Project report1

Project Report OUGD 503 Responsive

D&AD The Body Shop Tigerprint Valentines Cards YCN Cath Kidston Tigerprint Surface Pattern The Pink Teapot Avatar Design Hall’s Business Cards YCN Oasis

Daisy Conway

Contents D&AD The Body Shop

page 2-5

Tigerprint Valentines Cards

page 6-7

YCN Cath Kidston

page 8-11

Tigerprint Surface Pattern

page 12-15

The Pink Teapot

page 16-21

Avatar Design

page 22-23

Hall’s Business Cards

page 24-25

YCN Oasis

page 26-31

Summative Evaluation

page 32-33

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D&AD The Body Shop The Body Shop brief was the first major competition brief I have ever entered and it’s for D&AD student awards. The brief was asking for five A2 poster designs, four being for different products and one being a social campaign design, also an interactive campaign. I chose the brief because I thought that it would be straightforward and that I would be able to relate to The Body Shop audience, therefore design effectively for them. Creating posters to advertise products is something that I enjoy which is why this brief stood out to me.

men. I have never designed for men exclusively, this is something I had to adapt to and learn to get through this brief. It is also something I really enjoyed doing, it was refreshing designing for a different target audience and working outside of the box.

For the four main posters I had to promote, White Musk, Colour Crush Lipstick, Body Butter, and Youth Drops. Initially I wanted the posters to just be funny, but thinking about what would appeal to men made me think about using simple illustrations and type to insinuate a sexual/cheeky act. Doing this will make men think if they treat their partner to this product, their partner may treat them back.

Using suggestive illustrations, short whitty sentences and a slightly altered description of the product, I created four humorous posters. Having an alternative target audience is my main strength for this brief, as it allowed my social campaign to be targeted towards men too. Targeting a serious issue in a lighthearted way allows men to connect with it more and listen to the message being communicated. It also allowed me to create something, which is outside of my comfort zone.

The brief stated that The Body Shop are ‘rule changers’ and ‘law breakers’ they also said that their audience are ‘female (not exclusively)’ therefore I decided to change the target audience. Still working within the brief, and communicating what they asked for, whilst pushing the boundaries to make my design stand out and be different. This is a strength within my response, as directing my posters to a male audience will force the judges to notice them rather than them being the same as everything else.

The choice of my target audience meant that I would have to design the posters in different way. I communicated the messages using humour and innuendo to connect with

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The Body Shop

For the interactive campaign I have followed the same aesthetic and the same concept. Body shop have a loyalty card already, although its not interactive, its just a stamp on a card.

This loyalty card would allow the male audience(not exclusively for men) to earn points as they bought Body Shop products, these would be called ‘man points’ which tally up to get to the next base. The audience would have a physical loyalty card and then they could go to the Body Shop website and view their account to find out how many points they have. Each reward station is known as a base, playing on the high school metaphors for relationships, this is a fun tongue in cheek message.

The Body Shop brief has taught me a lot, it has made me think about what I can and cannot use for an external competition, so that I don’t breach any copyright laws. It has also taught me that when I read the briefs I need to examine them more and find out what they are actually looking for, getting rid of all the unnecessary bits that they put in the brief. This is something that I will consider when starting other briefs. Also to always consider the target audience, as I will be designing for them, not for me.

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The Body Shop

SPRITZ HER WITH WHITE MUSK.

MAKE HER LIPS RAVISHING.

WHITE MUSK EAU DE PARFUM

COLOUR CRUSH LIPSTICK

Our iconic White Musk(®) fragrance in a lasting eau de parfum. This sensual scent unites a heady mix of notes including musk, lily, iris, rose and vanilla. So full of flowers that this is all you’ll need to make her happy.

This range of luscious lipsticks give her a stunning pop of colour and rich moisture, infused with a subtle rose scent. They make her lips soft to the touch and good enough to kiss.

SHE’LL BE YOUNGER FOR LONGER.

CHECK OUT THEM COCONUTS. COCONUT BODY BUTTER

DROPS OF YOUTH

This rich and creamy Body Butter is a feast for her skin. It melts straight in to leave skin feeling soft and smooth. It contains Community Fair Trade virgin organic coconut oil and has a tropical coconut scent, it smells good enough to eat.

Nutriganics has been created for the first signs of ageing. This innovative concentrate helps to enhance surface skin condition, leaving it looking smoother, fresher and healthier. Saves swapping her in for a younger model.

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The Body Shop

WHILE YOUR THERE HAVE A CHECK. TESTICULAR CANCER

Testicular cancer is one of the most treatable types of cancer if discovered early. Over 95% of men can be completely cured if found early enough.

Make sure you check yourself out regularly every month.

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Tigerprint Valentines Cards Tiger Print is a competition for Marks and Spencer’s. They do a design competition every month, usually to design greetings cards or surface patterns. This competition was to create hand drawn type and use the words that they have given you to create different cards designs for valentines day/Mothers Day/ Birthdays.

I chose this brief because I thought that it would be suited for me. This is one of my strengths during this brief, as I collect a lot of well-designed greetings cards and is something I have a lot of interest in. Although I have found that I don’t like working with hand drawn type, which is a problem I faced during this brief. The fact I don’t like working with hand drawn type shows in my response, as I don’t think the card designs are very strong.

I found this brief through a friend advising me to try it as I love greetings cards and think that they are a good way of getting people to communicate, therefore they thought I would be interested in doing it. This is the smallest brief I have taken on so far, and will give me more of a range. It will also allow me to do a quicker turnover brief for a break from my larger briefs.

I’m glad that I did this brief, as hand drawn type isn’t something I usually do, so I was doing something different, and good to improve my skills. If I were to do this brief again, I would have added some illustrations to make the designs stronger. Although after submitting and looking through my designs, I found that I didn’t like my submissions and think I may try a different Tigerprint brief to submit something I’m more pleased with.

I was given the dimensions of the card (500px by 500px) and was simply asked to design hand drawn type using some of the quotes they suggested.

I looked into the colour scheme and how it would be appropriate for the genre I have chosen (valentines). Red signifies romance therefore I wanted to use this for the valentine’s cards.

For the brief we were able to submit up to five different designs, therefore I decided to submit two colour variations of the designs I made.

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Tigerprint

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YCN Cath Kidston Cath Kidston was a competition brief found on YCN. After completing The Body Shop brief I thought I would attempt another major competition brief. Cath Kidston wanted a new print designing for their stock; they wanted it to be able to be used across a range of different products, from household products to women’s accessories. I chose this brief because I really like most of Cath Kidston prints, and enjoy creating illustrations.

This is something I would change if I were to redo the brief and bare in mind when doing the rest of my briefs, don’t under estimate it and plan better.

Enjoying creating illustrations is a massive strength with this brief. And although it was stressful towards the end, I really enjoyed doing a Cath Kidston print and am pleased with the outcome. Because of this I was keen to do more illustrative briefs and was a huge motivator to keep going to find more for responsive.

The target audience was for women age 29 who are moving out into her own home for the first time. Although I don’t think that Cath Kidston really know their target audience as they described one contradiction after another. What really stood out in the brief was the dedication to being British, and making sure that the print reflects the English heritage. This is why I decided to use the British bulldog as my illustrations, and used the colours of the union jack in my print.

I have learnt so much from doing this brief. Not to waste too much time on alternative ideas if the first few ideas tick all the boxes and I know I will just use that one anyway. Plan my time better throughout all of the briefs.

Also submitting something that you are proud of is a massive motivator for doing more work, rather than past briefs for example, Tigerprint Valentines Cards. Overall I am really happy with the print I designed, and I would actually buy the bed sheets if Cath Kidston were selling them and I think that they effectively communicate the English heritage.

I found that this brief took a lot longer than I thought it would take, my main problem with the brief was that I cut the deadline very fine, therefore my submission boards weren’t as good as they should have been.

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Cath Kidston

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The Body Shop

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The Body Shop

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Tigerprint Surface Pattern I have decided to do another Tigerprint brief; this is because the first Tigerprint brief I did, I wasn’t happy with. The brief this time was to create a surface pattern using only black and white, which would be used for multiple products including, greetings cards, gift bags and tags. There were many suggestions about directions to follow when designing; geometric, flowers, retro, traditional, symmetric ect.

Mocking up is something I have never done before Responsive, it is something I have learnt to do so that I can show how my design would actually work.

Creating geometric surface patterns is different to the kind of work I would usually go for. Although I am pleased with the response to the brief and very pleased with the mocks I created. The problem with the Tigerprint briefs is that you have to just send the design with a small description. Where as other competitions offer you the opportunity to send through design boards to show how the design would work in context. Although I couldn’t send the mock ups for the competition I think that it is important to do them, and I will be producing them for all of my briefs and future works with clients.

Having a limited colour pallet of only using black and white meant that I could focus purely on the pattern itself.

It also means that it’s not subjective to a certain gender, as black and white appeal to both males and females.

Therefore I wanted my pattern to appeal to both genders too. Again we were able to submit up to five surface patterns to the competition and I submitted four.

Geometric patterns are a very effective way of designing; therefore using simple shapes at different angles creates a minimal yet aesthetically pleasing pattern. Mocking the different patterns onto some of the products that they would be selling in Marks and Spencer’s allowed me to see how versatile the prints are. Also showing that they would work together in context.

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Tigerprint

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Tigerprint

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Tigerprint

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The Pink Teapot The Pink Teapot brief was the first live brief I have ever done. The Pink Teapot is a café that has never really has a lot of marketing or promotion of its identity. I have worked there for many years and suggested some alterations to the menu design.

Knowing that I study Graphic Design, Sonya (the owner) asked me if I would be able to do some work for her. She needed a new menu, business cards, signs, gift vouchers, cake packaging, letterheads, stickers and posters designing. This was quite a large brief and consumed a lot of time.

I created characters for Sonya (the owner) and Lisa and Ruby the two main weekday staff. Sonya is the face of the business and she is the reason why I created the characters, as the customers would appreciate them.

The characters reflect the identities of each of the women well, as I know them very well, and they are very pleased with them.

When designing the posters for the café “Be Nice Or Leave” was the quote I used along with images of Sonya’s character. I screen-printed many different versions of the poster with different layouts so that she could choose which one she wanted to use. Just from having the print up in a frame in the café, two customers have bought some of the extra prints that I produced. This was a massive confidence boost and was a success within this brief.

The café is family run and it is very important to the owner that the branding reflects this. The relationship the staff and owner have with the customers is very blunt in a humorous way, sharing stories and jokes; this is a relationship the café wants to keep with their customers. The quote ‘Be Nice Or Leave’ stuck in my head from having a conversation with her, she likes to use this phrase. This is why I decided to use it in my designs.

The problems that occurred during this brief were, that I started to design the menu as a constatina not realizing that Sonya wanted them all laminated.

After attempting different formats and layouts I found that I could laminate the menu as a constatina, it just wouldn’t completely close. This is something Sonya was happy with therefore it’s the way I designed it.

The target audience for The Pink Teapot are middle age to older people with disposable income. Customers who enjoy retro themed environment and music. Families are also welcome however no children’s menu supplied deliberately.

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The Pink Teapot

Sonya

Ruby

I have learnt a lot from doing this brief and working with an actual client. It has been different to doing a competition brief, as I took samples of my designs to Sonya to get her opinion on things, and choose which she preferred, this helped the development of the design.

Lisa

This brief has allowed me to work with a client. It has taught me about when I should bite my tongue and listen to the client, even if I don’t agree with the decisions they are making. I also learnt that I really enjoy creating characters, and from the response I received, people really liked them too.

This is something I want to do more of in my own practice.

Doing this breif has also opened lots of opportunities for me as from this, customers who go into the cafĂŠ have been asking me if I could do some work for them. Also recieving extra money for the screen prints being sold. Working in the cafĂŠ also gives lets me see how people are reacting to the new branding, and everything so far has been positive feedback.

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The Pink Teapot

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The Pink Teapot

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The Pink Teapot

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The Pink Teapot

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Avatar Design From doing The Pink Teapot characters and business cards, I was asked to produce and avatar for a facebook page. This is quite a small, quick turnover brief, it is also something I really enjoy doing. The client called Oscar, is a music producer and DJ, he has a facebook page to keep people up to date with the music he makes.

He wanted it to be a vector illustration, using simple shapes, similar to the characters for The Pink Teapot apart from more square and “chiseled” with a serious face.

Their weren’t many problems occurred with my response to the brief as it was quite small and simple. I struggled sending Oscar the file with a transparent background; therefore this is something I had to learn. This brief went really well, it was a refreshing break from some of my larger briefs, and something I would do again.

I have found throughout doing these briefs that I prefer working with illustrations and producing them. And if I were to do this brief again I would insist on designing something for his cover photo so that he could have something that is similar to the avatar, or using similar colours so that they would have the same aesthetics. As right now I don’t think that the cover photo looks right with avatar design.

I was sent a few images of Oscar’s face to refer to throughout. I found this avatar really easy and fast to produce.

This meant that the client was more impressed as I was able to get the design back to him in the same day so that he could give his feedback. After tweaking the design slightly the client was pleased with it and uses it for the display picture for his facebook page.

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Oscar’s Avatar

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Hall’s Business Cards Tom Hall is a self employed plumber and wanted some business cards designing for him as people had been asking for his information and he was just writing his number and name down. The brief he gave me was very open and as long as it had his name, occupation and number on it, I was free to do what I liked. I started to think about names for the business, and came up with a few. Asking him what his opinion is on them and which one he would choose, he agreed on ‘Hall Plumbers’.

This live brief was different to others I have done, as the client wasn’t as enthusiastic as the previous clients I have worked with. What I found difficult about this brief is how laid back the client was. He seemed to just say yes to every suggestion I had. He didn’t seem to care about the design; he just wanted some business cards.

This encouraged me to get the brief done quite quickly, as I realized that the client just wanted them done.

Although the client wasn’t very involved in the choices made, he seemed to be pleased with the outcome of the business cards. He was especially pleased with the logo and is going to send off for a vinyl sticker for his work van. Through this brief I have learnt that every client is different and have different needs. Some clients like seeing the different possibilities and are open for very creative outcomes; others are just interested in getting a simple and practical design. I will bare this in mind when I am working with clients in the future.

Tom Hall approached me to design the business cards for him, as he is a friend of a friend and thought that I would be able to help him out. I decided to do the brief as I think that it is quite a small brief and will be a quick turnover. I also thought about what I could learn from having another live brief and work more with real clients rather than just competition briefs.

I created a logo for him and some business cards, I also suggested that I could design him some invoices and letterheads for when he is billing people, although he said that he just needed some business cards.

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Hall’s Business Cards

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YCN Oasis Messages For the Collaborative brief I chose Emily Lodge as my partner. She is very motivated worker; she also says it as it is, so if she didn’t agree with something she would say which is something I was looking for in a partner. We also both have different skills as I am more illustrative and Emily is more type and layout based.

As a partnership we decided to do a brief that would use both of our skills and try something a bit different form the brief we had already chosen.

Creating messages that could be used online, in store and also used on ephemera connected to the messages. This showed how versatile the design is and cannot only be used as signs, but on the products to link the messages to the focus of the messages.

Oasis’s target audience on the brief is “girly and fun with a passion for fashion and style.” also suggesting that they are teenage girls, although in reality the clothes are quite formal and not suited towards teenage girls.

We aimed kept our designs girly and fun, but weren’t so patronising in our approach, as we didn’t think it was appropriate for the customers who actually shop in Oasis.

The Oasis brief was found on YCN competition briefs. This is something that would incorporate both of our skills, which is why we decided to choose it. Looking back, we should have chosen a different brief as to the end we both discovered that neither of us like Oasis or shop there.

Writing up a contract on what each of us would be doing in the partnership worked really well as we didn’t argue and just got done what we planned to do. Emily and I were a good match as we both had the same amount of motivation for the brief. I learnt from this brief to chose something that I have more interest in when I have the chance to. Although I am glad we chose this brief as it was all digitally submitted therefore everything needed to be mocked up onto things to show how they would work in context.

The brief stated that the creative challenge was to write a suite of service messages that will stand out in stores. The messages couldn’t be seasonal, but should be available across various channels, from in store to online. The brief was quite vague in what it wanted, and there were many different possibilities and places we could take this brief. This is another reason why we decided to go for the Oasis brief, because we could take it further than the basic requirements.

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Oasis

The main problem that I faced during this brief is the fact that I wasn’t very strong on illustrator, although mocking up was Emily’s job; I felt that I should learn how to use it. Emily taught me a lot about Photoshop and mocking up designs, and I am a lot stronger and more confident using it now, and applied this new skill in my other briefs.

Another problem we both had was that Oasis doesn’t know who their target audience is. They seem to be aiming their advertising and messages to a younger audience when the people who actually shop there are closer to middle age. This is something we tried to cover in the design, appealing to both audiences.

Learning how to mock up using illustrator is the most helpful thing I have learnt during this brief, as I will need it for the rest of my practice and am grateful for Emily teaching me how. Also choosing a good partner that you will get along with to do your collaborative brief is key, and making sure you both have different skills to add to the partnership. This creates a better working environment when you get along with your partner, unlike a few other partnerships I have seen.

Also learning from observation of other partnerships never chose a friend to work with, as it never ends well.

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Oasis

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Oasis

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Oasis

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Oasis

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Summative Evaluation When I started this module, I was initially quite worried about how I would do a minimum of 5 individual briefs, and more importantly, how I would manage the collaborative brief. I think that having briefs set for you allows you to have an excuse if anything goes wrong by saying its not really your thing. Although choosing our own brief would put more pressure on them.

At the start of the module the pressure of choosing our own briefs was very high, although I found that when I started actually doing the briefs I really enjoyed the fact that I was able to choose what I wanted to do.

Through this module I wanted to do a range of larger and smaller briefs, and I think I did that well as I have larger and smaller briefs for competitions and live briefs. I also wanted to take advantage of the fact that I could choose my own briefs, and do more of the kind of briefs I enjoy doing.

The main individual brief I started on, I decided to explore the boundaries of the brief, and see how far I could push it without changing the brief completely.

I really enjoyed The Body Shop brief as I think that going from a different angle made my design different and stand out. The Body Shop is a company I really like, and it was really

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good designing for a company that is interested in helping people and being animal friendly. I also already know a lot about The Body Shop as I do shop there, therefore I felt that I had an advantage when approaching this brief.

This module has helped me to develop my skills and develop as a designer.

I have found more of what I am interested in, as I previously thought that I would go into packaging, but I have found that I am more interested in illustrating. I have also gained experience with working with clients, and discovering that every client is different and each client has different needs and work in different ways.

Responsive has helped me with my time management and organization.

Each brief has a different deadline, therefore I was working to each of the separate deadlines, where as with uni briefs the deadlines aren’t as official and I usually have lots to do for the module deadline, whereas for this deadline I have been very prepared and ready for it. I have also enjoyed being able to just pick up another brief when I am stuck with the one I am currently doing for a break, especially if it is a small short brief, giving me a refreshing break from the larger briefs.

Evaluation

There are a few briefs that I have done during responsive that I am not proud of, but this module allowed me to learn from this from my mistakes, and move forward when it comes to the next brief. I have enjoyed being in control of my own workload and doing the brief s in my own time/ Particularly liked choosing which briefs I wanted to do, and when I could do them. I have also taken advantage of doing live briefs, as people have asked me to do work for them in the past but because f this course I haven’t found time. But having a Responsive module allowed me to do both at the same time.

Overall I have really enjoyed this module and think that it has been my best and favorite module through the whole course. It has developed me as a designer and taught me more about working with live briefs. The structure of this module has meant that I was able to do the briefs I wanted, when I wanted to do them, which has given me more freedom and allowed me to explore what kind of a designer I am.

Doing the collaborative brief was my biggest fear with this module as I am not a fan of working in a group.

I was also worried about choosing a partner and whether I would have someone to go with. Although I was very surprised with my partnership as I think that it worked really well. We both had different skills, which meant I could focus on the bits I enjoyed whilst she focused on the aspects that she enjoys. The outcomes for my collaborative brief I was really happy with and I think that working as a collaborative partnership was very successful for us, as I learnt that group work could sometimes work.

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