OUGD503 End Of Module Evaluation

Overall the whole module in my eyes went very well, and I am very proud of the suscinct and proficient informed responses that have been produced. The module offered multiple different ways in which the end result would be me developing as a deisgner and imporving my skills.
The two different Secret 7” submissions both allowed me to complete work in the deisgn industry sector of which I would really like to compete it as a fully fledged designers and realistically allowed me to prepare for post university life. They also presented me with multiple options to learn and become skilled in new softwares such as Cinema4D a 3D modeling software which is just developing me as a deisgner and giving me more opportunities for potential work when Im out of university as I will be proficient in more softwares.
The Disposable Society brief by Goat Collective helped me as it allowed me to gain experience with not only entering my work in to real world indistry breif competitions but it also gave me the experience of winning a competition entered. This meant that I now have experience with having my own work exhibited in an exhibition not set up by the university and actually helped me to get my name out as a designer. It also gave me an opportunity to work with ethical deisgn centered around the concept of deisgn to make a change and this is an area of deisgn that I am massively interested in.
The D&AD brief DesignBridge & the YCN brief Orchard Pig  have allowed me to gain more experience in a sector of the graphic deisgn industry that I find very interesting and fun to complete, this is branding, packaging, advertising and eventually creating an overall and well rounded full campaign for the release or redesign of a new product.
The YCN brief really interested me as it allowed to create work of which is all centered around a product that I actually really enjoy in real life and therefore this allowed me to work proficiently through the brief, as I was excited and interested in the final product much more than if it wasn’t about Orchard Pig Cider.
Finally the D&AD brief allowed me to experience the world of deisgning to achieve a purpose and challenge societys expectation eventually with the purpose of making a difference in the beauty range market by creating a unisex cosmetics brand. Finally it allowed my to experience more working as part of a collaboration and made me realise that this is somethng that I would defintely want to persue in the future, and has got me excited to work in a studio environment after university.

OUGD503 - SB3 - Project Report

OUGD503 - D&AD - Design Bridge - Presentation Boards

To finalise the project the presentation boards that would be submitted to D&AD for judging for the awards that convey our idea form start finish with out outcomes were created and her they are below;

OUGD503 - D&AD - Design Bridge - Website

A small single page scrolling website was designed for the release of the brand, to give potential customers an idea of what the company is about, what the values it stands for are and finally what it offers as a company. It was designed with consistent visuals to the rest of the campaign as a whole so that it maintains visual consistency. The website conveys all of the aspects that the company stands for such as the vision and ethics of the company.The website contains images of the three different products on offer, a description about the products and other relevant images that relate to the brand such as photography of mount fuji, a Japanese landmark. The website would finally also provide the potential customers with ways that they can be involved with the movement and what it stands for, ways that they keep in touch with he goings on of Youni and finally where they can find the products to purchase them.

OUGD503 - D&AD - Design Bridge - Advertising

For the purpose of advertising the individual products designs on bottle were added in to the poster with shadows to ensure that the product has a three dimensional effect and therefore watched potentials customers eyes. Each of the products then has one of the symbol glyphs from the Japanese version of 'Youni' applies to it to work in to the poster. The overlapping of some parts of the character with some over the bottle and some below the bottle created a three dimensional piece that is very aesthetically pleasing and unavoidable by the eye  due to the divers nature of the poster.

The individual posters were then finished off with 'Youni' the name of the company. 'All For One & One for All' the catchphrase tag line of the company and finally 'discover more at Youni.com' & 'OneForAll' the necessary digital aspects that a potential customer would need to get involved with the campaign. As this whole project all centred itself around the fact that we were trying to make a change in the design world it was crucial for us to implement the sense of a movement within the advertising, as this movement and interest from customers is exactly what is needed to gain popularity by building a group of followers and making a change.

As the last designed are only appropriate for portrait spaced and alternative landscape advertising design was created for when there is limitation or it is more appropriate like a bill board, the landscape design just combines the three designs above and created one advertisement but with all three products included.

I then mocked up the final advertisement designs to a few different context in which they could be seen.

OUGD503 - D&AD - Design Bridge - The Products

Now that the designing stage of the packaging was finalised and the packaging nets were finished it was now time to mock them on to different appropriate bottle in order to give a much better look at what the packaging will look like when applied to packaging. My original thoughts were how surprised I was with how professional and clean they look as product designs.

OUGD503 - D&AD - Design Bridge - Packaging Colour

When the decision came to adding colour to the products the decision was a lot harder than we thought it was going to be, we knew that we needed and wanted colour on the jackets due to the fact that this would help potential customers differentiate between the range of different products and furthermore that without this use of colour, the designing of the later stage such as the website and advertising material could be come more difficult as we would be limited with the range of colours that would be appropriate to use through the designs.

We knew that we wanted the products to have a colour on them, but we didn't want this colour to be the same on every bottle or part of the basic design as this would make the jacket of the packaging fit less appropriately with out clean simple and elegant Japanese aesthetic and so the decision was made that the only use of colour in the product packaging would be included through a minor use in the typography and each different product would have its own related colour in oder to help produce brand notoriety and distinguishment between products through colour. Originally we tried to contextualise the colours to the products themselves but there wasn't enough actual link between the colours we were looking at and why they related to the product so instead the voice of colours was made on a aesthetic basis only, which colour we believed worked best with the packaging design.

OUGD503 - D&AD - Design Bridge - Bottle Nets

The jackets for the beauty care product range were created by applying the pattern discussed in the stage earlier to the background of the image to represent the UV spot varnished pattern that would appear on the final product. As the typeface for the project has already been decided the title of the care range 'Youni' was typeset so that it would appear centrally on the front side of the bottle label. The typography of the name of the brand was confined with the Japanese glyph version of the name to maintain continuity through the brand, as the name comes from the Japanese language.  The rest of the feature type was also set on the front of the label, aligned centrally with the company name to create a sleek, simple and structures front label. The accompanying text consisted of the necessary information needed for the front of the bottle, the name of the product, a small description of the product and the measurements of the logo. This process was then applies to all three of the net labels, edited so that the typography on the front of the bottle applied to the product itself.

Even though the third product in the range isn't a bottle with a wrap around like the rest it still would have the same branding jacket to apply the packaging to the product but instead due to the nature of it being a lip balm the packaging would be consisted of two circular vinyl stickers to apply to the product that would display the same information as the other products.

OUGD503 - D&AD - Design Bridge - Aesthetic Styles

Before the designing stage properly begin it was time to make the final decisions on the aspects that would go in to the packaging, and the aesthetic style in which it would all be developed.

Due to the fact that the typeface to take forward had already been decided,the name of the beauty range and the pattern for the bottle packaging had already been constructed it was time to decided on the aesthetic style in which the packaging will be constructed. Due to the fact that we are going for neutrality within the packaging and also implementing a somewhat Japanese style to the design sue to the name, we would implement through the design a very clean and simple aesthetic, well organised and structured format.

OUGD503 - D&AD - Design Bridge - Typeface Choices

Due to the fact that the whole project revolves around creating a beauty and healthcare range that is gender neutral, the choice of which typeface to use throughout the packaging is a very vital decision as this could be the aspects that sways the packaging more towards one gender and therefore doesn't apply with the aesthetic choices that we are going for with Youni. It had been decided that due to this fact it would be most appropriate to use a sans-serif style typeface as firstly the desired aesthetic was of a Japanese clean and minimal style, and the use of a serif style typeface would be out of context with the rest of the packaging design and this would ruin the overall outcome. Secondly the choice can out of the fact that through out time as a design it had been drilled in to us that if we're looking for neutrality a serif style typeface is necessary implement this.

The choice was further concentrated on sans-serif style typefaces that have a geometric and rounded shape, this decision was made due to the face that less geometric typefaces can seem more harsh that we intent with this project, the use of a non rounded typeface could take away from the overall design. Secondly the desired typeface needed to be rounded and geometric due to the pattern of symbols that have already been designed in the earlier stage of the process, these symbols have a very rounded nature and therefore the rounded typeface would fit most appropriately, below we constructed a display of a range typeface from which as a partnership we considered the options and made a decision in to which typeface should be taken on in to the designing stage of the project.

After some deliberation between us, we eventually came to the decision that because of the fact all of the typefaces fit with our stipulations it cam down to a simple aesthetic choice, in which we preferred most out of the group. The decision was made that we would use Biko in the latter parts of the project.

OUGD503 - D&AD - Design Bridge - Pattern Design

Even though the main focus of our beauty care range centres itself around the fact that it challenges gender stereotypes in the design world of beauty care, we wanted the product to also challenge the environmental and ethical aspects that are also associated with the beauty care industry, for inspirit for this the decision was made to look at Lush as a company, and the ethics that they implement in their products.

To implement this the products will be designed, and displayed as vegan, ethical and against animal testing. To further enforce these ethics and also link the packaging design to the name of the company and what it stands for the decision was made to incorporate this as a aspects in the packaging for the beauty range.

The idea waste incorporate this in to the packaging, but while doing this we would also improve the packaging design, and make it looking from more a standard cosmetic choice, to something a little more high end through the use of a printing finish, to add the little extra to the packaging, and ultimately attract the customers. This printing finish would be a UV spot varnish in which would could include the pattern all over the packaging of the products but so that it doesn't take away from the bottle and the packaging itself this pattern would be printing in varnish. This would mean that the pattern wouldn't be overpowering and therefore take away from the products, instead it would round off the design as a whole through its subtlety.

To ensure that this printing method could be visualised through the designing process, as we couldn't simulate the UV varnish in software, the pattern was overplayed with the wrap around packaging of the beauty products and the had opacity applied to it, so that it became translucent, simulating the effect of a spot varnish.

OUGD503 - D&AD - Design Bridge - Concept & Name

The first step in the whole of this design process was to decide on a concept from which the final product will develop, this must come on the back of an aspects within the beauty care industry that we don't agree with and would like to challenge as a concept through the creation go our health care range. We had already decided immediately from the brief that even though it wouldn't be the central point of our campaign of a new product, environmental and ethical aspects would definitely have to come in to the final product that we produce, as we believed that a lot of beauty care product users of the younger generation expect this in products, and this is our biggest target market. These aspects will include environmental issues such a Environmentally focussed packaging and furthermore the ethical features will include animal testing aspects, as we believe these aspects should be found in all of the beauty care industry.

The main conceptual ethic that our beauty care range will follow, and more importantly the biggest stigma that it will aim to destroy in the industry, its the place of gender roles in beauty care, and gender neutrality as a whole. We believe that the two different industries, between mens and women beauty care are far to separated by stereotypes and presumptions. We would like to challenge this by creating a beauty care range that stands for gender neutrality, and rather that having one range for men and one range for women we will create one beauty care range for all.

When it cam to decided the name that we would take forward, after some brainstorming we came up with 'Youni' which immediately to any customers eye would read 'You & I" which represents the ethos' and ethics' of the company as we believe that it is for absolutely everyone, but when we looked in to the word and its connotations more we discovered that in Japanese it also stand for 'alike' or 'similar' and this further represents the ethos' and values of the beauty care range we are trying to produce.

OUGD503 - D&AD - Design Bridge - Main Competitor

Due to the way that they run the company, through the ethics that they have in place and the ethos' and value's that they convey through their brand and the products they offer Lush will act as the main aspects of research to the brand, almost to the point where if they were both commercial products lush would be their main competitor. They install a heavy sense of morality and diversity and ensure that all their products are vegetarian, don't include animal tasting, organic and ethically sound with aspects like far pay for producers.

The aspects in which they differ to the company and product range that we are going to design is that they don't focus on gender neutrality and this is very apparent through the packaging and advertising of their products, it all feels centred around women, without a range that I believe would suit men that well and so seeing what can come out of combining both of these crucial aspects will be very interesting, and if packaged well could be very successful.

OUGD503 - D&AD - Design Bridge - The Beauty Care Market

After going in to establishments that would sell the product that we will eventually design it became immedeitly apparent that we had picked the right topic within the beauty industry to tackle as it posed a serious problem. It was blatantly obvious the both mens and women care products follow strict guidelines within design, women are to look light airy and elegant and mens are to look rustic rugged and hard and both of these aesthetics are just to chicle for modern society and so this was a big task to tackled. 

OUGD503 - D&AD - Design Bridge - The Brief & Understanding

For the collaborative side of this responsive unit the decision was made that the brief that would be taken in to the design stage of the unit and eventually would be submitted to D&AD and be entered in to the new blood design awards. For this collaborative part of the module our collaboration will be comprised of me and Ethan as a partnership, this will be very interesting too see the quality and amount of work we can produce as a partnership. We both have interest in the same style of design and would like to see what the partnership can produce.

The challenge from D&AD and DesignBridge is to consider the extent to which the beauty care product industry has its stereotypes and after from this the challenge is to create, brand, design and plan for the release of a product range in which it has the aim to break one of society codes on beauty care be it gender stereotypes, body image, environmental issues and anything else that we believe is a hot topic in this beauty industry. The challenge is to create a line of beauty products for the target market of people who care about making a change in an industry they love.

The goal is to choose one problem to over come but as a team we believed that multiple possibilities of options could be considered due to the factor that out initial thoughts were we would like to concentrate on gender neutrality within the beauty industry but also have environmental factors also come in to our final outcomes.The Main focus is all on method, ethos and sustainability.

The brief tasks us to create, brand and package a new brand that has its main focus on one certain aspect of the beauty industry and to create a range of three different products and package them appropriately, the choice of which products to use will be a vital choice. It would be vital to create a brand, and package the product so that embodies its values of the brand and what it stands for.

OUGD503 - Secret 7" - Jack Garrett - Photo Distorting & Finals

The decision was made that instead of just using photography to convey the meaning in the design instead some inspiration would be took from Tappin Goftons work for Everything Everything instead the photography will be put through a photo distortion technique to diversify the design from just only photography. As the song talks about the woman feature of the song just walking away and erasing herself from his life it was apparent to me that a pixelation effect should be used within the image to symbolise her failing out of his life for good, the rest of the photo is clear it is only the girl that is pixelated.

The image was placed in to photoshop on a 7" by 7" canvas so that it would fit for the size guidelines of the Secret 7" submission. The first stage was to duplicate the image in to a new layer above the original.

The layer in the background of the image is put through the filter gallery and put through a mosaic filter, that slips the image up in to tiny small pixel like squares, the square size is decided from the image itself so that the pixels are in proportion with the image and then the filter is added.

Next it was time to overlay the background pixelated image, with the unedited version of top and with the eraser tool, a selection of the top layer unedited image is erased so it allows the pixelated image from the bottom layer to show through, this gives the desired effect of a normal image for the majority of it, and the pixelation of the women showing through from the bottom image where the top image is erased. Preferably the use of a brush with no hardness at all so that there isn't a distinct line between the two different images instead the change is gradual.

The two different layered images are then merged so that they become one flat image so that they can be finalised in the final editing stage.

The next stage of the editing process was to add a small border along the right hand and base length and then the image is finalised with a vignette effect by overlaying a new layer on top of the imaged and erasing a large circle in the middle of it with no hardness so the vignette effect is gradual and then a small amount of opacity as added to make it less in your face.

Here below you can see a fully finalised and exported version of the design submitted to secret seven...

OUGD503 - YCN - Orchard Pig - Timing

Overall with this project I am very happy with the overall outcome and how I have dealt dealt with the project, The design outcomes that have come out of the project are well rounded and executed and most importantly well informed. The main difference between this uni and some other projects that I have completed before is I think they the plan made before starting the project really help me stay concentrated and on track and I believe this has really transcribed in to the work.

OUGD503 SB1 - Disposable Society - Finals & Production

Here above you can see the final outcome for this project of which was submitted to the disposable society

  for consideration to be entered in to the exhibition and exhibited for a week in the arts space, this was a great opportunity as it will be give me change as a designer in training to have experience will having my work in an actual exhibition, which will help me grow as a design by learning new skills and experiencing new things, this is a great chance to get my name out in the design work. As this submission was entirely digital, the final outcome wouldn't come to the print stage unless it was needed for the exhibition.

Some time later after submission I found out sue to the aesthetics of the deign and the concept that it is based around that it will feature in the exhibition which was a great surprise and shock to me, and was the first chance I had to have my work exhibited in an exhibition that wasn't set up by the university, and the only means of getting in was beating other people to the exhibition spaces, and it was amazing to feel that I had been chose.

 

 

OUGD503 SB1 - Disposable Society - Development & Colour Choice

As it had been outline earlier in the research stage of the project that the basis of the work will surround the notion of mobile phones, and the statistics that tell of how many of the new mobile phones that are created and what will eventually happen to them, with the overarching emphasis on how as a 'disposable society' we are more than wiling to just throw things away without thinking.

It has been outline earlier in the statistics that the work will feature 445 illustrations of different mobile phones to represent the 445 million different mobile phones that come int o production each year, of which would be constructed out of the various different mobile phone illustrations completed earlier on in the design process. Eventually a number of these will be differentiated to display the statistics and its content. As it was already outlined that I need to have a feature of 445 phones in the work, I played them out by using a row and column grid big enough that I knew it would house  the 445 illustrations in a simple yet effective and organised grid structure.

Now that the designing of the piece was completely finished the final stage that would make it ready for production was that it needed to be coloured. As it had already been outlined in the statistics that I needed three different categories and so therefore they would be identified by three different colours. This use of the colour would be representative of the fact that masses and masses of now phones each year are either forgotten about or wasted and showing the extend to how little the number of mobile phones each year are recycled.

It was immidetly apparent to the that the mobile phones that are recycled should be represented through green, due to how people view this colours and the obvious environmentally friendly connotations. The phones that are forgotten about and abandoned would be represented by black as this will make them not stand out against the coloured part, to represent how they are forgotten about in real life. The final colour was to represent the amount of new mobile phones that are just plainly thrown away and discarded each year, conveying the extend to which we don't care about the environment or the effects we have on it.

OUGD503 SB1 - Disposable Society - Initial Illustrations & Rendering

To help me illustrate the facts about mobile phones and how they can have such an effect on our society through our blatant throw away society I know that to help represent the statistic through an infographic that I would need to use illustrations of mobile phones and so it was time to get out the pen and paper and start drawing. Eventually after a long time drawing I had illustrated a number off different mobile phone illustrations to  be used within the infographic and so therefore it was time to digitally render this illustrations ready for use in the final design.

The scan of the drawings were entered in to Illustrator and then digitalised using the image trace feature of which helps by changing drawings in to vectorised shapes, which can be used in the final digital stage. The image tracing of the scan is them expanded converting it from one big image in to loads of individual ores that could be edited easily. Small editing was done to the illustrations where problems occurred in the designing stage to make the illustrations more uniform but some imperfection were maintained as this added to the hand rendered aesthetic that goes hand in hand with the content go the project.