Design Responsive Project Report
Melissa Hardcastle
CONTENTS
4-5
Christmas Card
6-7
Surface Pattern
8 - 11
Cath Kidston YCN
12 - 13
Birthday Invitation
14 - 15
Black & White
16 - 17
Craft Brew Tour Logo
18 - 23
Oasis
24 - 25
Summative Evaluation
Tigerprint
Christmas Card Competition
The Brief : To design a Christmas card inspired by any of the traditional Christmas icons. The Christmas card should be made appropriate for sale in retail shops such as Marks & Spencer.
Considerations : Aimed at either a male of female audience as buying Christmas cards is not gender specific, however certain designs would of course be likely to appeal to one or the other.
This was a competition brief that I thoroughly enjoyed working on as it is an area of design that I am very much interested in, but had not yet had the opportunity to work on such a brief. Another reason as to why this was such an enjoyable brief for me, was due to the fact that it is good time of the year which has a lot of design and traditional aesthetic related around it.
The Christmas icons that I chose to explore for this brief : Reindeer / Christmas Lights / Presents / Wreath I felt that this was a diverse list of options to explore and therefore began to design. The two designs that I feel were most successful in terms of my originality are the ones which explore the Christmas lights and presents icons.
Being that this competition brief was launched in the build up to Christmas, it meant that there was a great deal of research that was available. As part of my research for this brief I visited the popular German Market in Leeds, as well as visiting a number of shops in the city centre that sold Christmas cards, gift wrap and decorations. I also listened to Christmas music and watched several films to seek further research and influences.
The card design featuring the Christmas lights was done by photographing some Christmas decoration lights that I purchased. I then edited the image by converting to grey-scale and applying filters which left the aesthetic slightly distorted and slightly different from the traditional appearance of the icon. The card that was inspired by the icon of presents was an idea that I continued to develop as it began with a hand rendered illustration of a photograph I had taken of some prop Christmas presents that were in a Shop window in Leeds. I then digitalised the illustration and applied a fill to achieve an authentic and original aesthetic for the card.
Work for this brief progressed after I had concluded my research. Each entrant for the competition was allowed to submit up to five entries, which I knew meant could improve my chances of having my designs recognised and would also allow me to explore the different ideas that I had already come up with. 4
Tigerprint
Christmas Card Competition
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Tigerprint
Surface Pattern Competition
The Brief : To design a surface pattern that would be appropriate to have on either a greetings card, gift wrap/bags or stationary.
Considerations : Aimed at either a male of female audience.
Again this was another brief that appealed to me as it was an area which I had not yet worked in and was glad of the opportunity to do so.
I knew that the collateral that he surface pattern will be applied to, are all products which are stereotypically usually purchased more often by females and so this was also a contributing factor in my decision for the design focus.
I found the format of the Tigerprint competition easy to work with and chose to participate in this competition after having enjoyed the previous one so much.
I also wanted to explore the idea of designing for a male audience however, the design intended for a male audience is also one which I could see being popular with a female audience too.
The non gender specific target audience seemed a little tricky at first as this is a factor that would influence my designs and themes massively. I chose to explore surface pattern themes that could be appropriate for male and female audiences individually which allowed me to create two different patterns. Once again, each entrant was able to submit up to five designs to showcase their work for the competition which allowed me to explore the different options.
The rose patterned patterns were created by photographing a bunch of roses that I had bought for this purpose, I then did a series of hand rendered illustrations from these images after having edited them to bring out the tonal quality. After drawing by hand I then chose to digitalise some of the more successful illustrations, and then selected areas and chose to repeat in order to create the pattern that I did. Being that roses/floral themes can be very popular and therefore already existent in this field of design I wanted to explore the potential of creating different aesthetics by editing the colours in the digitalised illustration.
I decided that designing for a female audience would perhaps be easier as I would be able to obtain better primary research into the appropriate themes for the surface pattern. 6
Tigerprint
Surface Pattern Competition
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YCN
Cath Kidston Surface Pattern
The Brief : To design one new conversational print taking into account our brand values and print style.
Considerations : Use a maximum of 12 colours only and submit in both stepped out and repeat pattern in 3 different colour ways.
When reading this brief It became increasingly apparent that they had described an extremely specific target audience. As well as the information above under the considerations, the brief also stated that the target audience is...
With the brief being so specific as to what they wanted I found it difficult initially to come up with a concept for the pattern. After much deliberating I decided to explore the potential of a textile themed surface pattern and produced vector images of what I believed to be easily recognisable icons within this theme.
“... has a job she really enjoys, has a close group of friends and a family she values, she doesn’t have children yet... but she’s got plenty of friends who have.”
The icons I illustrated: Sewing machine / Tailors dummy / Needle and thread / Bobbin / Buttons / Scissors / Coat hanger
The brief also describes their existing prints and brand values as the following...
I felt as though I had developed a good concept in response to this brief and chose to work with fun vibrant colours to reproduce the pattern in three different colour ways. I have chosen to present my designs in the repeat pattern format so that the full aesthetic of my entry can be seen.
“Approachable, warm, friendly, cheerful and fun. Confident quirky, imaginative and unique. Modern, relevant, comforting and homely. Straightforward and real.” “Contemporary classing but not retro repro. Reinventing the brands favourites but not copying out past. Coloured using a bold and distinctive palette.” 8
YCN
Cath Kidston Surface Pattern
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YCN
Cath Kidston Surface Pattern
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YCN
Cath Kidston Surface Pattern
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Live Brief Birthday Invitation
The Brief : Design an invitation for a twenty-first Birthday party.
Considerations : Classy and in keeping with the party venue.
For this brief I was asked to design an invitation for a clients 21st Birthday party that would be taking place at the Yorkshire Hotel in Harrogate, North Yorkshire.
familiar with the aesthetics that my client would find appealing for the invitations. My client also requested that the design of the invite remained simple as the colour of the decorations for the party itself had not yet been decided on. As a solution I suggested that the party invites be black and white, leaving the decision of the colour of decorations to be made at a later stage as the invites would go with most colours available for decorations. This was something which my client agreed with as being a good idea and was then happy for me to go on and produce the invite.
My initial response after the client had requested for the invites to remain in keeping with the venue was to research the hotel itself so that I fully understood its status. Fortunately the venue is only ten minutes away from where I live and I had attended another party there a few weeks before this brief. The hotel seemed like a smart and sophisticated, located in the centre of the town. My client also informed me that the majority of guests who would be receiving invites to the party, lived in and around Harrogate, meaning that the content for the invite would not have to include great detail as to the whereabouts of the hotel as it was likely that most people, if not everyone would already know.
I remained in close contact with my client for the duration of this brief so that I was able to regularly update her on changes and alterations made to the design. Overall I am pleased with the outcome, as was my client which left me feeling as though I had accomplished the goals set out initially by client on completion of this live brief.
Knowing my client on a personal basis was an advantage as it put me in a good stance to begin my design work as I am already 12
Live Brief Birthday Invitation
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Tigerprint Black and White
The Brief : To design a new black and white pattern that differs from existing solutions.
Considerations : The target audience is both male and female.
For this brief I was excited to explore the potential of creating a surface pattern using only black and white colours. Restricting the colours limited the design possibilities in terms of using colour to create pattern through imagery etc. But it was also a really good challenge as a Graphic Design student to see what I would be capable of producing using only the two colours from the brief.
were in the correct format and were black and white. Similarly to the other Tigerptint competitions again, the target audience was not very specific as the brief stated the giftbags/stationary etc. that the patterns would be applied to should be appropriate for a male or female audience. With the theme of the brief being so broad I thought to myself that it did not matter greatly that the target audience had not been very specific.
Black and white are the two colours that I have always enjoyed working with. I like the simplicity and sophistication that they provide in design work so this was a perfect brief for me to work on.
Black and white is a colour combination which the majority of people enjoy and it was therefore important to really grasp an innovative and solid design for the pattern. Whilst generating all the different responses I found myself working very quickly, which to me was a sign of how motivated and inspired I was to complete this brief. It was one which I very much enjoyed working on and the time spent completing the work for submission only further encouraged my desire to work with black and white again in future design work.
I began by thinking about all the different ideas I could explore when designing for this brief and chose to jump straight into designing and explored these ideas further by generating and developing a large quantity of responses. Once again, for this Tigerprint competition each entrant was able to submit up to five different designs, providing that they 14
Tigerprint Black and White
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99 Designs Craft Brew Tour Logo
The Brief : To design a new logo for Craft Brew Tour business based In Orange County, California.
Considerations : Logo is for a company that provides luxury beer brewery tours for both men and women.
This was a brief that I came across just a few days before the submission deadline, however with the only deliverable being a logo for this new business I felt as though it was an achievable task.
After some more thought I arrived at the idea to include an illustration that could be suggestive of the locations which the tour will include and so I created a brewery image on Illustrator.
Designing a logo is something that I have only done a few times when working on branding projects so I felt as though this would be a good competition to include in the Individual Practice brief for the Responsive module.
Colour decisions were made mainly for aesthetic reasons however the decision to have orange present in the design was influenced by the area in the State of California in America where the tours would be taking place - Orange County. I felt this to be a good design decision as it further informed potential customers of the location.
The brief was not specific about what the logo would be applied to, nor was it specific about the colours that they would like to see present in the design. This left me feeling a little unsure initially, however I chose to jump straight into designing.
The secondary colour I chose to use was selected primarily as I felt it worked well with the existing colours in the palette. But after some thought and having looked at the logo for a long time throughout the design process, it came to my attention that the dark blue could perhaps communicate the status of the company and how they wished to appeal to a certain clientele as well as promoting the quality of the brewery tours that the company is providing.
Originally I had thought that I might produce a typographic based logo that would be clean and precise, but after having generated a few designs on Illustrator I chose to include some form of imagery. I tried first to include a direct reference to the nature of the business by illustrating a pint of beer, however it did not fully achieve the aesthetic I was going for. 16
99 Designs Craft Brew Tour Logo
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YCN Collaborative Brief - Oasis
The Brief : To write a creative suite of services messages.
Considerations : The tone of voice is chatty, playful, casual and friendly. Oasis wish to speak customers as though they are best friends.
The collaborative brief is one that Amy Hill and I both enjoyed working on. We came up with the concept of associating the idea of women’s body shape in relation to different fruits to assist in writing the service messages for this brief. This also provided us with inspiration for how the messages could be delivered visually.
After formulating a list of what we believed to be a strong set of service messages and deciding that we would produce the suite of messages visually in poster format for in-store display, we then decided to think more about how the messages could be communicated to the customer. I suggested that we could take the concept further by producing the messages on clothing tags that could be located in store on appropriate items of clothing for certain body shapes and act as a navigation system around the store to aid the Oasis customers with their shopping experience, as well as meeting the demands of the brief and delivering the service messages to them.
The key request in the brief is for a creative set of messages with emphasis on the written quality however it did state that if we had ideas about how they messages could be delivered visually then it would be great to see them. We came up with the idea of writing the messages in a question and answer format to engage with the Oasis customer. We sat down together and wrote out a list of the service messages and then chose to in-corporate the concept of fruit and body shape.
After developing ideas about the concept, Amy then suggested that we work on a leaflet as well as the posters and labels which could act as a pocket guide to body shapes for women who are unsure of which category they fall into and would benefit from guidance as to which clothes would be best suited to their body shape. We felt that this would be an appropriate extension and proposal of the concept.
The process of writing the messages was one which Amy and I both really enjoyed as it gave us an opportunity to work on a fun task together where we could express our creativity. 18
YCN Collaborative Brief - Oasis
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YCN Collaborative Brief - Oasis
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YCN Collaborative Brief - Oasis
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YCN Collaborative Brief - Oasis
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YCN Collaborative Brief - Oasis
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Summative Evaluation OUGD503 to when I had generated ideas initially. Coming up with a theme for this print was also something that I found tricky at first, however after sitting down and thinking seriously about an appropriate theme for the cross range of products that the print would be applied to I arrived at what I felt to be a suitable and creative print which met the demands of the brief as well as abiding by the brand values and print traditions.
My initial response when we were first briefed on this module back at the beginning of the second year was neither positive or negative. I felt a little unsure at first of what it was exactly we would be doing and what work would be marked in terms of submission for the module if we were entering competitions and working on live briefs. As the sessions continued throughout the first few months of the year, it became clear what was being asked of us and exactly what we needed to do. An initial concern was the amount of work that was being expected of us regarding the first studio brief titled ‘Individual Practice’ for which we had to deliver a minimum of five briefs that we had completed.
The smaller briefs were the ones which I particularly enjoyed working on as I have come to realise that this is my preferred method of working. I enjoyed sourcing the briefs despite it being hard at times, and starting them and being able to see a clear finishing point. The shorter deadlines were also encouraging to work on my time management and organisational skills as they forced me to work faster and produce the work quicker which is something I benefited from later on in the module and will continue to benefit from when working on future competition briefs and all modules.
After working on several shorter briefs my concerns were minimized after realising that it was going to be possible to achieve a sufficient number of briefs. The main brief that I chose to work on was the YCN Cath Kidston brief, for which I had to design a new conversational print appropriate for application to women’s fashion, accessories and home-ware. This was a brief I struggled with at first as I was unsure about how I was going to be able to actually produce the print as I was not confident in working on Illustrator. After taking the time to learn more about the software I found it increasingly easy to use and I was able to produce the print that I
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I particularly enjoyed working on the Black and White Surface Pattern brief as I mentioned earlier in this project report. This brief was a favourite of mine as it offered the opportunity to be really creative as the only real limitations to the brief were the colour restrictions, which conveniently happened to be two of my favourite colours to work with which is the main reason I chose to enter that competition.
Summative Evaluation OUGD503 When we were briefed on the second studio brief for this module for which we would have to collaborate on a larger brief from either the YCN or D&AD websites, I did not like the sound of it.
large amount of work for you to refer to and use in portfolios. This module also made it clear to me how much I was able to do in a period of time that was not so long.
Working in groups is not something I have previously enjoyed, however I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed working on this brief. Amy Hill and I chose to work together, despite us being friends, which we were advised not to do, I believe we worked well together as we share a number of interests, particularly design and fashion related. For this reason, we chose to work on the YCN Oasis message. This is a brief which I believe we will both look back and remain proud of as we were able to contribute individually but then bring ideas together with one another also.
The demand to work on a range of briefs for the first studio brief also encouraged me to step out of my comfort zone and explore different design formats to work with and competitions which I might have previously overlooked or eliminated out of my circle of interests.
As well as producing work that we could be proud of, I was also pleasantly surprised by how much I honestly enjoyed working with another creative. I found it more encouraging to work more efficiently as I had my partner depending on me and not just myself. Overall I am really pleased that this module was able to be a part of the course this year and will most definitely continue to keep up to date with up and coming competitions and seek out other live briefs to be working on. It is a fun method of Graphic Design practice and also a great way to build up appearances for
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