs that I have come up with as a solution to this problem.

Now onto the bulk of the web page design now I had the top and bottom navigation bars sorted. I knew that I wanted the background colour of the main screen to be white as it makes reading so much easier so this is what I did. However I was then faced with the problem of the page appearing too plain, so I added diagonal stripes to either side of the main compartment framing it almost and giving the whole layout more of a fun vibe. An image can be found below.

I then went to mocking up possible compositions for each individual page. I used simple grey boxes as placeholders for images and used a lorem ipsum generator to show how much text I was intending on using. Below is the perfect example of how I want one of my pages to appear, obviously with more content added at a later date.

Once I had mocked up layouts for each individual page I then thought it the appropriate time to start adding real content. Below is a quick screen shot of my final mock ups and basic layouts of the six pages.

It then simply became a process of trial and error. Finding the right images, putting them in the right place, getting the information as concise as possible and laying it out so that it is comprehensible and not overwhelming. Below are just a few screen shots that I captured at different stages in the process.

More Snack Pack

Today I just continued with finalising my snack pack design. It was a day of experimentation and getting the layout of certain things just right. I had set myself the target of completing the flat layout by the end of the day, and am proud to say that I did in fact complete that task. All the images shown below simply show my development at different stages and hopefully communicate the lengths I went to to recreate this old fashioned TV facade that I was aiming for.

Developing the dials on the front:

Defining the difference between the dials and the buttons

Bringing the different parts together to form nearly a complete net:

Adding the last section of the net to be designed:

Recreating the back of an old tv:

Adding appropriate text to the back of the pack:

Working on type composition:

Deciding there was too much text on the previous design and instead adding some humour to the back of the box as well as on the sides:

Alignment possibilities for small amount of text on back of pack:

And finally a few snap shots of my fully assembled net.

Snack Pack Development

Today I experimented with further snack pack exterior development. After composing the side panels the day before I was not concentrating my efforts on the handle components and dabbling with the front aesthetics.

Snack Pack Development

I knew today that I would need to crack on with the design of the exterior of my snack pack. The first thing I did was redesign the net itself. After printing out a few trial runs I realised that it was a little too complex, so I got rid of a few tabs and made the handle components much more sleek and square. I also evenly spaced out each individual part of the net so I could visually imagine the amount that needed to be designed. As soon as I did this I realised that I could design the net in sections, that way the prospect is not too overwhelming and it won't make the whole box seem so flat, but instead will give it depth and a more exciting design. So I decided that I would tackle the side portions first, and once this was out of the way I could get on with recreating the old fashioned TV look on the front of the pack.

The first thing I did was think about the content I could put on the side panels. I hadn't given it much thought previously and with all the drawings I had done I simply drew in multicoulored stripes. I knew this wouldnt look good digitally as I had previously tried it and it was just awful. So I decided I would carry through some of the typography compositions found on the packaging inside the box.

The first thing I did was separate all the quotes and gather individual ones from each character in each sitcom that where food related. This provided me with a severely cut down selection, yet still there were a lot to choose from. I then went about composing the quotes as I have done with the food packaging and injecting colour. Unlike my previous attempts, this time I reversed out the type and made the background black. I did this because I felt it would make the panels more noticeable and not so drab.

I added colour in the form of the name of characters under each quote. I thought this was necessary because each quote will be from a different sitcom and if you weren't a superfan and didn't understand them all at least you see where they were coming from.

Below shows an early compositional idea with a range of different character quotes.

Reversed out, more of an impact.

I thought it necessary to compile to different compositions; one for each panel. I could have simply repeated the pattern on both sides, but from the wealth of quotes I had to choose from I wanted to show off as many funny lines as possible so I made another below.

Once I had all the quotes I arranged them in a visually appealing way, shown below. I had no intention of doing this, but by having black backgrounds it was as if I was framing the quotes and it hit me that the compositions below resembled poster designs. This was too much of a good thing to skip over so I have decided to include posters within the packs aswell.

And below is a final mock up of what my side panels now look like when they are completed.

Drink/Sandwich Further Development

The slideshow below contains a few images of further experimentation with my bevarage and sandwich designs. I realised that I would need to create a proposed lid idea for the drink as well as the label around the whole of the bottle. So here you can see how I went about mocking up the lid solutions and which design works best with the labels themselves. You can also see some evidence of the assembly of the sandwich sleeve I mentioned in the previous post.

Further Sandwich Development

My intention shown here was to experiment with the sandwich packaging and how to tackle the issue of a label design. I decided instead to go with a sleeve that would encase the whole item rather than simply be placed on top. Below are just a few compositional ideas that are possibilities. I like the design at the bottom of the page as it has an interactive quality to it, allowing the outstretching tab to wrap around the whole thing.

Further Drink Development

The image below shows a possible range of label designs for the drink within the snack pack. The image below that shows another possible range. They both follow the same formula only with slightly different layouts and use of colour. I'm not sure which one I prefer at the moment. I think I will have to print both out and see which translates better to a physical piece of design.

This image shows possible designs for my proposed bottle top. Obviously this is a net for the purposes of me creating a mock up. In real life ideally the plastic bottle top would be black and have the design I created printed on top.

Crisp Labels

Today I started working on the designs for my crisp packaging. I started by using geometric shapes to layout a few possibilties.

I then went on to add colour, text, the NBC logo and just the general approach that I have previously been working with. The images below show the range of ideas thaI generated.

The two resolutions that I really liked are shown below. To decide which one of these I liked best I used individual characters and their individual flavours to represent the whole range.

Below are a few slide shows that show package assembly and what my proposed mock ups will look like. I added the colour to the top and bottom of the net in the bottom slide show to indicate where the glued together portions will be. I am not entirely sure yet if I will actually include this colour in my final designs. I think it makes the packaging appear slightly tacky and less professional than it had previously done.