Project report by James Keefe

OUGD503 RESPONSIVE

Project Report JAMES KEEFE

CONTENTS 1. D&AD/ The Body Shop/ Collaborative 2. YCN/ Nescafe Azera/ Individual 3. TIGER PRINT/ Competition 4. JACKED/ part1/ Live 5. JACKED/ part2/ Live 6. JUICE IT/ Live 7. R.A.B PUBLISHING/ Live 8. SOUND VIZION UK/ Live

D&AD/ The Body Shop

The Brief

D&AD/ The Body Shop

Founded by Anita Roddick in 1976, The Body Shop is the original ‘nature and ethical beauty’ brand. They want to be relevant for the future with their own unique visual identity that reflects their DNA; a creative, intelligent, pioneering, rule breaking, law changing, original and true beauty brand.

should encompass their quirky tone of voice, product efficacy and premium beauty credibility. We were asked to create five posters designs, one for each product: Body Butter, Colour Crush Lipstick, Drops of Youth and White Musk Eau De Parfum, and one poster for a social campaign idea. Although the posters are the main primary communication channels, the brief required us to explore one other channel that could bring depth and newness to their campaigns.

Anchored through their window posters, the creative challenge is to expand from there to form a new visual communication style. The work Collaboration I have enjoyed working in groups on previous briefs so I was looking forward to working in a partnership; I hadn’t worked with one other person before so this was a new challenge for me. To tackle the brief I partnered up with Roxxie Blackham, one of my peers that has different strengths that when combined, form the basis for a strong partnership. Evaluation What attracted me to the brief was the opportunity to work on a D&AD project. I have never entered the competition before and to me, it’s the most prestigious one to win. Also, the brief had enough depth for us to both produce a good body of work as well as having equal creative input. To produce the posters we used a technique called quilling. This was new to me and took a lot of trail, error and patients. However, I really enjoyed working with paper and liked the control and focus it demanded to produce finals to a high standard.

I learnt a lot throughout this brief, particularly about myself. I enjoy working with others because it motivates me, I want to provide the best of my ability in order not to let down my partner and get the most out of the brief. I enjoyed working with the opposite gender as it offered different views on ideas and concepts. I feel the combination of both genders and contrasting strengths and weaknesses played in our favour in creating a wellconsidered final design. With all briefs there are problems to overcome. The main issue we had was time; the quilling was so time consuming and required a lot of our attention. This meant we had to delegate less time to the other channel section of the brief in order to meet the deadline. Apart from that, the overall experience was positive and has given me confidence in my ability to share and discus ideas, reflect and develop concepts and finish work to a high standard.

Re-establish the original beauty pioneers. 1.

YCN/ Nescafe Azera

Individual

YCN/ Nescafe Azera

Individual

YCN/ Nescafe Azera

Individual

The Brief

YCN/ Nescafe Azera

Millions of coffee lovers are becoming baristas in their own homes following the introduction of Nescafe Azera, a new way to look at instant coffee. Through combining a tasteful blend of beans, the product delivers a true barista style beverage, with all the aroma, taste and look of a coffee shop. The brand is all about finding the possible and not living by the limitations of the conventional.

The brief requires me to create a new product innovation and a campaign to launch it both in-store and through social media. A concept statement explaining my idea will support this. It can be a simple design tweak to a revolution but it’s got to be convenient to fit into the consumer’s busy lifestyles. I was asked to consider creative solutions for ensuring the consumers are able to access the highest quality coffee in an instant.

Individual I found this brief really daunting, as it was my first in-depth competition brief. I struggled to come up with a strong concept and spent a lot of time changing ideas and defining exactly I needed to achieve. However, I feel it set me up for the collaborative brief better, studio sessions with Fred helped me understand how to break down a brief to design for a specific target audience.

The brief was set by YCN, which is one of the reasons why I chose it. I wanted to enter YCN as well as D&AD to give myself a better chance of winning one of them. Also, I am a consumer of this product so I thought it would be a good brief to work on.

3D software would have been more appropriate but I have no knowledge of how to use the programs so I had to find my own way of working to complete the deliverables. If I’m honest, I wasn’t very happy with the outcome and feel I could of done a lot better if I had managed my time and allocated specific days to complete tasks. This brief got pushed to one side as I became more disheartened with my idea and was left till last minuet. In hindsight, I should of chose a different brief that I was more enthusiastic about. However, my disappointment in my resolutions has motivated me to improve my software skills to aid in better visual mock-ups to present my work to a professional standard. This is something I will be working towards improving over the summer period.

To bring my concept to life I had to propose my idea with mock-ups because it wasn’t feasible to make physical products. To achieve this I created my responses digitally in illustrator. This was a real challenge for me because I hadn’t done anything like this before and found it difficult to visualise the concept without it looking tacky and amateur.

Although I feel my response was average, it has made me want to improve my overall work-flow and professional practise to produce work to the best of my ability. I will use this experience to reflect on when I face new briefs that I may not be fully inspired with so I can apply a professional approach in tackling the creative problems.

Evaluation

CONCEPT/ Statement

Individual

‘Pleasure in the Ease of an Instant’ is a campaign that aims to connect with the young and dynamic with hectic lifestyles. It does this by making the product easily accessible in-store and throughout the day to help with the stress of work and travel.

The product will be sold in conjunction with a limited edition thermo cup that consumers can take with them when commuting. This acts as free advertisement for the brand and generates customer loyalty by offering free refills when used in the commuter vending machines.

The campaign will be launched through twitter using vending machines situated outside of supermarkets. The consumer simply sends a tweet to the vending machines custom twitter identity with the hash-tag ‘Instant’ to receive a free sample of coffee.

TIGER PRINT/ Competition

The Brief

Tiger Print

In conjunction with Marks and Spencer, Tiger Print is running a competition for the opportunity to design surface patterns for a male or female recipient that could be used across a range of everyday products such as gift bags, wrapping paper and stationary products. Focusing on black and white, think about how patterns can be created and applied.

The patterns will need to communicate one of the following themes: organic, floral, geometric, traditional, retro/vintage, abstract and mark making. The brief allowed up to five designs to be submitted.

Evaluation The majority of my briefs have been live briefs so I wanted to enter one more competition to have the opportunity of competing against others. The reward was a cash prize with the chance of a placement if selected which appealed to me, well, mainly the cash prize, as I am a poor student. I decided to loosely base my designs around a geometric theme focusing on squares to construct the patterns. This was achieved digitally by manipulating the shapes stroke and experimenting with different brush finishes to create abstract interpretations of the theme. I found out about the brief close to the deadline so I had to work for a quick turn around. This is one of my weaknesses that I am trying to improve on so the brief was good practise at producing work in a limited amount of time. This made me realise I need to try and not over complicate things in order to be more productive and focus on the task at hand.

Overall I submitted five designs but felt two were the strongest and best fit the target audience. If I was to do the brief again I think I would liked to have experimented with ink and mark making opposed to digital to give it a more personal feel.

Competition

JACKED part1/ Live

The Brief

Jacked part 1

Jacked is an up and coming music event based in Lincoln. It strives to provide quality parties for all types of people to come and enjoy different genres of house music, particularly bass driven electronic music. The brief was to brand the event towards house music enthusiasts to create an edgy, recognisable and welcoming brand identity. I was asked to design a logo to be featured across a range of media: social media, staff T-shirts and interior/exterior banners. Evaluation I chose to take on this brief because I am a fan of this type of event and enjoy listening to house music. It also gave me freedom and creative control within reason. I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get paid for the work I did but it wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t a priority for this brief because I am a close friend with the client and wanted to be involved in helping build the events reputation. This made me realise that it can be good thing to be involved in non-profit projects to allow me to have creative control to produce work that I want to produce for my own sanity, as some briefs may not always be what I want to design. To reflect the characteristics of the music and event, I constructed the logo out of geometric shapes to represent the structured rhythms of the music. This worked well to create a bold logo with impact. To balance out the logo I chose to use softer colours to enhance the design when displayed in a dark context. This worked particularly well on the banners as they were situated inside

and out in lower lighting conditions. The main issue that arose was getting the letter-forms right so they were readable, this took a lot of reflection and adjustment till the client was happy with the logo. I had a good relationship with the client and had a lot of contact throughout the brief to discus ideas and amendments, this has given me more confidence in communicating my ideas and offering advice on what I think would enhance the brief.

Live

JACKED part2/ Live

The Brief

Jacked part 2

Following on from the branding side of the previous brief, the client has asked me to design the promotional material for the events. The events take place every third Friday of the month and feature new up and coming DJs within the scene. The deliverables consist of posters, flyers, CD, banners and social media images.

Evaluation The client liked the work I did for the branding and has asked me to design the promotional material for the foreseeable. I am going to continue creating designs for the brand because I have enjoyed it and its become a bit of a hobby for me which will keep me busy and designing in my own time. Each event had different DJs headlining or a specific theme so I based my designs around their custom logos to personalise each poster. The music is associated with the underground scene so I wanted to reflect this through the designs. The 90s themed poster was the exception; this was based on retro colours and computer games for a kitsch style of design. The positive to take from the brief was learning how to adapt a design to work across a range of media and formats whilst still keeping continuity and familiarity within the designs. However, I have done a lot of social media images now, which is

becoming a little tedious. I appreciate the popularity of social networking, and it is cost effective, but I feel like I want to try and move away from this and try other things before I leave college. The brief as a whole has been enjoyable and fun to be apart of and I will continue to produce artwork for the client in my spare time.

'Pure No-Nons

Live

sense Partying' ( HOUSE & BASS ) 5.

JUICE IT/ Live

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The Brief Juice It is a company based in Australia that wholesales electrical accessories such as USB iPhone 5 chargers. The client asked me to design a logo that communicated fruit and juice, putting juice into something, to charge it. The logo needed to work in conjunction with a packaging concept. The client specified that the packaging needed to stand out at point of sale so it needed to be eye catching while communicating ideas of fruit and dripping juice. Evaluation I wanted to have ago at this brief because I have enjoyed designing logos in my other briefs and I wanted to have ago at some packaging design, as I havenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t worked with this much yet. Taking on this brief meant I was putting myself out of my comfort zone to see if I could provide a professional level of service. I was really pleased with the logo I designed because I think it has a strong, simple concept that communicates the nature of the brand well. I was competing with another designer and had to pitch my logo ideas to the client to secure the work. This was a really rewarding experience for me because I put a lot of thought into the design and it paid off because the client chose to use my logo. This gave me a lot of confidence in my ability to develop a concept and pitch my ideas professionally. I found the brief a real challenge and had to solve a few problems along the way. The main problem I

Juice It

faced involved issues with Pantone swatches. Certain colours that were specified by the client werenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t in illustrator so I had to import the Pantone colour booklets from an earlier version of the software to use the correct colours. This was a learning curve for me and took some trail and error till I got it right. I had to explain to the client how certain colours could be affected depending on stock and ink types. This made me realise how much I have learnt since being at college and gave me confidence in my ability. After choosing my logo, the client gave me the opportunity to pitch some ideas for a packaging concept. I found this really difficult because the client wanted me to create realistic looking fruit and splashing juice. I designed some variations and pitched them to the client but unfortunately my designs didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get picked. This was disappointing but I feel I did my best and was pleased with the final outcome. Out of all the live briefs I have completed, I feel this one was the most beneficial in providing me with an industry experience and giving me a better idea of how it is when working with clients from a professional and more corporate style of business.

Live

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R.A.B PUBLISHING/ Live

The Brief R.A.B is a small book publishing company based in Oxford. The brief is to design two artworks that communicate quotes from well known Hip hop tracks. The designs will be featured online and sold as prints or canvases. Evaluation The client got in touch with me through my Behance profile asking me to create two artworks referencing two of my previous works he liked. I was offered a percentage if my designs sold but I chose to do the brief because I thought it would be good exposer as the designs will be available to purchase globally. I was asked to create similar designs to other work I had done in the past so I had a good idea of what I wanted to achieve. This allowed me to create the artworks quickly and efficiently. When I was first contacted, I was unsure about how to approach it so I asked John Watters for some advice, he suggested asking for a contract with details of payment and signing over copy write etc. This was alien to me so it gave me a better understanding of the business side and what precautions I should take to cover myself. Although I enjoyed creating the artworks I didn’t find it a challenge because I knew how to achieve the style of images the client requested.

R.A.B Publishing

“Don’t push m I’m close to t I’m trying not head/It’s like Sometimes it me wonder/H from goin’ un

Live

me cause the edge/ t to lose my e a jungle. t makes How I keep nder.â&#x20AC;?

SOUND VIZION UK/ Live

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The Brief Sound Vizion UK is a music production company based in Lincoln that provides a professional and quality service that meets all your musical needs, from mixing to production, entrance themes, media projects, tv, adverts, filmâ&#x20AC;Ś The brief is to design a logo for the brand to be used in a digital space. Evaluation The brief required a logo design that reflected the nature of the business and the quality of the service provided. I went about solving this by designing a clinical, corporate style logo to communicate professionalism and high-end services. The client was pleased with the design and I proposed a business card design incorporating the logo to show the possibilities and application of the logo on a different medium. I am definitely growing in confidence when it comes to communicating my ideas verbally and visually however, I feel my verbal skills still need a lot of improvement. I have completed a few branding briefs now that I have really enjoyed designing which makes me think this could be a possible career path for me after college.

Sound Vizion UK

Live

JAMES KEEFE