Project Report

Project Report A n dr ea H a n n a h C ooper BA G r a p h ic De sig n L ev e l 0 5

LIVE COMPETITION BRIEFS YCN : DOUWE EGBERTS D&AD : L'ARTISAN PARFUMEUR D&AD : BATISTE TALENTHOUSE : SECRET 7" TALENTHOUSE : KLEENEX

LIVE BRANDING BRIEFS VR MAKE UP ARTIST HC FASHION DESIGN

SELF INITIATED BRIEF EAP LEGO SPONSORSHIP

BRiEF Generate excitement about Douwe Egberts coffee and create a desire for better coffee at home

INDIVIDUAL COMPETITION BRIEF

The YCN Douwe Egberts Coffee brief was the one which I chose for my first main individual brief for the studio brief 1. I was instantly attracted to the brief and decided there was lots I could do with it. I initally did a reasonable amount of research towards the brief and had some strong concepts that I presented in the crit. I was more interested in going

down the packaging route wth this brief as it is a practice I have not yet explored much, and I felt as if it was pushing the brief further to create a new style of packaging as a way of bringing coffee shop style coffee into the home as opposed to an advertising campaign.

YCN : DOUWE EGBERTS

The direction the brief took was that of using coffee shop style cups to persuade customers to make the connection between drinking good coffee shop style coffee in their home, and also the way that it can be used to signify being on the go. I also wanted to add another use to the packaging as current coffee packging, which is usually in resealable foil bags or glass jars, often do not get recycled or reused. This was a particular element of my response to the brief that I felt was important as it is something that more and more young people now a days are becoming concerned with.

I feel as if I initially started the brief with some good ideas, but as I researched further into the idea of packaging instant coffee in take away coffee cups, I realised it had been done before and my idea was not entirely original. This frustrated me rather a lot and after a while I was thoroughly frustrated with the brief.

To get back into the working ethic for the project, I decided to simply stick with the coffee cup idea, but instead decided to use recyclable cardboard ones as opposed to ceramic take away style cups as I had originally planned to do. I then focused on the design and aesthetics and stepped away from the concept for a bit. I discovered that most coffee packaging targeted towards younger professionals contained lots of patterns and often were quite bright and bold. I chose to take a slightly different aesthetic approach with mine, and as I was rebranding their ‘Inspirations’ range, it required the packaging to have references to different countries and cultures. I liked the shape of the unfolded coffee cup net and used this for inspiration to find cultural symbols from the three countries (Kenya, Brazil and Vietnam) within this shape. I then edited the images heavily, before experimenting with transparancies and coloured gradients to create a textured and layered image that wraps simply around the coffee cup.

The concept within the brief was to add the extra use for the cup once it was no longer needed to store coffee in. I think I have made a fairly strong packaging concept, yet there is much room for development within the idea. My time management skills within this brief were lacking as I feel as if I had far too long to complete it and therefore became

bored of what I was doing.

learning curve experience as I realised that packaging is not particularly one of my strengths and is I struggled to get into this brief so I consider it to something I definitely need to work on in the future. be one of my weaker pieces of work for this module If I were to do this brief again I would definitely in comparison to some of the other work I have approach it in a very different way, and I would produced. I am slightly disappointed with what I plan out my time properly so that I avoid becoming submitted to the YCN competition but it has been a bored of the brief and the way it was progressing.

BRiEF Modernise the L’Artisan Parfumeur brand and create an innovative approach to packaging, including identities for the series and each of the four unisex fragrances

COLLABORATIVE COMPETITION BRIEF

Collaborative brief with Lisa Collier & Hannah Watt This was the main collaborative brief for studio brief innovative packaging ideas for the perfumes. two, where I collaborated with two others to submit the brief to D&AD. Initially, we had trouble settling on an idea and ended up doing a large amount of research to help The brief asked us to give identities to each of four us decide on a direction to take with the brief. fragrances where they were simply described with a After finally deciding on the theme of ‘Alchemy’ and series of adjectives. We also had to produce new and packaging the bottles in boxes inspired by Japanese

D&AD : L'ARTISAN PARFUMEUR

Puzzle Boxes, we progressed really well through the brief and work load. I found it easier to time manage during this project with the fact that Hannah and Lisa are both quite organised, and we actually stuck to our plans that we made.

We wanted our designs to not only reflect the mystery of the ‘Alchemy’ side of creating

perfumes, but also the importance of elegance and sophistication. I think that through utilising each of our strengths and balancing out each others weaknesses we were able to achieve final products that thoroughly fit what we set out to do. I brought in my skills of writing, while Hannah’s talent for drawing and Lisa’s competence with packaging really helped to push our design ideas into reality. I also

One difficulty I have had in the past is group work where compromises have to be made, and where it feels as if my ideas are not being listened to, yet completing this brief with Hannah and Lisa has helped me start to over come this. I feel as if my working ethic for collaborative work has developed through this brief, and that not only have I gained more confidence for working in groups, but have also matured in the way I approach group work.

I have realised that I actually do enjoy bouncing ideas off of other creatives and having to accept compromises and minor disagreements, and that the end results can be incredibly rewarding.

learned new skills throughout this project such as building mock ups accurately to convey to someone else a complicated idea, and how to use the laser cutter. Being able to experiment with laser cutting the symbols and text into the boxes has inspired me to take this into projects in the future, and I now have more confidence to try processes like this than I did before completing this brief.

I think in general this was not only a really successful brief, but also a successful collaboration. We managed to fit the work around each other’s busy schedules and having conflicting timetables, but working both as a group in the studio, and taking tasks individually helped us to complete the brief to the standard we achieved.

Images for batiste brief are in the project report pdf file on disc all design practice blog posts for batiste are included in five pdf files on disc

BRiEF Build the Batiste brand by creating four Demonstrate this across a number new graphic identities and fragrances. of practical applications, including They should fit in with the current packaging, website and point of sale. range but have stand out shelf appeal.

COLLABORATIVE COMPETITION BRIEF

Collaboration with Alex Goddard, Creative Advertising, Level 04 When struggling to get into the Douwe Egberts Coffee brief, I looked through the D&AD briefs and was instantly inspired by the Applied Graphics brief for Batiste Dry Shampoo.

I scribbled out some initial ideas and suddenly had a brainwave and knew exactly how to approach the

brief. I had a clear idea in my head of how I wanted the brief to work, and was hooked on working on it. However, I was struggling to get the ideas out of my head and into the visuals, and was struggling even more with the copywriting, so I asked a friend, Alex, if she would be willing to critique my work for me and look at it from an advertising/ concepts point of

D&AD : BATISTE

Dry shampoo can designs view rather than asking a classmate from the course.

She was so helpful towards the brief and it was as if she instantly knew what I was trying to do with it, and as we initially worked so well together on it, I asked her to collaborate with me for the D&AD submission. When Alex joined the brief, the visuals took a complete turn into how I had been imagining

them all along. We progressed through the brief really well together, where although the idea was initially all mine, Alex put her own influence on it and we have developed it into a rather successful final piece.

The concept was orientated around tying a woman’s

wardrobe and what she would wear in the different scenarios with the need for dry shampoo at the same time. I chose shoes as the graphic identity for each of the can designs as they are a necessity in each situation I chose to design for (Festivals, Holidays, Nights Out, and Working Women), and women match these shoes to their outfits, the same

way they should match the dry shampoo to the situation in which they would use it.

I think this is the strongest concept I have come up with for a brief to date and it thoroughly excited me.

Ambient advertising designs I am incredibly proud of the way this brief turned out, particularly the way Alex and I worked together. Our skills, strengths and weaknesses all complemented each other, and as she is more ideas and copywriting based and I have more of the technical design skills, we made a very good team.

I learned things through this brief that I never

thought I would learn, and working with Alex on a brief such as this one where it relied heavily on properly reaching the target market, it has given me a new understanding of how to aim work at different audiences, a skill which I have been developing and using in other modules since finishing this brief. I have also gained more of an

understanding of different advertising techniques, and the understanding that it is not just posters and billboards that advertise a product. Finally, my technical competence with both Photoshop and Illustrator has improved drastically through completing this brief. I have learned techniques of mocking images up and making images and

presentation boards look as professional as possible which is a skill I am definitely going to take on into the future.

This has by far been my favourite brief to date and Alex and I are definitely planning on working togerher again!

BRiEF Design a secret record cover for Elton John’s song ‘Bennie and the Jets’

INDIVIDUAL COMPETITION BRIEF

I really liked the idea of designing a quick illustration piece as I don’t particularly see it as one of my stregths and I don’t have much confidence in my own illustrations. It felt like a brief I could experiment with, but at the same time put my own personality into.

I chose to use the lyric from the song ‘you’re gonna hear electric music, solid walls of sound’ as I think it is a beautiful line, and in my mine conjured up an image of feeling the full force of sound blasting out of speakers. I took a more vintage approach to the illustration as I felt it suited the song, and piled up layers and layers of outlines of speakers to build up the composition.

I had a lot of fun spending an evening creating the record sleeve, and although mine was not one of the final ones picked by the judges, I’m really quite pleased with it. I think from using more illustration in this brief and others in the module, my confidence in it is growing, and I’ll be able to bring it more into my work in other modules.

This was a quick turn around brief for the Talenthouse competition, teamed up with the charity ‘Art Against Knives’ to design secret record sleeves for different artists. I chose the Elton John song as it is a song I grew up with and I felt as if I would really enjoy designing for it.

The brief asked for a secret record sleeve to be designed without any reference to the singer or the song title, but instead an interpretation of it or an image that came out of the song.

TALENTHOUSE : SECRET 7"

The first thing that attracted me to this brief was actually the novelty of designing a tissue box. I instantly thought this would be a fun brief to do as a quick turn around and as a break from some of the other bigger briefs. I used it as an opportunity to experiment with crazy colours and shapes, as I feel like sometimes my work is too reserved and can fade into the background next to other graphic design work.

The brief said to explore next seasons trend forecasts, which were about bold pattern, texture, geometric shapes and Ikat patterns. I looked into the geometric pattern idea and enjoyed spending the time I was working on this brief simply creating spiral shapes from randomly drawn lines on Illustrator. It may have been a slightly childish approach to a brief, but I felt like this was one I could have fun with and creating a finished product like this one where from experimenting I have managed to create a design that could easily fit in with their current range is quite rewarding.

The design I completed for this brief is not one of my best by far, but the brief was about having fun with it so I certainly think I have captured that.

BRiEF Design a special edition Kleenex Collection Cube box.

INDIVIDUAL COMPETITION BRIEF

The brief was to look at this years trend forecasts and design a limited edition Kleenex box for the Autumn/Winter 2013 season with these trends in mind. It was a quick turn around brief, run as a Talenthouse competition.

TALENTHOUSE : KLEENEX

BRiEF Design a full identity for VR Make Up Artist including logo, business cards and website.

BRANDING BRIEF FOR A CLIENT

This was one of the two experiences I had in this module of working with a client and having to cater to their needs.The client is a good friend of mine so it made the working atmosphere relaxed and friendly, but it was rather a challenge beginning the brief as she had no idea whatsoever of what she wanted so I had to begin by showing her some ideas of logos using her name and she pointed out to me which bits she liked and disliked.

I found it quite a struggle at first discussing technical aspects of the design with someone who had no idea what I was talking about, but after working for her for a couple of hours we began to understand each other.

I surprised myself with how much I enjoyed creating the logo and experimenting with business cards for the client as it is something I had never done before, although it was rather frustrating having to settle on using the logo development that the client liked and not the one I thought was most effective and which worked best aesthetically.

Working with the client has been a real learning opportunity, and I definitely think I have gained from it as I never thought it would require as much patience as it did, and she has asked me to complete more work for her in the future.

This was a client led branding brief where the client asked for a logo, business cards and website to be designed for her as a way of her promoting her services as a make up artist and showcasing her portfolio of work.

VR MAKE UP ARTIST

WEBSITE DESIGN

Along with the logo and business cards, a simple website was also designed for the client, who asked for specific details and layouts to promote her portfolio of work and the services she offers as a make up artist. She sat with me as I was doing all of the design work and I catered to exactly what she wanted.

The building of this website is ongoing as the client has specified a later deadline, and therefore just the simplistic design has been completed with the client for the module submission.

Printed Business cards

It was definitely a learning opportunity experimenting with creating the business cards and tailoring them to how the client wanted them. She wants to print them professionally rather than me foiling them all by hand, and therefore I had to make a couple to show her how they would work.

I will have opportunities to work with her in the future once her website is up and running, and as she is only a student at the moment, there will be more work she needs doing in the future.

BRiEF Design an identity for HCHC Fashion Design, focusing on logo and business cards.

BRANDING BRIEF FOR A CLIENT

This was another branding brief for a client who is a fashion design student currently on a placement year.

She asked for a logo and business cards creating and possibly wants a portfolio and website designing in the future.

HC FASHION DESIGN

This was the first logo and branding brief I completed, not only for the module, but it was the first time I worked one on one for a client. There were many difficulties to overcome within the design process as there is a considerable geographic distance between us so all conversations had to be done over Skype and with sending files back and forth. This created quite a difficult working process as I had to interpret her instructions and ideas and then design to the best of my abilities within them.

The client asked for a logo containing her initials and a geometric shape. I interpreted this in many different ways, creating different combinations of her initials (HCHC) and combining them with different shapes, then sent her a series of presentation boards of different logo ideas. She chose the one she liked the best and had some changes she wanted making to it. I then also asked her to send me some examples of her work so I could tailor the logo to suit her designs, and she also sent me some swatches of fabrics she had been using. This gave me the idea to create a logo that can be used both as a block colour, and also with transparancies, so that different swatches of fabric can be placed behind it so they show through into the logo itself. This gave me the idea for the business cards of layering the logo over the swatch of fabric to create a visual texture of fabric. Creating the logo in this way also allows the client to be able to change and refresh her logo on a regular basis, and to replace the fabric swatch with one from a garment she is working on at the time.

I really enjoyed this experience of working with the client to produce a logo that she wanted to use and with it being the first branding project I have done for a client, I have definitely learned a lot about the way to work with someone that I am designing for.

Printed Business cards I really enjoyed putting together these business cards, as I feel like they are pretty much within my style of graphic design, and I liked having to explore the idea of textures of fabric within a printed card.

BRiEF Create a series of images to send to the Lego Foundation with an accompanying letter discussing the possibility of sponsorship.

INDIVIDUAL SELF INITIATED BRIEF

This is a self initiated brief as a part of my work with the charity East African Playgrounds. We have a set amount of fundraising that each volunteer needs to complete, so I decided to write to the Lego Foundation to ask for a sponsorship, and I decided to create a graphic design piece to illustrate my letter.

EAP LEGO SPONSORSHIP

Digital Lego Playground I absolutely loved the challenge of building an entire playground out of 10mm x 10mm digital Lego pieces and I am really proud of the final out come. It was definitely worth the patience and persistence it required to complete.

The charity East African Playgrounds works to build playgrounds and teach arts/sports to children in Uganda (and other areas of East Africa) and their charity ethos is that of the importance of play. I discovered that Lego share almost the exact same ideals and decided that it would be worth a shot writing to them and asking for their support. I decided the best way I could do this and to attract their attention would be to use my skills as a graphic designer to create accompanying images to my letter to illustrate the point I am making.

I decided to grab their attention I would build a playground out of Lego, making it obvious that their involvement could work within the charity. After originally attempting to make a playground out of physical Lego bricks and struggling with the bricks I had, I decided to do it digitally instead. I learned from a tutorial how to draw out the first initial brick, then from there on simply experimented with building up the composition. I also created the EAP logo from digital lego bricks to accompany the playground.

Considering the fact that this was a self initiated brief, I have learned an unbelievable amount, particularly with software skills. I normally struggle greatly with 3 dimensional pieces and have great difficulty understanding perspectives, yet I think these images have turned out amazingly. I can’t wait to send them off to the Lego Foundation with my letter to potentially get some feedback about whether the people at Lego also think they were successful or not.

I think I can safely say this has been my favourite module to date since being enrolled on the course.

I have learned an unbelievable amount, and my confidence within my own work has sky rocketed.

This module allowed me to explore briefs I had chosen and was interested in and has allowed me to see more of what kind of graphic designer I want to be. I have explored briefs I would previously have never imagined myself doing, such as the L’Artisan Parfumeur brief, where I have learned new physical skills and also new ways of interpretting briefs.

Although I feel as if I had a brain wave with the Batiste brief when generating the initial concept, there was a solid thought process behind it and the project Alex and I created thoroughly stuck to every single detail in the brief.

For the Batiste brief, I also looked heavily into the context of where the products would be sold, and how to reach the extremely wide target audience. I definitely feel as if I have learned a vital understanding of target audiences which is already appearing in my work in other modules. I feel as if I have also improved within my concept generation and getting ideas out, and although I was stuck with the Douwe Egberts Coffee brief for rather a long time, I still managed to complete it with an idea I believed in even if the execution was not quite up to standard.

One area where I have slightly improved but which is also still lacking is that of time management and organising what I am doing. I personally find it quite difficult to manage time in general and it is something I am working on, but this module has helped greatly as the briefs I have been working on have been competitions or for clients, so I have to manage the time I have to be able to meet the deadlines. I think that through this module concerning live briefs has pushed me to keep on top of the planning more. I think working on two different collaborative briefs at the same time also helped me to manage my time as I was not only having to work to a deadline, but also to the schedules of the other group members.

Module evaluation

Although I think the group work was one of the more challenging parts of the module as I find working in a group one of my weaknesses, I willingly asked Alex to collaborate with me and through doing that, we created what is by far my strongest brief from this module. I actually feel that the most challenging part of the module was the first main individual brief for studio brief one (Douwe Egberts Coffee) as the brief technically only needed a couple of weeks to complete, yet I had several months to do that work which is why I think I got close to giving up on it. I think I possibly tried to overcomplicate the concept in the beginning and managed to get completely stuck in one place with it.

One of the things I am particularly pleased with this module is the physical skills I have learned. I now have the confidence to go and use the laser cutter in a future project and to experiment with building mock ups of more ambitious ideas. I have also learned how to present my work in aa much more professional way, not only with presentation boards, but also with mocking up finished products and even within crafting skills, such as with creating the business cards and the wooden perfume boxes.

Overall, I have found this module incredibly beneficial. It has given me huge amounts of confidence in my work and has improved the way I see group work. It has excited me about working in the industry, and I have learned more of how to deal with clients. I have also impressed myself with the work I have completed in this module, particularly the two collaborative briefs. I have many areas I still need to improve up on and if I were to do this module again, I would have much more of an understanding of how I should have managed my time, but I know I am getting there with it.

module deadline : 18th April 2013